I finally got something I’ve been wanting for the longest time!! I have wanted The Samsung Frame TV since it came out and I finally decided to get one and guys I am in love. The Frame Tv is a TV when its on, art when it’s off!! When in Art Mode you can exhibit your personal art collection or select through curated curations from Samsung. The Frame TV is the only TV I’ve ever wanted to watch even when its off. I can finally style our TV into our home and not have it be an eye sore!
Where is it from?
We got our Samsung Frame TV off of Ebay [HERE]. It was the best price we had seen it at since we had started looking at them so we went ahead and ordered it. A home decor dream come true for sure!
How many art options does it have? Can you upload your own or only what it has programmed in?
Yes you can upload your own photos to be displayed on the screen as the Art, and it is very easy, especially from the phone app. I tried a few of our photos and they looked beautiful. We also purchased a digital copy of a painting -online (not on Samsung Art Store), downloaded it onto our phones and uploaded it right onto the TV, in a matter of 5 minutes. That is the lady you see today, we really loved the detail and colors we saw & decided to stay with the painting for now. The TV does comes with a small collection of art, free of charge. We didn’t do a hard count but I would bet there’s maybe 30 different images to choose from various styles and mediums. Also there is a the Samsung Art Store where you can buy pieces of art (to keep) to display and/or join a monthly subscription to get access to the library. The subscription is 4.99 a month and has over 1,200 different images with the most famous artist and pieces to smaller artists. Just briefly panning through we did see a few pieces that could be purchased at 135.00 for pieces from artists I wasn’t familiar with, so they can come at a hefty price. If you are looking for art for the TV check out BFF Print shop & there are a ton of awesome options of digital art on Etsy as well. But the app you download when you get the TV is so helpful with all of this. It’s all very self explanatory. You can choose your mat color, brightness, art, & more in the app.
Since its a TV, is the glare noticeable?
We have a light hanging in the center of the room, and when its on and you back up the tv does a pretty good job at diffusing the reflection but you can see the light reflecting. I do honestly think it softens the reflection more, than glass from a traditional picture frame.
Is it Safe to leave a still image up on your TV?
Great question. In the past, leaving a single still image up for a long period of time was bad. It would “burn-in” into the display leaving behind the image almost as a negative. In 2018, Samsung QLED Quantum Dot technology, which promotes their technology is burn-free, received an award from various outlets after passing their burn tests. So, the long of it, yes- its safe.
Does the art on the TV look glowy in person? How much does it look like art vs like a screen?
When slightly dimmed, the Art looks very realistic, fooled me a few times, even knowing it was a TV. There are a few Art settings you can adjust that I think help this. You can add matte borders around your art, adjusting the color tones from a start white to a more vintage cream, black, and a few colors as well. On top of matting, there is a shadowbox setting. This creates a soft shadow to the inside of your frame, creating a depth effect that really makes it look like a painting inside an actual picture frame.
Can you rotate between art or only one picture?
Yes you can rotate through art as you please. Everything can be done with the remote or with the Samsung App SmartThings, you can manually select throughs different photos, and change them out to fit your mood that day.
Does the TV have to be turned on to see the art or how does that work?
This is our first Samsung TV, with a house filled of older Vizio’s (only one of them a SmartTV) this thing blew us away with the features. There is a motion and light detect. When left in Art Mode, the TV will display Art, and if motion is not detected the TV will turn off… and we are talking completely dark off, not that glowing black screen. Once motion is picked up the TV swiftly turns back on and displays the Art. All these setting can be adjusted in regards to timing and motion detect.
Can you get different frames to go around the TV?
Yes! I never herd of this before. We actually ordered the Neutral frame, which was very simple to install. Its magnetic, with a few little plastic pieces to hold each side in place. It took all of 5 minutes to install. As of today, there appears to be 5 different frame colors, Neutral (which is a light wood color), a darker walnut colored frame, white, and black.
Does it look glowy at night time?
Since it is lit from within at all times it is always going to glow in some fashion. The TV does have a light sensor and dims in Art Mode when the room is darker. You can customize all of these settings on the TV, and it does really well at not being too glowy. One of the Con’s for this TV that we wished we could adjust the brightness of the Art and the Matte separately. When the room is darker, you really want to dim the image down quite a bit, to look like a poorly lit hanging picture, but when you do that, the white or cream matting dim equally as the image. As you manually step down the brightness, we were stuck between two levels, the dimmest level, was perfect for the painting but the matting didn’t look realistic. The next brightness level up, the image was a bit too slowly for us, but the matting looked much better. If you could dim the photo down separately from the matte this would help significantly in the sell of it being a framed piece of art and not a TV. Now, its not hooked up yet, but our thoughts are that with the Art light (hanging above it), with that light on, would it sell the Art TV more? The light sensor to the TV is at the bottom, so we don’t think the TV will try to compensate, so we are thinking this may be a great solution, but that is to be determined.
How close is it mounted to the wall? Are you able to mount it on an adjustable mount that tilts or is it flat to the wall?
The TV comes with the best hanging system we’ve ever seen. It allows the TV to be tilted, but lays nearly flat to the back wall, with maybe a 1/4 inch of space between the wall and back of TV. The “One Invisible Connection” is a clear connector that plugs into the back of the TV, with a recessed cutout for the connector and path for the wire to come out the side of the TV.
What is the quality of the TV? Sound and picture.
We are not terribly tech savvy in regards to the technical output here, so we’ll answer this question from a common-user point of view but tell you what is says on the side of the box for those that are looking for the details. The TV is a QLED 4K UHD TV, and like I previously said all of our other TV’s are a few years old, this is the best image we’ve ever had in TV. The colors are so rich and vibrant, its remarkable. Samsung calls it, 100% Color Volume with Quantum Dot, which is the tech way of saying the colors stay pretty close to true regardless of brightness, where you would normally see colors washout. The Sound, is Dolby Digital, in looking through the small section of reviews, this seems to be a problem for one gentlemen. It does pair with bluetooth speakers and sounders. And one thing we didn’t know until we looked it up, was The Frame TV has Active Voice Amplifier, which internally measures the ambient noise in the room, and amplifies the voices on the TV to better hear each scene.
Is it a smart TV? What features does it have?
It has the standard items, i.e. built in streaming apps. On top of that there are built in Alexas, Google Assistant, and Bixby(?). Then it goes into what I call Samsung friendly territory. There are apps you can add to your TV that work with other Samsung devices, like those color ambient smart lightbulbs, smart switches, security systems, thermostat enable, really anything and everything home. We are new to Samsung, so our home isn’t fitted with a lot, so in time I’m sure we’ll add more things and really connect these apps together.
What size is your TV? What sizes do they come in?
Our TV is 55″, but the come in 32″, 43″, 50″, 55″, 65″, 75″ (which is practically a wall-right?)
How did you hide the cords?
The One Invisible Connector is a clear connector that happened to lineup and fit perfectly into one of the grooves of our shiplap. The cable runs inside the slot of the shiplap, down the right edge of the trim, behind our mantel, where the Samsung One Connect, that runs the tv is located.
Can you connect the TV to devices for gaming, dvds, tv cable?
Yes. The TV is connected and powered by the Samsung One Connect box. This One Connect box has 4 HDMI ports on the backside, and three USB ports on one of the sides for charging. As well as Cable in and audio ports. Having had poor experience with the built-in Hulu app on our Vizio SmartTV, we decided to plug our Amazon FireStick into the backside of One Connect Box, and power it using the side USB. We will eventually try the built-in app on the Samsung to see if its as user friendly as the FireStick’s version, but haven’t as of yet.
Is it worth the money?
We have to first say we did buy this TV while it was on sale on eBay. So the price for us fell within what we would consider a nicer 55″ SmartTV would be. We think this TV is worth every penny, and would buy it again for another space in our home, if we needed to add another TV, but we don’t at the moment. We highly recommend this TV for those that battle with those spaces, like that over a fireplace, that is centered in the family room. Where you wish there was a TV for the family, but hate the look of a TV. This TV sells as a framed piece of art in nearly every aspect.
I know this isn’t the typically Home Decor blog post you typically find here on the blog, but equally as fitting. We hope these answered most of your questions and we will continue to give our review of The Samsung Frame TV as we use it more. We hope this quick review helps and if you have any more questions please send them over to Instagram, where I will be answering more. Thank you so much for the awesome questions and for stopping by the blog today and every other day.
