Samsung Frame Pro Review: A Good TV for a Pretty Living Room

Low-fee artwork subscription affords 5,000 photos. A perfect matte yelp makes artwork seek extremely-obvious and flicks seek cinematic. Excessive-refresh-fee gaming modes.

A/V receiver had a few system defects when passe for HDMI switching. Middling local dimming. No Dolby Imaginative and prescient pork up.

Your television is more than a portal for Netflix. For years, we’ve been in a predicament to manipulate living room lighting from our TVs with a easy relate yelp, punch up an Xbox sport (without a Xbox linked!), and play excessive-res song utilizing apps admire Tidal. Now, must you mount a so-known as “artwork television” on a wall, it can show Andrew Wyeth paintings, AI-generated artwork, and even recent vacation photos.

Is it worth spending up for an art display? Maybe so, judging from a hands-on test with the new Samsung Frame Pro. I’ve become sold on televisions that go beyond merely being black screens in the background when not playing the latest movies or shows. I wanted to see if the artwork features made the Frame Pro a unique outlier among televisions, and I was not disappointed.

Getting Set Up

After unboxing what is otherwise a if truth be told customary-seeming TV, I snapped on a state of customizable bezels that accent the sunless body. The bezels are a super solution to fool folks into thinking your TV is honest matte artwork, and there need to not any screws, no measuring, honest tantalizing create. On hand in White, Teak, Brown and Sand Gold, the bezels fee $199 for the 65-whisk mannequin I examined, and they snap into set in seconds.

Oddly, a variety of the user critiques for the bezels are opposed, nonetheless that’s ensuing from us defend announcing they had shipping concerns. The bezels are moreover now interchangeable with Samsung’s real artwork television known as The Frame, which doesn’t comprise a breakout box for connections admire this one does (more on this later).

I didn’t mount The Frame Pro on a wall, because I don’t comprise the state, nonetheless the incorporated legs are easy to snap into set. In incompatibility to the TCL NXTVISION artwork television I comprise moreover been making an try out, you don’t need screws. The general create of The Frame Pro continues to be and sublime, all sunless without a accents rather then the bezels.

After the initial setup, I had a decision to make about the break-out box, which Samsung calls the Samsung Wireless One Connect. The slim black device connects over a Wi-Fi 7 signal (while the TV itself uses Wi-Fi 5 for more compatible streaming) from up to 30 feet away. The breakout box provides a lot of flexibility, not to mention fewer dangling cords if you mount The Frame Pro on a wall. You can stash the One Connect in a cabinet or by your couch, which makes it easy for the types of stylish rooms this TV is made for. Gamers might like having a PS5 or Xbox connected to the breakout box instead of connecting a long HDMI cable, and it allows you to connect disc players this way too.

Nevertheless, I desired to utilize the extraordinary Micro HDMI port on the abet of the TV. Both the One Connect and the Micro HDMI port connect at 144 Hz, nonetheless I desired to decrease plod by utilizing a wired cable. Apart from, I moreover saved an Xbox X Series, a Google TV streamer, and an Onkyo TX-RZ50 receiver (with speaker wire running all over the set) end to the TV and the breakout box. The downside to so many devices? The Acer Nitro 60 I passe for making an try out needed to sit down down end to the TV as properly, with a prolonged cable for my keyboard.

I did comprise one minor glitch: I first linked all of my devices to an Onkyo AV receiver, which I then linked to the breakout box utilizing the eARC port. Huge mistake: The TV saved turning off the receiver and behaving oddly in substitute suggestions. Samsung reps told me essentially the most properly liked manner is to connect all HDMI devices to the four-port Connect One box as a substitute. I only ran eARC to the receiver for sound, and after that Dolby Atmos worked completely fine without a system defects.

I cherished the a ways off, which has one main oval you use to manipulate the tv and has devoted buttons for Netflix, Samsung TV Plus, YouTube, and Amazon Top. For the supreme streaming journey, there’s an Ethernet port on the breakout box. Nevertheless, with Wi-Fi, I never skilled any slowdowns or system defects all over my test length.

Becoming a Collector

Along the left side of the UI, you can select the Art option and then choose from about 30 pieces of art on a rotating basis. The better option is an Art Store subscription that costs $4.99 a month and includes 5,000 works of art. Many of them are masterpieces, including my favorite Andrew Wyeth (Christina’s World) and several Van Goghs.

The AI art generator is surprisingly capable (and free!). I selected a few keywords and ended up with a lush ocean scene that was entirely unique to my display. You can also load photos from your phone using the SmarterThings app in batches, but I stuck with the artwork.

The artwork regarded ravishing on the Neo QLED matte yelp, which differs from OLED in that it’s backlit nonetheless moreover brighter and more coloration staunch for HDR-compliant direct material. Essentially, the yelp is Pantone certified. The Frame Pro mechanically dims the yelp a little bit and goes into low vitality mode after a state length or if the sensors detect you are no longer within the room. In my high-tail-out basement with the sun pouring in, the artwork nonetheless regarded obvious and colourful.

Staunch through a lot of HDR10 demo tests, colors regarded extremely-obvious and staunch, especially for pores and skin tones. The distinction phases on the matte yelp comprise a practical seek—no longer overly intellectual, nonetheless very natural. The anti-glare coating blueprint photos on the TV in total if truth be told assemble seek admire physical artwork in a museum.

Art as a TV

For streaming, I fired up a few of my current apps to test out video and sound. The usage of Netflix Top class (required for 4K and Dolby Atmos), I examined Unbroken because it has my current surround sound sequence all over fight scenes. The tantalizing sunlight, ricocheting bullets within the aspect and rear channels, and deep blacks had been impressive.

I watched the film Unsleeping (moreover on Netflix) because it has prolonged sequences at evening, and I realized that Samsung’s AI companion (that might perchance optimize the yelp mechanically) increased the brightness phases a little, which helped. You might perchance possibly well moreover use Effectively-organized Calibration, which uses your phone from only an whisk a ways from the display to snap photos in lickety-split succession to regulate the yelp in step with your staunch room lighting. That characteristic made Unsleeping a little more watchable, nonetheless take into fable that OLED displays admire the Samsung S95F offer richer, deeper blacks, because they comprise pixel-sized backlighting.

A note on backlighting: This TV aspects local dimming (where sections of the display are independently backlit for better distinction), nonetheless no longer within the same old blueprint that it’s seemingly you’ll moreover be passe to. In preference to placing the LEDs instantly within the abet of the yelp, these appear on the backside of the body and aim up in 24 vertical bands. This blueprint more light bloom within the abet of intellectual objects on a uncomfortable display than it’s seemingly you’ll well gather from more practical current LED TVs, which comprise critically more zones.

I moreover examined movies utilizing the Mubi app because I’m a fuddy-duddy film fanatic, as well to a screener for Marty Supreme. Here’s where the upscaling, matte yelp, and AI if truth be told shine: Marty Supreme is admire an outmoded ’70s flick, and The Frame Pro made me mediate I changed into in a film theater. The matte yelp gave the Mubi motion photos a more cinematic seek.

On an Xbox Series X, I watched the entire Predator: Badlands film using the 4K Blu-ray version. It’s worth noting that though the colors look great, Samsung models don’t support Dolby Vision HDR, instead going for standard HDR10+.

For a more pure movie experience that disables any optimizations or AI enhancements, I tested the Filmmaker picture setting. In one scene, you can see the individual scales of the main character, which is awesome.

The Frame Pro has plenty of built-in cloud gaming features beyond any consoles you connect locally. I tested Cyberpunk 2077 using the Steam app and also fired up Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II on the Xbox app with no issues. One slight glitch is that, when I connected my Xbox controller to the TV it worked fine, but then I had to pair it again to the Xbox Series X later. It gave me a reason to buy an extra controller. When I tried a Sony Dualsense Wireless Controller with Cyberpunk 2077, it worked flawlessly. Forza Horizon 5 on my Xbox looked ultra-smooth, showing a Ford Bronco sliding around in the mud in a realistic way.

The Frame Pro supports up to a 144-Hz refresh rate from either the Connect One box or a Micro HDMI port, which makes it awesome for really smooth gaming. I tested Crimson Desert on an Acer Nitro 60 gaming desktop, and the colors, scenery, and overall clarity over the higher refresh rate looked stunning. If you have a stylish living room where you also want to game, this isn’t a bad choice.

During a chaotic battle, with snowy mountains off in the distance, I felt like I had jumped into one of the paintings. In the end, The Frame Pro is a fantastic TV for art—and just about everything else, as long as you don’t want the best backlighting around.