Pretty as a picture, but disappointing as a TV

I’ve been PCMag’s home entertainment expert for over 10 years, covering both TVs and everything you might want to connect to them. I’ve reviewed more than a thousand different consumer electronics products including headphones, speakers, TVs, and every major game system and VR headset of the last decade. I’m an ISF-certified TV calibrator and a THX-certified home theater professional, and I’m here to help you understand 4K, HDR, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, and even 8K (and to reassure you that you don’t need to worry about 8K at all for at least a few more years).

Samsung's The Frame lifestyle TV is one of the slickest digital picture frames you can buy but, as a regular TV, it's far too pricey for what it delivers.

Samsung’s lifestyle TVs, like The Serif ($1,499.99 for a 55-inch model), are designed to look striking even before you turn them on. The Frame is no exception. Its customizable bezel, matte finish, slim wall mount, Art Mode, and One Connect Box all help sell the illusion of a magical digital painting. That said, the TV's picture quality doesn't quite live up to its high price ($1,499.99 for the 55-inch model we tested). The Frame is fantastic as a fashion piece, but you can get a much better viewing experience for a bit more with Samsung’s excellent QN90B ($1,899.99 for the 55-inch variant) or LG’s C2 OLED ($1,799.99 for the 55-inch version). Even the TCL 4K Google TV 6-Series ($949.99 for a 55-inch set) looks better for just over half the price.

Editors' Note: This review is based on testing performed on the 55-inch model in the series. Apart from the screen-size difference, the $1,999.99 65-inch The Frame is identical in features, and we expect similar performance.

The Frame’s big gimmick is right in its name. It’s designed to look like a framed painting and features a bezel that looks more appropriate on a hanging portrait than a TV. Instead of disappearing into the edges of the screen, The Frame’s bezel is a flat, rectangular frame with sharp 90-degree corners. You can replace or customize this bezel to better match your home's decor; the default is black, but additional bezels are available in brown, teak, white, beveled white, and beveled brick ($149.99 each).

The screen sports a matte finish that both reduces glare and adds to the hanging picture effect. You can even set the ambient art mode to display a matte frame around the picture to further improve the illusion. With the backlight set to a moderate level, the effect is striking and stealthy enough that guests could mistake what appears on screen for a framed painting at first glance.

A slim wall mount arrives with The Frame that lets the TV sit nearly flat against the wall. In the box, you also get a simple table stand, if you prefer to set it up on a flat surface.

Instead of on-TV ports, The Frame uses Samsung’s One Connect box, a separate unit that plugs into the screen through a single, thin, and approximately 16-foot wire. The glossy, black, brick-shaped box measures 2.5 by 13.7 by 5.4 inches (HWD); it's a bit chunky but, because it's separate from the TV, you can easily hide it. Most of the connections sit on the back. These include four HDMI ports (one eARC); a USB port, an Ethernet port, an optical audio output, a 3.5mm EX-LINK port, a cable/antenna connector, and ports for the power cable and One Connect wire to the TV. A single USB port sits on the right side.

The included remote is a simple, rectangular wand with a prominent circular navigation pad near the top. A pinhole microphone above it enables the use of voice assistants with The Frame. Power, microphone, settings, and Multi-View buttons surround the pinhole mic. Back/home and play/pause buttons sit below the pad along with volume and channel rockers. Further down, dedicated service buttons offer access to Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Netflix, and Samsung TV Plus.

Samsung’s Tizen-powered Smart TV platform offers lots of features but is frustrating to use. It unlocks content from most major video streaming services, including Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, Netflix, and YouTube, and it supports Apple AirPlay 2. It also lets you use Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, or Samsung’s Bixby voice assistant via the microphone on the remote. Note that it lacks the far-field microphone of the QN90B and S95B, so you can’t use these voice features hands-free.

The annoyances all revolve around the interface. It buries settings a layer or two deeper than other smart TV systems and forces you to really dig to find everything aside from a selection of quick-access settings. Switching sources is also a bit frustrating. The remote's Multi-View button shows multiple inputs and apps at the same time, but there's no simple input button. The platform just feels clunky and overbearing, almost like Samsung wants to hold your hand through every step of the viewing experience.

On the bright side, Smart TV provides an Art Mode that takes advantage of The Frame’s design. It offers a variety of graphics to display, lets you showcase your photos, and includes many customization options. It can even turn off the screen when no one is in the room with the help of The Frame's motion sensor. Samsung also offers 1,400 pieces of art through the Samsung Art Store as an optional subscription service for $5.99 per month. If you don’t want to subscribe, many museums and libraries offer free high-resolution images of thousands of paintings(Opens in a new window) , though you have to manually download and add them to The Frame.

The Frame is a 4K TV with a 60Hz refresh rate. It supports high dynamic range (HDR) content in HDR10, HDR10+, and hybrid log gamma (HLG), but not Dolby Vision. It has a TV tuner, but it is not compatible with the ATSC 3.0 standard.

We test TVs with a Klein K-80 colorimeter(Opens in a new window) , a Murideo SIX-G signal generator(Opens in a new window) , and Portrait Displays’ Calman software(Opens in a new window) . Although The Frame looks good on the wall, its screen isn’t quite as visually impressive. Under the matte finish is an LCD panel that lacks the mini LED backlight array of the QN90B, or any other local dimming backlight system.

With an SDR signal in Movie mode, The Frame shows a peak brightness of 351 nits with a full-screen white field. Reducing the area to an 18% field doesn’t increase that result (which a local dimming array usually does). It also displays an unimpressive black level of 0.08cd/m^2. With an HDR signal, peak brightness jumps up to 476 nits, with a black level of 0.1cd/m^2 for a contrast ratio of 4,757:1. That’s similar to The Serif (5,055:1), but it’s much lower than the budget-priced Hisense U6H (19,608:1). As for the Samsung QN90B, its mini LED backlight system shows a peak brightness of 1,726 nits and an OLED-like perfect black level with little to no visible light bloom, for infinite contrast.

Samsung claims The Frame can cover the full DCI-P3 digital cinema color space, but that wasn’t the case in our tests. The above charts show The Frame's performance out of the box in Filmmaker mode, with an SDR signal compared against Rec.709 broadcast standard colors and with an HDR signal compared against DCI-P3. SDR colors are quite accurate despite slightly oversaturated greens and reds. HDR colors also lack any significant skewing, though magentas lean just a touch red. Greens fall short of their ideal range, which means the TV doesn't quite hit full DCI-P3 coverage in our tests. For both SDR and HDR signals, white balance is nearly perfect, which is always good to see.

The colors in BBC’s Planet Earth II look well-balanced and natural, though the greens of plants are slightly undersaturated compared with Samsung’s quantum dot-equipped TVs like the QN90B. Textures like bark and fur are sharp, though darker objects in shade can look slightly washed out because of the TV’s modest contrast. The picture never looks pale or gray, though; there is still enough range of color and light for a good viewing experience.

The red of Deadpool’s costume in the overcast opening scene of Deadpool looks vivid and accurate, not faded or slightly purple under the relatively cool lighting. In the burning lab fight, the yellows and oranges of the flames look rich, but they also occasionally appear slightly indistinct from clipping at the brightest points. Shadow details can also get a touch muddy and lose detail in the darker parts of the frame.

The problem with dark areas swallowing fine details is apparent in The Great Gatsby; here, black suits in the high-contrast party scenes can occasionally look blotchy and the cut of lapels disappear from the frame. Skin tones look natural against the stark black and white elements of the scene, while plenty of texture and other details are visible on dark hair and most other things that aren’t completely black.

Gamers shouldn’t expect many extras on The Frame. The Smart TV platform features a useful Game Bar that displays if features like variable refresh rate (VRR) are active when you play games but, otherwise, the 60Hz screen lacks AMD FreeSync and Nvidia G-Sync support. Input lag is quite low, however; in our tests with a Leo Bodnar 1080p Video Signal Lag Tester(Opens in a new window) , The Frame showed a latency of just 9.5 milliseconds in Game mode. This is just under the 10ms threshold we use to determine if a TV is good for gaming.

Due to testing conditions, we were unable to use our standard input lag measurement equipment, an HDFury Diva HDMI matrix(Opens in a new window) . However, the Bodnar tester consistently displays higher lag numbers than the Diva, so we are still comfortable describing this performance as very good.

Samsung’s The Frame is visually striking—just not in terms of picture quality. That’s really the crux of Samsung’s lifestyle TVs. On one hand, the TV's excellent colors, customizable bezels, and matte finish make The Frame one of the best (but priciest) digital picture frames on the market. But, for watching videos, the TV's performance is more in line with very good budget models. In particular, it lacks the strong contrast of less gimmicky TVs like Samsung’s QN90B, LG’s C2 OLED, or TCL’s 4K Google TV 6-Series. None of them sport a frame or a matte finish, but they are all far better for long viewing sessions. Ultimately, like The Serif, The Frame is an amazing piece of home decor for people who want to splurge or simply prioritize style over picture quality but, if you’re not in those groups, much better TVs are available for less.

Samsung's The Frame lifestyle TV is one of the slickest digital picture frames you can buy but, as a regular TV, it's far too pricey for what it delivers.

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I’ve been PCMag’s home entertainment expert for over 10 years, covering both TVs and everything you might want to connect to them. I’ve reviewed more than a thousand different consumer electronics products including headphones, speakers, TVs, and every major game system and VR headset of the last decade. I’m an ISF-certified TV calibrator and a THX-certified home theater professional, and I’m here to help you understand 4K, HDR, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, and even 8K (and to reassure you that you don’t need to worry about 8K at all for at least a few more years).

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