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

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Rating:8/10

Open rating explainerInformation

WIRED

Low-cost artwork subscription provides 5,000 images. A fantastic matte display makes artwork look ultra-clear and films look cinematic. High-refresh-rate gaming modes.

TIRED

A/V receiver had a few glitches when used for HDMI switching. Middling local dimming. No Dolby Vision support.

Your television is more than a portal for Netflix. For years, we’ve been able to control living room lighting from our TVs with a simple voice command, punch up an Xbox game (with no Xbox connected!), and play high-res music using apps like Tidal. Now, when you mount a so-called “art 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

Photograph: John Brandon

After unboxing what is otherwise a very normal-seeming TV, I snapped on a set of customizable bezels that accent the black frame. The bezels are an awesome way to fool folks into thinking your TV is just matte artwork, and there are no screws, no measuring, just brilliant design. Available in White, Teak, Brown and Sand Gold, the bezels cost $199 for the 65-inch model I tested, and they snap into place in seconds.

Oddly, many of the user reviews for the bezels are negative, but that’s because people keep saying they had shipping problems. The bezels are also now interchangeable with Samsung’s original art television called The Frame, which doesn’t have a breakout box for connections like this one does (more on this later).

I didn’t mount The Frame Pro on a wall, because I don’t have the space, but the included legs are easy to snap into place. Unlike the TCL NXTVISION art television I have also been testing, you don’t need screws. The overall design of The Frame Pro is sleek and stylish, all black with no accents other than 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.

Photograph: John Brandon

However, I wanted to use the unique Micro HDMI port on the back of the TV. Both the One Connect and the Micro HDMI port connect at 144 Hz, but I wanted to reduce lag by using a wired cable. Besides, I also kept an Xbox X Series, a Google TV streamer, and an Onkyo TX-RZ50 receiver (with speaker wire running everywhere) close to the TV and the breakout box. The downside to so many devices? The Acer Nitro 60 I used for testing had to sit near the TV as well, with a long cable for my keyboard.

I did have one minor glitch: I first connected all of my devices to an Onkyo AV receiver, which I then connected to the breakout box using the eARC port. Big mistake: The TV kept turning off the receiver and behaving oddly in other ways. Samsung reps told me the preferred method is to connect all HDMI devices to the four-port Connect One box instead. I only ran eARC to the receiver for sound, and after that Dolby Atmos worked perfectly fine with no glitches.

I loved the remote, which has one main oval you use to control the television and has dedicated buttons for Netflix, Samsung TV Plus, YouTube, and Amazon Prime. For the best streaming experience, there’s an Ethernet port on the breakout box. However, with Wi-Fi, I never experienced any slowdowns or glitches during my test period.

Becoming a Collector

Photograph: John Brandon

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 pho