If you’re eyeing the Samsung Frame TV, you may be wondering if it is worth the money. This TV was so tempting because I loved the idea of a hidden TV that would display beautiful art! Now that we’ve had our TV for 3 years, here is my honest Samsung Frame TV review. Today, we’ll cover if it’s worth it, the downsides, and, most importantly, how to avoid the Samsung monthly fee and find free art for your TV!
Is the Samsung Frame TV worth it?
The Frame TV is not cheap; we have the 55-inch model, which costs us about $ 1,000. This was a major expense, considering our old TV had been given to us by a relative. HOWEVER, we were immediately impressed by the image quality on our TV. This is what our friends comment on most frequently. It looks great when you’re watching things, and we have never had an issue with picture quality.
Second, the TV is extremely low-profile — it’s very thin and sits flush against the wall. Installation was relatively easy; they give you a template that you use to drill holes and mount the TV. The box is connected to the TV with a single, thin wire. If you wanted to be very fancy, you could hide this in your wall for the full “wait, is that a TV or art?” moment. We are too lazy to hire an electrician to do so, and our TV still tricks people!
Finding the Frame TV on sale
I definitely recommend shopping around for your Frame TV. We actually bought ours from Best Buy as an “open box,” so it was slightly cheaper. A quick check of retailers shows a few different prices:
–Amazon lists the price for the Frame TV 55 as $997
–Best Buy has a sale on the 55-inch for $1000 currently
–Walmart is also offering the Frame TV for $990
–Samsung has it priced at $1200
I would check at least these four retailers for sales on the Frame TV before you buy — and an open box can be a good way to get a discount, too!
Downsides of the Frame TV
When weighing the pros and cons of the Samsung Frame, I would say the pros are that the picture quality is great, it’s a discreet TV, and the art can add nice flair to your room. Oh, and randomly, there are like 500 free channels built into the TV. Most of them are hilariously single-serving (I have already finished the 24/7 Project Runway channel, as well as Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders and Alone, which inexplicably each have their own channel).
The cons? Our main objection is that the Smart TV interface is kind of glitchy. When you turn the TV on, it defaults to a free channel instead of the Smart TV home screen. Sometimes the menu appears in the middle of watching something for no reason. Sometimes, you can’t get a menu to appear at all. For the most part, we don’t notice these things, especially when we’re in an app, like Netflix. However, it’s a peculiar glitch, and according to the Samsung forums, others are experiencing similar issues.
The Samsung Frame monthly subscription (aka, how to get FREE art)
So you bought the Frame TV and now you want to put beautiful art on your TV. Through the Samsung store on the TV, you can pay $50 a year for an art subscription. You can also buy individual artworks for $20 each. OR you can be like us and refuse to ever pay a dime for art for your Frame TV. Here’s how:
-Browse the huge collection of free art that Google has archived and download whatever you want using this webpage (copy and paste the URL of whatever at you want into the converter–rectangular art works best!)
-Convert the free art using this website or this app (this will make it so files show up on your TV without an annoying white bar around the edges)
-To make art look super realistic, I always recommend turning the brightness down slightly in the Samsung interface
-If this is all too annoying for you, Etsy also has a huge collection of downloadable framed TV art for much cheaper than Samsung: I love this and this and this for halloween!
That’s my Samsung Frame TV review! Do you have one? What do you think?
Looking for more home reviews? Read my thoughts on the Burrow couch!
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