Samsung Frame TV (2025) review: Cutting corners

If you're not particularly literate when it comes to display tech, it’s hard to know what you're really paying for when you buy a TV nowadays. 4K has been the standard so long that it's a bit of a no-brainer. Meanwhile, the argument for 8K remains as vaguely evasive as ever. Even the difference in quality (and price) that once separated OLED and LED-based screens isn't as wide as it once was. 

It's become easy to find a TV that looks pretty good, whatever your budget, but a whole lot harder to pin down why you should pay a premium for one of the many alternatives out there. Perhaps that's why Samsung's Frame TVs have become so popular in recent years. Even if you’re making a few compromises when it comes to picture quality, it’s easy to see what you’re getting on the other side of that trade-off.

If you have to squint to see the difference between the latest and greatest 4K TVs, the sales pitch of a modestly-priced option that's designed to look good when you aren't using it is gonna sound pretty alluring.

In Australia, the 2025 Samsung Frame TV starts at $1,499. That sum gets you the smaller 43-inch model. If you want to go for the larger 55-inch version of this TV, you're looking at a recommended retail price of $1,999.

All told, the pricing here isn't too big a swing on the part of Samsung. Yes, the Frame TV costs more than the kind of big, cheap 4K TVs you can grab through flash sales at ALDI. No, it doesn't quite come with the premium that you can find across the rest of Samsung's 2025 TV roster.

Fortunately,  you can always save by shopping around. I managed to buy my Frame TV for around half the usual RRP by grabbing it during the lead-up to the end of the financial year. Check out the table below for a round-up of deals for the Samsung Frame TV.

What you’re getting here isn’t quite as lux as the new Frame Pro, but the entry-level Samsung Frame still ticks plenty of the boxes you’d want ticked. 

Available in two sizes (43-inches and 55-inches), the 2025 version of Samsung's popular lifestyle TV is built around a QLED display panel with thin bezels, a 50Hz refresh rate and the same matte display tech found on the manufacturer’s OLED TVs. Under the hood, the 4K TV runs on the same Samsung NQ4 AI Gen2 processor found in last year's premium Samsung TVs.

All told, the spec sheet here is a bit of a grab-bag. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, though, since the year-on-year improvements when it comes to the image processing tech are usually pretty incremental. It's a similar story when it comes to the relatively limited roster of sizes that Samsung's new Frame TV is available. If fewer flagship features and a smaller set of sizes to choose from is the sacrifice you're making for a thriftier price tag, then that's a trade-off I'm happy to live with.

Those that prioritise picture quality above all else are probably going to find a lot more to like about the new Frame Pro and the rest of Samsung’s Neo QLED range than what's happening here. I wouldn't say that the entry-level Frame TV looks bad or underwhelming, but I definitely noticed the difference between the fidelity it offered and that of the Samsung Q90R 4K TV that's been the centre of my home hi-fi setup for several years now.

Realistically, though, if you’re looking at the baseline Frame TV over the Pro (or anything else), there’s a good chance you’re looking to pick it up as a secondary screen rather than the new centrepiece of your living room. If that’s the case, then you probably care a little bit less about how the Frame looks and more about how much of a pain it is to set up or wall-mount.

The main reason I say that is because this was exactly what I wanted out of the Frame TV. I bought it not just because I wanted to cross the rubicon of adding a second TV to our household, but because I wanted to wall-mount it in the bedroom for those cold winter evenings where you want to stay warm and catch up on your Binge backlog or the odd weekend where you just don’t want to get out of bed. 

Given that, the relatively affordable price point attached to The Frame was a big part of what made me consider a solution to this particular problem. The fact that it could double as a piece of art when not in use was also important, though this aspect of the experience has proved to be a little underwhelming. I’m getting ahead of myself, though. Let’s wind it back a few steps.

The process of unboxing and setting up The Frame is as simple as you’d want it to be. The panel itself is slim enough that you might not even need a second set of hands to set it up at all. If you’re not wall-mounting the TV, the support legs snap on with a satisfying click and provide plenty of support. I ended up using the TV in this configuration for a few days and was pretty impressed with it, even if it wasn’t the final form of Frame TV I was ultimately after.

Those looking to wall mount The Frame TV are in for a little bit more work, but a final result that really lets you maximise the appeal of the ultrathin form-factor on offer. A big part of how this is possible is that Samsung has paired up the latest incarnation of its lifestyle TV with the One Connect Box. Essentially, the brains behind this particular TV are contained in a secondary unit - which is roughly the shape and size of a small games console and tethered to the TV via Samsung’s super-thin One Connect cable. 

As with other Samsung TVs that come with this feature, the conveniences of this particular choice remain as obvious as they are impactful. I haven’t had to tinker too much with what’s plugged into my Frame TV as of yet, but I know that when that time does come, it won’t be too much of a drag since I won’t have to mess with the TV itself. 

As someone who has encountered a few hiccups with wall-mounting various shelves and picture frames in my apartment, I went into the process of pinning up the Frame TV with a few extra bits and pieces on hand. Fortunately, these contingencies weren't needed. Cloying as it sounds, the only real point of confusion when it came to the wall-mounting kit that’s included with The Frame TV is that it’s so simple and streamlined that I genuinely couldn’t help but second-guess myself and wonder if I was missing something critical. The steps you have to follow here aren’t too tricky, though they do require a drill and a second set of hands.

What's more, the mounting mechanism for the Frame TV is actually pretty clever in that it allows several degrees of freedom. This means you don’t have to worry about whether the display panel is perfectly level, as you can easily adjust it once it is on the wall mount rather than having to go through any tedious trial and error. 

So far as the sales pitch of having a TV that you can seamlessly set up like you would a piece of art goes, the hardware side of the Frame TV experience mostly delivers. That said, I do wish that Samsung's generosity extended a little bit further when it comes to the bezels that really complete the look that The Frame is going for. I haven't shelled out the extra cash for this accessory just yet, but it does irk me that Samsung couldn't include at least one set with the TV itself. 

By comparison, the software side of the Samsung Frame TV is a little bit more of a hit-and-miss affair. As opposed to the ribbon-style navigation bar that neatly sits at the bottom of the screen on the Samsung Q90R in my living room, the smart TV interface found on the Frame TV is an all-screen affair. Regardless of whether you’re looking to disable motion smoothing or turn down the brightness, it feels like the UI here is trying to pull you completely away from your content. More recent and high-end Samsung TVs have pulled back on this design choice, so I was a little disappointed to see it remain in place here (though you can get around it somewhat by using the shortcut keys on the remote).

It doesn’t help that the everyday performance of this interface can be hit and miss. If you’re looking to change the channel to a different streaming service, chances are the Frame TV will feel reasonably responsive. However, if you do want to dig a little deeper into the settings or try and make use of the fact that the hardware here can act as a SmartThings hub, it won’t take long for things to feel a little more sluggish.

Worse still, if you’ve any ambition to use the Frame TV in Art Mode, you’ll likely end up encountering these performance problems sooner rather than later. There are few things that quite undercut the appeal of the Frame TV, like seeing the hardware stutter and lag when transitioning from one piece of still art to another. 

Given that this is one of the signature features associated with this particular TV, I was kinda shocked at just how long the loading times were when it came to changing the Frame from one piece of artwork to another. 

To add insult to injury, it feels like Samsung is trying to trick you into signing up for the subscription that gets you access to the bulk of the catalogue. At seemingly every juncture, it feels like the Frame TV is trying to nickel and dime you.

Although I’m sympathetic to the challenging economics involved with paying for fine art, Samsung's approach to upselling its customers here reeks of desperation and makes for an absolutely wretched first impression. It feels like the company have put a lot of time and effort into telling you about the 2600 pieces of art that The Frame TV can display if you're subscribed to their Art Store platform and not a whole lot about the fact that you only get access to twenty or so 'complimentary' pieces when you buy the Frame TV itself.