Samsung The Frame 2024 TV Review

The Samsung The Frame has mediocre HDR brightness. It gets bright enough for some dimmer highlights to stand out, but it's not enough for bright highlights to pop. Combined with the TV's poor contrast, it doesn't provide an impactful HDR experience.

These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point with the following settings:

• HDR Picture Mode: Filmmaker
• Brightness: 50
• Contrast: 50
• Color: 25
• HDR Tone Mapping: Static
• Color Tone: Warm 2
• Color Space: Auto
• Gamma: ST.2084 (0)

Results with HDR Tone Mapping set to 'Active':

• Hallway Lights: 421 cd/m²
• Yellow Skyscraper: 382 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 212 cd/m²

The TV is slightly brighter in Game Mode, but it is less accurate.

These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point, with the following settings:

• HDR Picture Mode: Game
• Brightness: 50
• Contrast: 50
• Color: 25
• HDR Tone Mapping: Static
• Color Tone: Warm 2
• Color Space: Auto
• Gamma: ST.2084 (0)
• Game HDR: Basic

Results with HDR Tone Mapping set to 'Active':

• Hallway Lights: 434 cd/m²
• Yellow Skyscraper: 458 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 286 cd/m²

The Samsung The Frame TV has good SDR brightness and is bright enough to overcome glare in a well-lit room.

These measurements are after calibration with the following settings:

• Picture Mode: Movie
• Brightness: 50
• Contrast: 45
• Color: 25
• Color Tone: Warm 2
• Gamma: 2.2
• Color Space: Auto

Unfortunately, when displaying a 2% window, the TV automatically adjusts the backlight and APL to enhance contrast, and there's no setting to disable this automatic adjustment.

The Samsung The Frame has poor contrast. Its native contrast is good, but it lacks a local dimming feature. This means that blacks are always raised, causing darker scenes to look washed out. The TV's contrast isn't as good as the Samsung The Frame 2022 QLED due to the light bleed in the corners of our unit that is causing black levels to rise, even in a dark room.

This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature, so the TV can't brighten highlights without impacting the rest of the image. This means that blacks are always raised, and dark scenes end up looking washed out.

This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature, so it can't adjust the backlight of individual zones to brighten up highlights without impacting the rest of the image. But this means that there are no distracting flicker or brightness changes as bright highlights move between zones, as the TV doesn't have any.

Switching to Game Mode doesn't result in any noticeable difference in dark scene performance.

The TV's black uniformity is alright, but there's no local dimming feature, so the entire screen is blueish and cloudy in darker scenes. Unfortunately, there's some light bleed in the corners, affecting the TV's black uniformity and causing black levels to rise.

The Samsung The Frame TV has mediocre SDR color volume. Its coverage of the wide BT.2020 color space is inadequate, and it really struggles with displaying most colors outside of some purples and blues. Its coverage of the narrower DCI-P3 color space is decent, but here it particularly struggles with displaying most colors except some blues, magentas, and more saturated reds.

The TV's color volume is alright. It struggles with some dark saturated colors due to its lack of local dimming and good, but unexceptional, native contrast. It also struggles with displaying colors at high luminance levels due to its mediocre HDR peak brightness.

The TV has good SDR pre-calibration accuracy. Its white balance is great overall, although reds are underrepresented in all shades of gray, and blues are overrepresented in most shades, making the TV's color temperature noticeably cooler than 6,500K. Color accuracy is very good overall, but there are some noticeable errors in whites, blues, reds, and yellows. Gamma is close to 2.2, but dark scenes are too dark, and bright scenes are slightly too bright.

After retesting the TV on firmware 1201, it's confirmed that there are no longer clamping issues with the color space set to 'Auto.'

After calibration, the TV has outstanding accuracy. There are no noticeable errors with white balance, and the color temperature is essentially perfect. Gamma is now even closer to 2.2, but very dark scenes are just a bit too dark, while very bright scenes are slightly too bright. Color accuracy is better, but there are still some minor inaccuracies with saturated blues and reds.

Unfortunately, the TV is a bit difficult to calibrate. When taking readings with a menu open that is out of frame, it would still affect the readings, which made the process quite tedious. As of firmware 1201, there are no longer color space issues with the color space set to 'Auto.'

See our full calibration settings.

The TV has mediocre accuracy in HDR, mostly due to its color temperature, which is very cold. This can also be seen in how underrepresented its reds are in brighter shades of gray, even though its blues are slightly overrepresented in the same shades. As for color accuracy, it's acceptable, although almost every color is noticeably off target.

The TV's HDR accuracy isn't much better after calibration, although its color temperature isn't quite as cold. Still, most of the same issues remain, with colors still deviating from what they should be, and its white balance, while improved, still shows significant accuracy errors in dark shades, and some brighter grays.

The Samsung The Frame has decent PQ EOTF tracking. Still, blacks and near-blacks are raised, while shadows, mid-tones, and highlights are displayed a bit dimmer than intended. With content mastered at 600 and 1000 nits, there's a gradual roll-off near the TV's peak brightness to retain detail in highlights. With content mastered at 4000 nits, the roll-off is much more gradual.

The TV's low-quality content smoothing is decent. It does a very good job of preserving detail, but there's still noticeable macro blocking in dark scenes. If you watch a lot of low-bitrate content, the Hisense CanvasTV QLED 2024 and TCL NXTFRAME QLED are similar products with better low-quality content smoothing.

The Samsung The Frame TV does a good job at upscaling low-resolution content like DVDs or lower-resolution streams. Details are clear enough, but finer details are hard to make out.

Sharpness processing was calibrated with no over-sharpening for low-resolution content, with the following settings:

• Sharpness: 5
• Picture Clarity Settings: Off

The Samsung The Frame TV has fantastic HDR native gradient handling. There's no banding in any colors except dark grays, bright greens, and bright blues, but even with those, the banding is barely noticeable unless you specifically look for it.

This TV has very low input lag when set to Game Mode, which ensures a very responsive gaming experience with very little delay between your actions with your controller or mouse and the action on-screen.

The Samsung The Frame QLED supports most common resolutions up to 4k @ 120Hz, although there are occasional blackouts in 4k @ 120Hz when the TV is connected to a PC with an NVIDIA graphics card.

The TV supports all three types of variable refresh rate (VRR) technology to reduce screen tearing. It works well across a wide refresh rate range and supports sources with Low-Frame-Compensation (LFC), which ensures your games remain nearly tear-free even when your frame rate drops very low.

Unfortunately, there's an issue when using AMD graphics cards where the LFC doesn't activate when the frame rate drops below 48fps.

The TV's CAD at its maximum refresh rate of 120Hz is decent. The TV does struggle a bit more when going from bright shades to darker ones, but inversely it performs better when going from darker shades to brighter ones.

The TV's CAD at 120Hz, which is also its maximum refresh rate, is decent. The TV does struggle a bit more when going from bright shades to darker ones, but inversely it performs better when going from darker shades to brighter ones.

The TV's CAD at 60Hz is sub-par. A few of its transitions are very fast, but, overall most transitions are quite slow at 60Hz, leading to noticeable motion blur in most content.

The Samsung The Frame TV is fully compatible with everything the PS5 offers, like 1440p @ 120Hz and 4k @ 120Hz, as well as HDMI Forum VRR. It also supports Auto Low Latency Mode, so you don't have to worry about switching to Game Mode to get the lowest input lag.

The Samsung The Frame TV is fully compatible with almost everything the Xbox Series X|S offers, including 4k @ 120Hz, HDMI Forum VRR, and FreeSync Premium Pro. It also supports Auto Low Latency Mode, so you don't have to worry about switching to Game Mode to get the lowest input lag. Unfortunately, 1440p @ 120Hz doesn't work when connected to an Xbox, and Dolby Vision isn't supported on the TV.

Due to the TV's quick response time, there's some stutter with low frame rate content, which is most noticeable during slow panning shots. You can smooth out stutter using motion interpolation, but if you set it too high, you'll introduce noticeable artifacts.

The Samsung The Frame TV automatically removes judder from all sources when watching movies or shows that are in 24p, even if they're in a 60Hz signal, like from a cable box.

The Samsung The Frame TV has a great response time, with minimal motion blur behind fast-moving objects. Unfortunately, some of its transitions are noticeably slower, such as when going from to a dark shade of gray from any other brighter shade, or when going from a completely dark state to a brighter one.

The TV uses pulse-width modulation (PWM) to dim its backlight, which introduces flicker that can bother people who are sensitive to it. The amount of flicker varies depending on what picture mode the TV is set to and what settings you're using. It flickers at a very fast 960Hz in the 'Movie' Picture Mode, but all other picture modes, including Game Mode, flicker at a much slower 120Hz, which can cause image duplications or headaches if you're sensitive to flicker. With 'LED Clear Motion' enabled, the TV only flickers at 60Hz.

The Samsung The Frame TV supports backlight strobing, more commonly known as black frame insertion (BFI). The feature is designed to improve the appearance of motion by strobing its backlight and reducing the amount of persistence blur. The BFI feature on the TV flickers at 60Hz, so there's still some image duplication present.

This TV has an optional motion interpolation feature to improve the clarity of motion. It does an okay job smoothing out slower scenes, but there are some noticeable artifacts present. In faster-moving scenes, it can't keep up, and there are distracting artifacts and haloing, and sometimes the TV stops interpolating altogether.

The Samsung The Frame Series has excellent direct reflections handling. Its matte coating does an outstanding job at significantly reducing direct reflections, such as from sources of light placed directly opposite the screen. Furthermore, the intensity of the brightness of reflections is greatly reduced, so it performs amazingly well in a bright room.

The Samsung Frame Series TV has mediocre black levels in a well-lit room. Blacks become elevated in a bright room, so the image looks washed out. The TV has a limited contrast ratio to begin with, so you only get deep blacks in purely dark scenes when viewed in a dark room. In a bright room, blacks look gray even in dark scenes.

The total reflections performance of this TV is decent. There is no rainbow smearing or light banding on reflections, which is fantastic. Its matte coating does tend to smudge glare across the screen instead of just reducing its size, but, overall, it's satisfactory.

The TV has sub-par color saturation in a bright room. Low and high-luminance colors become noticeably washed out as light is added to your room, although mid-luminance colors fare slightly better.

The Samsung The Frame TV has a passable viewing angle. Overall, it's not the best TV for a wide seating arrangement, but there are worse choices. Still, as you move off-center, there's noticeable gamma shifting, brightness loss, and colors look increasingly washed out as you move further away to the sides. 

The TV does perform quite well when it comes to color shifting however, so the colors don't hue shift (i.e. change colors) unless you're viewing the TV from a very wide angle.

The Samsung The Frame has okay gray uniformity. The sides of the screen are darker than the middle, and there's some noticeable dirty screen effect towards the middle of the screen. On a very dark or near-black screen, its uniformity is very good, but the sides are noticeably brighter than the middle.

The TV uses a BGR (Blue-Green-Red) subpixel layout instead of the traditional RGB layout. For video or gaming content, this doesn't cause any issues, but for PC monitor use, it can be a problem as it impacts text clarity, although not everyone will notice this.

The TV has good separation between blues, reds, and greens, which helps it display a relatively wide range of colors.

The hazy pixels you see in the photo are caused by the TV's matte coating, but the haziness isn't noticeable when using the TV.

Although the TV supports HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on HDMI 4, it's limited to 40Gbps. In practice, this doesn't cause any issues or limitations with any current source. Unfortunately, Samsung still doesn't support Dolby Vision. However, it supports HDR10+ instead, which is similar overall but not as widely supported.

The Samsung The Frame TV supports many audio formats, including all Dolby Digital options. Unfortunately, it doesn't support DTS formats, which is disappointing, as many Blu-rays use DTS for their lossless audio tracks.

Unfortunately, Samsung still doesn't support Dolby Vision. However, it supports HDR10+ instead, which is similar overall but not as widely supported.

The Samsung The Frame is designed to look more like a framed piece of art than a traditional TV. It has black bezels, but you can buy covers that go over the bezels for a different color and finish. It also comes with the versatile One Connect Box (OCB) to connect all your devices and have one cable going to the TV to help keep your setup tidy.

The Samsung Frame Series uses two plastic feet that support the TV well. The height of the feet can be adjusted to two different positions. The lower position, which you can see in the photo, puts the screen close to the table and only lifts the TV about 2.05". The second position lifts the TV about 2.8", so most soundbars fit below the screen.

The footprint of the 65-inch stand is 42.5" x 10.28".

The back of the TV is plain and made entirely of plastic. There are square slots for the Slim-Fit Wall Mount, and this TV comes with Samsung's One Connect Box (OCB), which is separate from the TV and houses the inputs. The OCB is versatile and helps keep your setup clean.

The TV has excellent build quality. It's made entirely of plastic, but it feels solid overall. There's some wobble front to back when the TV is pushed, but this doesn't cause any issues. It's well-built overall, and there are no issues with quality control.

The TV comes with the 2024 version of the Tizen interface. It's user-friendly and has a full page to display all the apps, and navigating through the menus is smooth.

You also have access to Samsung's Art Store to download artwork to display on the TV. It has over 50 paintings by default, but you must pay a subscription to download others. You can also upload photos and save them directly to the TV.

Like most TVs on the market, there are ads throughout the TV interface, and although you can turn off targeted ads, there's no option to turn them off entirely.

The remote is identical to the one included with most Samsung TVs, but it's white instead of black. It's slim and compact, has quick access buttons for the most popular streaming apps, and is easy to use. The remote has a built-in rechargeable battery with a solar panel on the back of the remote. You can also recharge it via USB-C if it dies unexpectedly.

The TV is compatible with the Bixby and Alexa voice assistants, and its remote has an integrated microphone for voice commands. You can use your voice to launch apps, switch inputs, ask for the weather and time, and adjust certain settings like the TV's brightness.

A single button is located at the bottom right of the TV. You can use it to power the TV on/off, change channels, adjust the volume, and switch inputs. You can control the TV hands-free with your voice using the TV's built-in microphone, but you can also turn the microphone off using a small switch on the bottom right of the TV.

• Manuals
• Remote
• Power cable
• One Connect cable
• Wall-mount equipment
• Cable management hooks

The Samsung The Frame QLED TV has a mediocre frequency response. Like most TVs, it doesn't produce much bass, but the sound profile is well-balanced enough that dialogue is clear at moderate listening levels. Unfortunately, the TV doesn't get very loud, and there are noticeable artifacts at maximum volume.