Should You Buy the Samsung Frame TV? An In-Depth Analysis of 6 Major Complaints

As you shop display options to anchor your living room entertainment setup and perfectly accent your interior decor, you‘ve probably come across The Frame TV — Samsung‘s award-winning innovation that transforms into a beautiful work of art when idle.

This is a tempting proposition in theory. But the realities of owning The Frame often fail to live up to the promise. Before you swipe a credit card expecting both an aesthetic masterpiece and premium viewing performance, it pays to scrutinize known issues flagged by trade journalists and thousands of owners.

Through comprehensive research and evaluation, I‘ve itemized six critical drawbacks of The Frame TV as considered purchases. Each stems from some combination of flawed product design decisions, marketing misalignment with real-world usage scenarios, and simple unmet expectations around what this technology can actually deliver.

Note that I don‘t aim to condemn The Frame outright. When constraints around pricing, room layout, and intended goals align favorably, it can delight a subset of buyers. Consider this your insider analysis of precisely what tradeoffs you‘ll make for the transformative effect of display-as-decor.

Let‘s dig deeper on each considerable complaint:

1. Art Store Subscription Fees Add Up Quickly

A core selling point of The Frame is access to Samsung‘s curated Art Store catalog. When idle, the TV can showcase famous paintings, photographs, and illustrations from beloved artists rather than leaving a blank black panel on your wall.

In practice, very few pieces come free. You‘ll pay a recurring fee. At first this seems trivial — "what‘s $5 per month for a perpetually updating art collection!" Then you realize limitations around quantity and breadth…

Samsung‘s opaque pricing and incomplete transparency into the Art Store‘s inner workings prompts concerns. Let‘s analyze known subscription costs over The Frame‘s lifetime:

Monthly Subscription

• $4.99 per month initially
• Estimated at $7-9 now based on customer reports
• Can access over 1,100 pieces of art
• Apparently no longer available? Details removed from Samsung‘s site

Yearly Subscription

• Originally $29.99 annually
• Now $79.99 per year
• Samsung won‘t confirm number of available pieces

Single Artwork Purchase

• Used to sell individual pieces to own permanently
• Ranging from $10-40 per image in 2020
• No longer available according to Samsung discussions

So in just two years, we‘ve seen prices hiked across the board while the ability to simply buy a beloved Kandinsky, Monet, or Ansel Adams photo outright disappeared. You must perpetually subscribe.

And the breadth of content raises red flags — just over 1,600 pieces as of late 2022. No iconic Picasso. No Pollock. Warhol? Nope. Much of the collection comprises little known contemporary artists. Samsung frequently spotlights the same handful of images rather than digging deeper into art history.

While curation quality improves over time and scoring a few instantly recognizable Dali‘s or van Gogh‘s delights, costs quietly snowball.

Art Store Subscription Fees Add Up Over Time

Verdict: Budget for perpetually recurring fees climbing towards $500+ over a 5 year ownership period. Or circumvent entirely by manually uploading personal images instead.

2. Perfectly Mounting the Samsung Frame TV Proves Deceptively Difficult

Picture this — you eagerly unbox your gleaming new Frame TV, prepared to mount it with surgical precision as the final artful accent to your living room‘s furnishings and finely tuned ambiance.

You cannot simply nail this panel to the wall like any pedestrian television. The entire aesthetic motivation for its conception revolves around mimicking a framed gallery print when idle. Hang too high or extended from the wall and the illusion collapses instantly. You must evaluate mounting considerations differently here:

Ideal Height = Eye Level While Standing

Consider a typical TV‘s location — centered at seated eye height on your media console for ergonomic head positioning. The Frame eschews this convention. When configured as artwork, it demands a higher resting height more akin to hanging framed photos and paintings.

Think opening night at a swanky gallery. You mill about holding a wine glass, admiring works of art while standing and seated across conversing lounge chairs. Samsung wants the Frame to inhabit this environment when idle.

Surface Flush with Wall is Mandatory

Any noticeable gap between the back panel and mounting surface also shatters decor continuity. Samsung itself warns that you‘ll "need to mount it completely flush against the wall, with no space whatsoever."

Easier said than done. The thickness of aggregate wall material, recessed cables, and ports like HDMI can quickly throw off perfect surface alignment. You‘ll contend with endless fractions of an inch to maintain illusion.

This proves exceptionally difficult for novice DIY mounters. Samsung recommends professional installation. And even pros may require multiple visits to adjust nuances.

Inflexibility Once Mounted

Note once drilling and mounting concludes, you lose any ability to pivot, angle or extend the screen from the wall. It must stay permanently anchored in place. Forget about swiveling to reduce glare or changing viewing angles. What you see at installation is forever fixed barring entirely removing the mount.

Costs Rise Thanks to Professional Installation Requirements

Verdict: Set aside at least $200-300+ for highly skilled installers to perfectly mount your Frame TV with specialty equipment and patience for micro adjustments.

3. One Connect Box Causes Headaches Through Cluttered Cables

You might assume that The Frame TV‘s sleek silhouette and single slender cord connecting to an external control box epitomizes streamlined cabling elegance.

And conceptually, the intentions shine brightly — consolidate ports like HDMI and power cords into a separate box. Run one transparent optical cable neatly through the wall. Enjoy clutter-free cable management to preserve continuity from decor centerpiece to high-bandwidth entertainment portal.

Seeds of success bloom until pragmatically wrestling cords into compliance. Look closer at the compromises and installation headaches with Samsung‘s One Connect approach:

Professional Wiring Still Required

Consider that optical cable. It needs to physically route through wall framing studs between The Frame‘s mounting backplate and the One Connect box near other devices. This usually entails hiring an electrician or installer to neatly thread it internally rather than trailing along the floor.

Optical Cable Length Limits

Suppose you wish to mount the TV farther from your media cabinet? Samsung cautions that the included optical cable stretches only 16 feet safely before signal loss. Confirm exact room measurements and account for vertical routing before permanent installation. Any distance gaps require inconvenient extenders.

Input Source Equipment Still Clutters Room

All those devices like a cable box, game console, Blu-ray player that connect using HDMI? They‘ll still demand power outlets and pose cord routing challenges near the One Connect box outputs. You simplify cabling to the panel itself — not across components spread throughout the room it unifies through viewing and decoration harmony.

Total Installation Cost – Parts + Labor

Verdict: Ingenious concept, yet still exposes buyers to incremental costs and potential installation pitfalls for true cable clutter relief.

4. Better Performing TVs Cost Hundreds Less Overall

You‘ll pay a premium for the Frame TV aesthetic concept. But does display performance rival best-in-class televisions to justify significantly higher costs? Consider what equivalently priced competitors like LG and Sony offer:

LG C2 Series OLED

• Self-illuminating per pixel
• Infinite contrast ratio
• Four HDMI 2.1 ports

Samsung QN85B QLED

• Quantum Matrix Technology Pro backlight
• 100% color volume
• Ultra Wide Viewing Angle

Now contrast specs between otherwise comparable TV models:

Visual Performance Tradeoffs Become Clear

Reviewers agree enthusiastically — the LG C2 OLED and Samsung QN85B QLED televisions deliver meaningfully better contrast, color range, brightness, and viewing angles than The Frame at similar costs. You spend more for 55 inches of The Frame versus 65 inches of superior display technologies that cost hundreds less!

And this analysis ignores the extra $500+ for essential professional installation of The Frame, alongside perpetual Art Mode subscription fees. Comparable connectors simply plug into any open wall outlet and mount with the turn of a screwdriver.

Verdict: Serious home theater enthusiasts streamline paths toward spectacular visual performance through better display technologies at lower price points. More casual viewers dazzle guests through The Frame‘s instant room transformation between functional TV and ambient art.

5. Art Mode‘s Visible Screen Glow Contradicts a Gallery-Style Canvas

Suppose everything aligns perfectly — your flush mounted Samsung Frame TV switches into Art Mode. A scenic landscape or oil painting masterpiece elegantly fills the screen. You approach expecting a textured canvas print masterfully illuminated by overhead light against an accent wall.

Instead, disappointment sinks in. The screen glows with subtle but unavoidable backlight elements behind the artwork. This inherent luminance contradicts flat art‘s character. Dark room performance especially diminishes realism. OLED screens may avoid issues thanks to pixel-precise black levels. But Frame models to date expose limitations.

Flat panel technologies simply emit more ambient brightness than natural canvases. Turn off the TV and notice lack of light from an installed painting or print. This never occurs while powered on.

Root Cause = Always-On Backlights

Samsung‘s Frame uses vertical alignment (VA type) LCD display technology coupled with full array LED backlights spanning horizontally and vertically behind the panel.

These zone-based lights dynamically illuminate to enrich displayed content with brightness, contrast and color vibrancy. But always-on operation mandates some baseline glow for visibility.

Completely eliminating illumination when displaying art risks losing finer details across dark tones. This catches Samsung engineers in a Catch-22 bind between art authenticity and content fidelity. For now, they emphasize the latter through perpetually lit zones.

Minimal Notifications Partly Redeem

Thankfully, Samsung offers intuitive controls to reduce screen glow intensity when displaying artwork in Art Mode. Bezels fade to black and you can minimize always-on elements notifications revealing core TV functionality behind the framed art disguise.

But fundamentally, light emanates forward. Your eyes still perceive subtle glows especially in dimmer environments. Darker palettes never achieve inky optical black levels like an inert canvas underneath a halogen gallery spotlight.

Verdict: Enjoy the Frame TV‘s transformation effect in brighter indoor conditions. At night, backlight weaknesses required for basic operational visibility hinder art imitation efforts. Stick with conventional framed prints for true deep black performance.

6. The Samsung Frame TV Favors Art Over Peak Viewing Performance

The Frame TV clearly prioritizes aesthetic ambitions above all else. This singular motivation requires compromises when configuring the LCD panel, processing engines, and backlight systems. Design Beautiful artwork blend seamless décor LG C2 65-Inch OLED evo $1,426.99 Great contrast, deep blacks, and over a billion colors8 million self-lit OLED pixelsAlpha 9 Gen 5 AI Processor 4K, exclusive to LG, intuitively adapts to what you‘re watchingLG Game Optimizer mode Buy on Amazon We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you. 01/16/2024 05:07 pm GMT Engineers clearly tested and evaluated degrees of leeway between visual priorities when viewing TV shows/movies versus curating gallery-style art presentations.

Limitations manifest across key areas:

Reduced Brightness

• 600 nits peak falls short of premium TVs hitting 1000+ nits

No Local Dimming

• Lacks precision across backlight zones

Mediocre Contrast

• Blacks appear more gray, highlight details lost

Narrow 160° (H) / 150° (V) Viewing Angles

• Colors wash out from sides

The Frame emphasizes color accuracy and environmental image stability preferred by artists, photographers and museums.

But movies and video leverage expanded brightness, more precise local dimming across backlights, inky black levels through VA panel optimizations, and wider viewing angles for immersive living room experiences.

Verdict: Survey top-rated TVs like Samsung‘s Neo QLED 8K models and LG‘s C2 OLED instead for best-in-industry home theater visuals. Weigh Frame tradeoffs carefully around reduced picture quality in brighter rooms and from side seating.

Conclusion — Who Should Buy Samsung‘s Frame TV?

The Frame TV‘s big-picture concept dazzles through open-mindedness to push boundaries of display technology paired with interior design. Early execution shows promise but exposes easily overlooked frustrations. Sheer novelty around art decoration transitions can‘t outweigh frequently lackluster ownership experiences once installed over months and years.

I suggest buyers emphasizing either core usage — a transformative ambient art canvas or equally impressive living room TV — choose dedicated products explicitly designed around a single application. Divergent end goals spread engineers thin trying to serve both masters.

Folks seeking a stunning focal point when idle who also value minor conveniences like easily swappable art exploration through subscriptions and curation may delight at frames on their, well… Frame TV once aforementioned drawbacks become palatable.

Just be honest about frequent viewing scenarios and your tolerance for recurring fees. Know that better performing TVs come more affordably too. Then decide if the Frame‘s form justifies function for your personal habits and tastes.

I‘m happy to offer personal consultation tailored to your room dimensions, seating layouts, decor style and budget to shortcut optimal display technology matching. Reach out anytime! Let‘s find the perfect long-term visual solution for your needs that avoids post-purchase regrets.