Samsung The Frame Samsung The Frame Pro LS03FW 65" 4K HDR Smart Neo Review

Buy this TV for your wall, not just for your movies. It's a stunning piece of design that also delivers excellent gaming performance, but you can get a better picture for the money if you don't care about the art.

The Samsung The Frame Pro is a TV that wants to be art when you're not watching it. And honestly, it's pretty good at both jobs. The one thing you need to know is this: you're paying a premium for a specific, beautiful design that disappears into your wall, not for the absolute best picture quality on the market. It's a lifestyle product first, a high-performance TV second, but it's shockingly competent in that second role.

What surprised us was how well it handles gaming. With a 120Hz panel and FreeSync Premium Pro support, its gaming performance lands in the 94th percentile in our database. That's not just 'good for an art TV'—it's legitimately great for any TV. The Mini-LED backlight helps, but don't expect the same infinite contrast you'd get from an OLED. Our data shows its picture quality sits around the 45th percentile, which tells you everything: it looks fantastic in a bright room, especially with that matte, anti-glare screen, but it won't win any black-level shootouts in a dark home theater.

At around $1600, the value proposition is simple: if you care deeply about how your TV looks when it's off, this is worth every penny. If you only care about the best possible picture for your money, it's not. You're buying the frame, not just the panel.

The most relevant competitor is the LG OLED G5. If you watch in a dark room, the LG's perfect blacks and infinite contrast will destroy The Frame's picture. But The Frame wins hands-down in a bright, sunny room and, obviously, on aesthetics. The TCL QM8 is another one to look at—it offers spectacular Mini-LED performance for hundreds less, but it looks like a regular black rectangle on your wall. It's a pure specs-for-dollar play versus Samsung's design-led approach.

If you're a home theater purist who watches movies in a pitch-black room, this isn't it. The slightly compromised black levels and matte screen won't satisfy you. Go get an LG OLED instead and hang a painting next to it.

We recommend the Samsung The Frame Pro if your living room is your gallery and you want a TV that doesn't look like a TV. It's a fantastic, unique product that also happens to be a very good TV, especially for gamers. Just go in knowing that a chunk of your money is going toward the 'art mode' and the sleek design, not toward class-leading picture quality. For that specific buyer, it's an easy yes.