4 things I hate about ‘art’ TVs

• They consume unnecessary power
• They don’t have the best image quality
• They’re increasingly meant to upsell you
• They don’t match how and where I use my TV

If you’ve been shopping for a TV in the past few years, you’ve no doubt stumbled across one or more “art” TVs. These are meant to transform a TV from a black rectangle (when nothing’s on) into a focal point of your room, graced by a rotating library of photos or paintings. They’re a step beyond just having a screensaver — they use matte textures to kill reflections, and sometimes come with frames available in different colors and textures. Samsung’s art TVs are literally branded The Frame.

I actively steered clear of art TVs when I bought a new set a little over a year ago. I’m not fundamentally opposed to them, but they do have some key issues that make them decidedly unsuited to my tastes. You can check out some of my gripes below. Who knows — I may change my tune as the technology evolves. The industry is moving fast, so a 2030 model could be unrecognizable.

They consume unnecessary power

You’ve got cheaper alternatives

While some models use motion sensors to automatically shut off when no one’s around, the fact is that art TVs are meant to stay on for long stretches of time beyond your watching or playing anything. You might just be vacuuming, reading a book, or cooking dinner, but that TV will still be running as nothing more than an ambient visual you glimpse in passing.

I actually like that idea in the abstract, except that it’s another burden on my power bill. I do have other devices running for long stretches — including smart lights and a handful of smart displays — but those are nothing compared to a 55-, 65-, or even 85-inch screen. Actually, even that wouldn’t be so bad except that to complete the illusion, an art TV needs to keep its brightness significantly high. It wouldn’t look like paper or canvas if it was noticeably dimmer than its surroundings.

You might just be vacuuming, reading a book, or cooking dinner, but that TV will still be running as nothing more than an ambient visual you glimpse in passing.

A knock-on effect is that you’re reducing your TV’s lifespan. A modern TV will hypothetically last 40,000 to 100,000 hours — but the longer your TV is on, the faster that end date approaches. If a set is on for just one additional hour per day, that’s 1,825 extra hours lost every five calendar years. Needless to say, it’s possible to multiply that number in a home with several people, or if there’s no motion sensor and you forget to turn the TV off.

If you’re really bent on having ambient artwork, there are more power-efficient options — like a poster and a frame from your local craft store. As a bonus, there’s no chance of a backlight or pixel burning out on that Edward Gorey or H.R. Giger reprint.

They don’t have the best image quality

What are you really shopping for?

When you’re sitting down to watch a movie or TV show, you could do worse than the current crop of art TVs. Certainly I wouldn’t complain if someone dropped Samsung’s Frame Pro in my lap, which combines QLED technology with mini-LED backlighting.

My issue is that you’re not usually getting the best image quality available. There are OLED-based art TVs, but they’re less than ideal even if you can afford them, for the simple reason that leaving a static image onscreen for any length of time is going to increase the chances of burn-in, and leaving one on for hours in any capacity is going to accelerate the decay of its organic material.

A surprising number of art TVs — including the Frame Pro — use edge-based backlighting, which has mostly been abandoned in the rest of the industry because it results in reduced contrast and brightness. Many don’t even have local dimming, which means that you’ll get inferior black levels. It’s a bit bizarre given that a lot of budget TVs use a full grid of dimmable backlights.

This is compensated for somewhat by the use of a matte screen that kills reflections, but this further limits contrast, and can make images appear softer than on a glossy screen. Ultimately, most art TVs appear built for people for whom decoration is more important than what TVs are supposedly designed for.

They’re increasingly meant to upsell you

Because paying once isn’t enough

To be fair, any art TV will be perfectly functional out of the box. You don’t need to buy anything extra. But if you want a wider selection of artwork, both LG and Samsung expect you to invest in a subscription, which is a little insulting considering how easy it is to find free wallpapers for devices like your laptop or smartphone. I get that some art needs to be licensed to be legally distributed, but I’d much rather put my money towards a streaming service that I’ll actually sit down for.

Some more news that you might not be prepared for: not all art TVs ship with a decorative magnetic bezel. On Samsung Frame TVs, that’s an optional purchase. And even when a TV does come with a bezel, you may still have to buy another one if you don’t think the stock option matches your decor.

Essentially, the goal seems to be to turn your TV into an Apple Watch, which generates a secondary income flow for Apple through band sales and apps that enable things like custom watchfaces and more detailed fitness tracking. I doubt many people will swap art and bezels as often as Watch owners swap faces and bands, but the parallel is there.

They don’t match how and where I use my TV

My living room isn’t a gallery

As a rule, art TVs seem to work best in well-lit rooms surrounded by other artwork, or at least elaborate wall decorations. It’s also preferable to put them in a space with heavy traffic, since there’s not much point to displaying art that’s seen for a few seconds before you fire up a movie or game console.

We’re usually either watching or playing on our TVs, or located somewhere else entirely, like my home office or the gym.

While a few of my walls look good enough, everything else about my lifestyle is a mismatch. My family and I keep our curtains closed most of the time, and even if we leave them open, there’s still plenty of shadow — which would make the artificiality of an art TV obvious. We tend to prefer moody smart lighting anyway.

As for activity, we’re usually either watching or playing on our TVs, or located somewhere else entirely, like my home office or the gym. So an art TV would offer us nothing more than a glorified screensaver, and disappoint when it comes time to presenting content, at least relative to similarly-priced alternatives. Samsung’s cheapest Frame doesn’t even have the refresh rates necessary to keep up with modern games, which is an automatic dealkiller for me. I’m just glad that rivals have kept high refresh rates in mind.