The Great TV Debate – Over!

TV’s are generally not so beautiful but are an integral and necessary part of most peoples’ lives. It’s how we unwind after a long day and enjoy each other’s company with minimal effort. It’s OK, I like to watch my TV too, and true confession, sometimes you will even find me eating dinner in front of it. But first, where to put it.

I grew up with something along these lines, watching Scooby Doo on Saturday mornings and Gilligan’s Island and Star Trek after school, along with lots of action packed games of Atari.

 

 

Next, the 90’s brought these monsters. Luckily this phase didn’t last too long.

Then we were on to giant armoires to store the TV in which was kind of nice, because when we did have people over, we could close the doors and hide it. But those armoires took up a lot of space and were visually so heavy.

Enter LED TV’s. Now we were onto something – a nice shallow TV with a great picture. We could hang these on the wall or set them on a shallow console table — what a space saver! But… it was out there in the open for everyone to see and not quite so easy to hide. Hanging it over the fireplace seemed somewhat logical but what about all those wires and the giant articulating arm required to hang it?

This became one of the great debates between many couples I have worked with – one side wanting the biggest TV possible, preferably with coordinating surround sound, the other wanting a more subtle solution, smaller, preferably off to the side and somehow easy to disguise.

Enter Samsung’s The Frame TV, developed to sit flush to the wall and toggle between TV and artwork. For me as a designer this thing is literally one of the best inventions of this century. Available in six different sizes from 32” to 75” along with multiple options for the frame or “bezel” giving you a host of choices, including natural maple, white and black. It could be used as a stand-alone “piece” on a wall, perhaps above a beautiful console table, or above a fireplace masquerading as a piece of art or equally interesting camouflaged into a gallery wall.

The Frame TV has a very nice picture quality, although not the best on the market for that particular technology point, it is still very good. It comes preset with a few pieces of artwork, and for an additional small monthly fee, you can purchase more options to use in Art Mode – there are 1200 works to choose from. If you prefer to not pay a monthly fee, you can upload individual pieces of digital art from Etsy.

There are sensors that adjust the brightness of the display to the light in the room. If no one is in the room, it senses that and turns off which is a nice power saving feature.

 

 

As a designer, I think the Frame TV is the perfect compromise between form and function. It is both practical and beautiful and has virtually eliminated the great TV debate from my conversations with the couples I work with.