Samsung The Frame TV (2026) Review: Art First, TV Second

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Overview

Samsung’s The Frame has spent years as the TV people buy for how it looks switched off, and the 2026 model (series LS03HE) keeps that brief: a matte screen, a wall mount that holds it flush, and an Art Mode that fills the screen with paintings or your own photos when nobody is watching. It is the entry-level model in Samsung’s art TV line, below The Frame Pro, and comes in 55-, 65-, 75-, 85- and 98-inch sizes. This review covers the 55-inch size.

Two changes define this generation. The connections now sit on the TV itself instead of in a separate box, and the screen moves to Samsung’s newer Glare Free matte coating. RTINGS, which bought and tested the 65-inch, found the 2026 model easier to see in daylight than the 2024 Frame, though the older set gets a bit brighter. In Canada this size is the QN55LS03HEFXZC, and Samsung Canada’s warranty covers TVs of 49 inches and up for 12 months with in-home service, subject to availability.

Key Specifications

Samsung The Frame TV Art Mode and Design

The reason to buy a Frame is how convincingly it disappears into a wall, and the 2026 model does that better than its predecessor in one important way. The matte Glare Free coating removes most of the glare from lamps and windows facing the screen, so a painting on it reads as a print rather than a TV reflecting the room. RTINGS counts this among the set’s main strengths.

The included Slim Fit wall mount holds the 27.5 mm (1.1-inch) deep panel flush against the wall like a picture frame. Without the separate connection box of earlier Frames, every cable now plugs into the TV itself. Samsung added back stoppers so cables can be connected or removed without taking the set off the wall, but RTINGS points out that hiding those cables completely may mean running a conduit through the wall.

When the TV is off, Art Mode takes over. Once you switch the motion sensor on in settings, Samsung says the screen brings the art up when it detects movement and powers off after you leave the room, while a brightness sensor adjusts the art to the light around it. Free art comes through Art Store Streams, 30 curated pieces a month, and Samsung Canada adds more than 70 other complimentary pieces of content through the year. The full Art Store, with more than 5,000 works from over 800 artists including collections from MoMA and Art Basel, needs a paid subscription: Samsung Canada’s Art Store promotion terms (November 2025) put it at $7.99 a month, about $96 a year. Hisense and Amazon instead bundle 1,000-plus and 2,000-plus free artworks with their art TVs. The bezels are magnetic and swappable, but the colored ones are sold separately.

Picture Quality

Daytime TV is where this screen does its best work. With the matte coating soaking up reflections from windows and lamps, a talk show or a streamed series stays easy to watch with the blinds open, and older, lower-resolution sources come out looking tidier than they started, a strength RTINGS lists among the set’s pros. RTINGS’ overall verdict is measured: it calls the Frame “an okay TV for most uses.”

Film night with the lights off is the weak spot. Because the backlight can’t dim one part of the screen while lighting another, RTINGS found raised blacks and grayish shadows in a dark room, and its low peak brightness and contrast results leave HDR movies without much punch. HDR10+ is supported, Dolby Vision is not. Samsung lists a wide viewing angle, but RTINGS found the picture degrades from the sides and its unit’s uniformity “very patchy,” so seats well off to one side get a weaker image. In RTINGS’ head-to-head, Hisense’s CanvasTV 2026 comes out a bit better overall: it gets brighter, copes with more glare and makes highlights stand out more, though RTINGS’ list of the best frame TVs also finds its accuracy noticeably worse and its motion very blurry.

Gaming and Connections

All four HDMI inputs accept 4K at 144Hz, so two consoles and a PC can share the TV without anyone giving up high frame rates, and the set supports VRR, FreeSync Premium, Auto Game Mode and HGiG. A compatible PC can push it to 240Hz through Samsung’s DLG mode. RTINGS found input lag low and judged it okay for gaming during the day.

Fast motion is where it slips. RTINGS reports that the 2024 Frame has a much faster response time, leaving less blur around fast-moving content, so the 2026 model shows more trailing in sports and quick camera pans. Sound comes from a 20W two-channel system with Dolby Atmos decoding, and smart features run on Samsung’s Tizen with Alexa built in, plus AirPlay and Google Cast for streaming from phones.

How Does It Stack Up Against the Competition?

Each of these hangs close to the wall and shows art when idle; they differ in backlight, HDR support and whether the art library is free. Every price is for the 55-inch size.

Samsung The Frame TV: Worth It for Living Rooms Where Art Comes First

Picture a living room with ordinary daylight, a TV mounted where a painting would go, and most viewing happening by day: news in the morning, a show in the afternoon, a game on the weekend. That is the room the 2026 Frame is built for; RTINGS makes the same call, recommending the regular Frame for rooms that are usually moderately lit. In Canada it is also the easiest of these art TVs to buy: in October 2026 Amazon.ca sold the 55-inch itself, at $1,198.00 CAD on a limited-time deal against an Amazon.ca list price of $1,698, while the 55-inch Hisense CanvasTV S7SG was offered there only by a third-party seller at an import price and TCL’s A400U was listed but not available to buy new. Its matte screen keeps daytime viewing clear, the flush mount and swappable bezels make it look like décor, and every HDMI input runs at 4K 144Hz. The on-screen menus come in English and French as well as Spanish.

If your evenings are mostly movies with the lights down, TCL’s A400U is the one to weigh, though it was not available to buy new on Amazon.ca in October 2026: its Mini LED backlight can dim parts of the screen, which the Frame can’t, though we found no independent test of how well it controls blooming as of that month. If free art and Dolby Vision matter more than Samsung’s design polish, the Hisense CanvasTV S7SG includes over 1,000 free artworks and a teak frame, and RTINGS rates its picture a bit better thanks to a brighter image, though with weaker accuracy and very blurry motion. For a very bright, sun-filled room, or a very dark one, RTINGS points to The Frame Pro, which it names the best frame TV it has tested: it is brighter, has local dimming and adds Samsung’s Wireless One Connect box for the cleanest install, though its 55-inch was listed on Amazon.ca but not available to buy new in October 2026. Amazon’s own Ember Artline, with over 2,000 free artworks and a 60Hz panel, was not listed on Amazon.ca at all when we checked that month.

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Samsung The Frame TV (2026)

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Marcus WebbSenior Editor 𝕏

Marcus has been hunting for the best tech and gear for over 40 years — as a coder, gamer, and lifelong outdoors enthusiast, he knows the gap between a good spec sheet and something that actually holds up.

How this was made: Built from the 16 sources listed above, including 4 independent reviewers such as RTINGS, SamMobile and T3. Written with AI, then fact-checked against those sources by a separate AI. We haven’t tested this product ourselves. How we review →