Samsung The Frame Pro 2026  TV Review

The Samsung Frame Pro has good peak brightness in HDR. It's bright enough to deliver a somewhat impactful HDR experience with most content. Small specular highlight details barely stand out from the background, though, and it can't bring out fine details in the brightest scenes.

The posted results are with the TV in its most accurate picture mode with 'HDR Tone Mapping' set to 'Static.' Below are the results with the setting set to 'Active', which doesn't actually do much to increase the peak brightness on this TV, and it's less accurate.

• Hallway Lights: 769 cd/m²
• Yellow Skyscraper:  456 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 294 cd/m²

Switching the TV to Game Mode results in a slight drop in HDR brightness, but it's not very noticeable. It still delivers decent brightness, but again, small highlight details don't stand out at all.

The posted results are with the TV in its most accurate picture mode with 'HDR Tone Mapping' set to 'Static.' Below are the results with the setting set to 'Active', which doesn't actually do much to increase the peak brightness on this TV, and it's less accurate.

• Hallway Lights: 694 cd/m²
• Yellow Skyscraper:  391 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 277 cd/m²

The Samsung The Frame Pro 2026 has great peak brightness in SDR. It gets bright enough to easily overcome glare during the day.

The Samsung The Frame Pro has sub-par contrast. The local dimming feature does a decent job improving contrast, however, with its limited zone count and edge-lit limitation the TV relies on its native contrast more often than not. Since the native contrast is low, this results in a disappointing dark scene experience most of the time.

Due to the edge-lit local dimming implementation, this TV has bad zone precision. Each zone will almost always be on with most real content. Normally we'd recommend disabling local dimming with this performance, but that's not an option on this TV.

Zone transitions are bad and very noticeable on this TV. The TV can only light up entire columns of light at once, resulting in very noticeable haloing that flickers off and on as bright highlights move across a dark background. This won't be an issue with most real content, though, as most of the time the entire backlight will always be on.

Switching to Game Mode has no impact on dark scene performance.

The black uniformity on this TV is mediocre. Black levels are inconsistent, and there are noticeable bright patches across the screen.

The Samsung Frame Pro has decent color volume. It has excellent coverage of the DCI-P3 color space, but can't quite display the full range of reds and greens. It also struggles a bit to maintain color saturation in very light scenes.

This TV has decent color volume in HDR. It can't display dark, saturated colors well due to its low contrast and ineffective local dimming feature. It's mainly limited by its peak brightness and incomplete gamut coverage, but colors are as bright and vibrant as pure white.

This TV has superb accuracy in SDR before calibration. The color and white balance errors are extremely low, with no noticeable issues, and gamma is nearly perfect. The color temperature is slightly cool, but it's not noticeable.

This TV is easy to calibrate and delivers an incredibly accurate image after calibration. There's not much difference between the pre- and post- calibration results, though, and most people won't benefit from calibrating this TV.

See our full calibration settings.

The Samsung Frame Pro has excellent color accuracy in HDR before calibration. There are some noticeable color mapping errors, especially in saturated reds and blues, and both bright shades and dark details are a little bit off, but it's not too bad. The average color temperature is slightly cool, but not noticeably so.

Calibrating this TV significantly improves color mapping, but there are still some luminance mapping issues with all shades.

This TV has fantastic PQ EOTF tracking. Midtones are displayed nearly perfectly, and dark shadow details are only slightly raised. Content mastered at 600 or 1,000 nits cuts off sharply at the TV's peak brightness, and there's a slightly more gradual roll off for content mastered at 4,000 nits. This helps preserve some gradation in very bright scenes, but slightly limits how bright highlights can get.

This TV has good low-quality content smoothing. It does a decent job removing macro-blocking and other compression artifacts, and there's barely any loss of fine details.

The upscaling on this TV is great. Fine details are clear and easy to make out, with no obvious over-sharpening.

Gradients are displayed extremely well on this TV, with no obvious banding in any shade.

Unfortunately, the Wireless One Connect box adds considerable latency, making this TV unsuitable for fast-paced games. Even when gaming at 1080p @ 240Hz, the input lag is very high.

There's a single Micro-HDMI port directly on the back of the TV for gaming. When using that port, the input lag is considerably lower:

This TV supports all common resolutions and refresh rates up to a maximum of 4k @ 144Hz. Chroma 4:4:4 is displayed properly with all supported modes, which is essential for clear text from a PC. The higher 240Hz refresh rate is only supported with 1080p signals.

The TV supports FreeSync, HDMI Forum VRR, and G-SYNC Compatible, ensuring a nearly tear-free gaming experience from any VRR-enabled source. It works well across the TV's entire refresh rate range and supports sources with Low Framerate Compensation (LFC), which ensures your games remain nearly tear-free even when your frame rate drops very low.

Unfortunately, this TV has a very high CAD when gaming at the maximum 4k refresh rate of 144Hz. It's extremely slow to complete nearly any transition, resulting in very blurry motion.

Dropping down to 120Hz actually improves the CAD slightly, but it's still poor, and motion is very blurry.

The CAD at 60Hz is poor, and motion is extremely blurry.

This TV is fully compatible with everything the PS5 offers, like 1440p @ 120Hz and 4k @ 120Hz, as well as HDMI Forum VRR. It also supports Auto Low Latency Mode, so you don't have to worry about switching to Game Mode to get the lowest input lag.

This TV is fully compatible with almost everything the Xbox Series X|S offers, including 4k @ 120Hz, HDMI Forum VRR, and FreeSync Premium Pro. It also supports Auto Low Latency Mode, so you don't have to worry about switching to Game Mode to get the lowest input lag. Of course, like all Samsung TVs, it doesn't support Dolby Vision.

Due to the Samsung The Frame Pro TV's slow response time, there's only a bit of stutter in slow-panning shots.

Adding low levels of motion interpolation on this TV does a decent job reducing stutter. The feature has decent consistency, with a fairly even frame pacing, but it only reduces the frame hold time slightly. You'll still see some stutter, mainly in very slow, wide-panning shots.

This TV removes judder from most sources. The frame pacing is not quite perfect with 25p content sent from a 60p source, like an old cable box or streaming device that can't match the content frame rate. Unlike most Samsung TVs, though, some additional settings are required to remove judder.

There's some micro judder on this TV when watching 24p content via a 60p source, like an old cable box or streaming device that can't match the content frame rate. It's minor, though, and most people won't notice it.

Unfortunately, this TV has a slow response time when watching content. There's no overshoot, but most transitions are very slow to complete, resulting in blurry motion.

As objects move across the screen, edges are sharp and clear, but there are some minor intermediate colors due to the uneven pixel response time.

The TV uses high frequency flicker with pulse width modulation (PWM) to control the backlight. The amount of flicker varies depending on what picture mode the TV is set to and what settings you're using. It flickers at a very fast 960Hz in the 'FILMMAKER MODE' Picture Mode and in Game Mode, but most other picture modes flicker at a much slower 120Hz, which can cause image duplications or headaches if you're sensitive to flicker. If you enable the Picture Clarity settings, it also changes the flicker frequency to 120Hz.

The Samsung The Frame Pro supports backlight strobing, more commonly known as black frame insertion (BFI). Unfortunately, it only flickers at 60Hz, and the pulse timing is poor, resulting in a very noticeable double image.

The matte anti-reflective screen finish does an excellent job reducing glare from direct reflections like lights or open windows opposite the TV. Bright lights are barely noticeable.

Ambient light causes the black levels on this TV to rise slightly, but it's very minor and not noticeable.

The total reflected light on this TV is decent. The screen coating spreads light out across the screen, which can be a bit distracting, but there are no rainbow artifacts.

The ambient color saturation on this TV is decent. Ambient light has only a slight impact on perceived color saturation.

This TV has an okay viewing angle. It's not great for a wide seating arrangement, as colors shift rapidly as you move to the sides and black levels rise rapidly, making the image look washed out.

The Samsung The Frame Pro 2026 has just okay gray uniformity. The screen is noticeably patchy throughout, which is very distracting in most content, but especially when watching sports.

This TV uses a new VA panel structure with an RGB subpixel layout, which helps with text clarity when used with a PC. The panel is nearly identical to the one used on the Samsung QN80H.

Most of the inputs for this TV are housed on the external Wireless One Connect box. The four HDMI inputs on that box support the full 48Gbps bandwidth of HDMI 2.1. There's also a Micro HDMI port and a USB-C port on the back of the TV, but that HDMI port is limited to 40Gbps.

This TV supports many audio formats, including all Dolby Digital options. Unfortunately, it doesn't support DTS formats, which is disappointing, as many Blu-rays use DTS for their lossless audio tracks. LPCM passthrough requires an override for 7.1 channels to work, without this override it's limited to 5.1 channels. This means that external Blu-ray players or the Switch 2 will only support 5.1 channels via LPCM.

This TV actually has two eARC ports, one on the One Connect box and the other on the back of the TV. The port on the back of the TV can be beneficial if you're experiencing audio sync issues when watching TV with the native apps.

Like all Samsung TVs, this TV doesn't support Dolby Vision, but it does support the similar HDR10+.

The Samsung Frame Pro 2026 has a unique design that's meant to blend in seamlessly with your decor. You can customize the bezels by adding extra covers that make it look like a piece of art. It also comes with the extremely versatile Wireless One Connect box for very easy setup and few visible cables.

The blade-style feet support the TV well, and it can be placed in either a high or low position so a soundbar won't block your screen. The lower position puts the screen close to the table and only lifts the TV about 2". The second position, as shown in the review photo, lifts the TV about 3", so pretty much any soundbar fits in front of the TV without blocking the screen.

Footprint of the 65-inch stand: 41.1" x 10"

The back of the TV has a nice textured finish that gives it a very premium look. There are two channels near the bottom of the TV to help guide the power cable and Micro-HDMI/USB cable, but nothing else for cable management, since all of the inputs are directly on the external Wireless One Connect box.

The Samsung Frame Pro TV has excellent build quality. It's entirely made of plastic, but feels solid and well-built, with no obvious quality control issues or defects.

The TV ships with the 2026 version of Tizen OS, but Samsung promises up to seven years of system updates. Unlike higher-end models like the Samsung QN80H, the system is a bit slow to start up and the remote feels laggy at times.

Like most TVs on the market, there are ads throughout the TV interface, and although you can turn off targeted ads, there's no option to turn them off entirely.

The remote has a built-in rechargeable battery with a solar panel on the back of the remote. You can also recharge it via USB-C.

• Manuals
• Remote
• Power cable
• USB-C power adapter
• USB-C cable
• Wireless One Connect box
• Slim wall mount brackets and mounting hardware

This TV was originally tested on firmware version 1122.

The frequency response on this TV is okay. The sound profile is well-balanced at low and moderate listening levels, so dialogue is clear and easy to understand. It's worse at max volume, though, with noticeable compression. Like most TVs, there's very little bass.