Samsung announces more size options for its The Serif & The Frame lifestyle TVs

MW
Mike Wheatley

Samsung has pulled back the curtain on a number of new TVs it’s planning to launch in 2020, including new versions of its lifestyle models The Serif and The Frame, plus several new 8K and 4K QLED TVs.

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Announced at the Samsung 2020 Forum TV event in Malta this week, there’s not much new about the ‘new’ Serif TV sets except they’re available in different sizes. The company says The Serif will be available in 43-, 49- and 55-inch sies this year, with a choice of two colours – cotton white and cotton blue.

The more feature-filled The Frame is also being expanded with new sizes including 32-inch and 75-inch models. In addition, The Frame, which is designed to hang on the wall and mimic artwork when it’s in standby mode, will get a new artificial intelligence-powered recommendation system that suggests artworks to display based on the owner’s preferred tastes and styles.

Other than that the specs for the two ranges remains more or less the same as the 2019 models, which were the first to use QLED panels. One difference with The Frame is that it’s now using a dual-LED edge-lit array that helps to minimise blue light leakage, which should help to improve the contrast levels.

Neither of Samsung’s lifestyle TVs has a release date or pricing yet, but we can expect to see them hit the shops in the next 2 to 3 months if Samsung sticks with its traditional release schedule.

Samsung also provided more details on its 8K QLED TVs for this year. We already saw the flagship Q950TS 8K QLED at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month, and this week the company debuted two more models, the Q900TS and the Q800T.

Details are scarce at the moment, but given the Q950TS is Samsung’s flagship for this year it’s likely the other models will pack less features. We don’t know for sure, but TechRadar speculates the others will come with a less advanced speaker array. One thing we do know is that buyers will have more options when it comes to size, with Samsung planning to launch several versions ranging from 55-inches to 98-inches.

The company also revealed no less than five new 4K QLED TVs coming later in the year, including the Q60T, Q70T, Q80T, Q90T and Q95T, with sizes ranging from 43-inches all the way up to 85-inches.

We’ll have to wait and see what the exact specifications of all these new models are, but one new feature that’s getting some excitement is the new “Tap View” function that allows the TV to mirror what’s displayed on your smartphone screen. The feature first debuted in Samsung’s odd-looking Sero TV which rotates vertically much like a smartphone screen.

“Tap View makes it easier than ever to connect smartphones to the TV,” Samsung said of the new feature. “Consumers can now mirror their phone screen to the TV by simply touching the two devices together.”

The only caveat is that Tap View will only work with a “compatible smartphone”, which most likely means you’ll have to buy an expensive Samsung handset to enjoy it.