Amazon has decided it’s time for a shake up in its entertainment business. It’s rebranding its Fire TVs as “Ember TVs” while sticking with the “Fire TV” moniker for its popular streaming sticks. It also announced its first Ember TV in the shape of the Artline, which is a rival to Samsung’s iconic Frame gallery TV.
There’s also a new Fire TV stick to consider, and the Fire TV operating system itself is also being updated, with the goal being to make content easier to find, the company said.
Amazon has launched a number of Fire TVs over the years, expanding on its original Fire TV stick lineup with big screens that come with the Fire TV interface baked in. Those models, which include the Amazon Fire TV Omni QLED, Amazon Fire TV 4-series and Amazon Fire TV 2-series, will all be rebranded as Ember TVs from now on.
But the first “new” Ember TV will be the Amazon Ember Artline, which we first caught a glimpse of at CES 2026 in January. The Ember Artline TV is Amazon’s answer to Samsung’s Frame, and is meant to be hung on the wall and double as a digital art frame when it’s not being used to watch movies or TV shows.
Samsung has dominated the gallery TV space for a long time thanks to the success of The Frame, which does not offer the pinnacle of picture quality, but has made a name for itself due to its celebrated Art Mode, where works of art are displayed instead of a black screen when it’s put on standby mode.
Amazon said the Artline is launching with 2,000 artworks available to choose from at no extra cost, which is quite a tempting offer considering that Samsung makes users pay a subscription fee to access the Frame’s art store. The Artline also has an interesting AI feature called “Match the Room,” which uses a camera and algorithms to scan the room it’s in before choosing a suitable picture that matches its surroundings.
Like most gallery TVs, the Artline doesn’t have the most premium specifications. You’re getting a regular QLED panel and a matte screen that helps to reduce glare, plus four HDMI ports, but the frame rate is limited to just 60Hz. Dolby Vision and HDR10+ are supported, and the TV itself is rather thin at just 1.5-inches, which means it can be hung flush on the wall, making it look much more like a picture frame. Users will also be able to choose what frame they want. Amazon is offering 10 different colour snap-on frames, including Ash, Black Oak, Midnight Blue, Fig, Matte White, Teak, Walnut, Pale Gold, Silver and Graphite. Users can choose which colour they’d like when they buy the TV – a major difference between it and Samsung, which forces users to take the default black option and buy other frames separately.
As for the OS, that is of course the most recent version of the Fire TV platform, which means Amazon Alexa+, a smarter version of its digital voice assistant, is also onboard.
However, the Ember Artline TV is not cheap. The 55-inch model will cost £949 at launch, while the 65-incher is priced at £1,199. For that price, you could buy a Mini-LED or even an OLED TV with much better specifications, picture and sound quality. But the reality is that most art gallery-style TVs tend to charge a premium because of the added utility they provide.
TechRadar said its first impressions of the Artline’s picture quality were mixed, and that the matte coating wasn’t as helpful as promised at eliminating reflections on the display when watching content. However, when viewing static art, the quality seemed much better.
Amazon’s Ember Artline TV is entering a crowded gallery TV market. While Samsung is the obvious rival, alternatives include LG’s new Gallery TV, which is clearly modeled after The Frame, as well as Hisense’s Canvas TV and TCL’s Nxtvision. There’s also Skyworth’s Canvas Elite Art TV, which is a more premium option featuring a Mini-LED display.
In a separate announcement, Amazon said it’s revamping the Fire TV software platform that underpins its Fire TV sticks and the Ember TVs. The update is reportedly going to land on all older Fire TV devices, including the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K, and brings a refreshed menu that aims to help users find content more easily.
There’s a new “Categories” heading that will help users to find things to watch based on different genres, such as TV shows, news and sports. The platform is also much slicker, with Amazon claiming that it’s around 30% faster than before.
New Fire TV channels are arriving too, bringing more free, ad-supported content to users. These new “FAST” channels are also a feature on alternative TV platforms, such as Roku, Samsung’s Tizen and LG’s webOS.
As for the new stick, this is officially called the Amazon Fire TV Stick HD, which is approximately 30% more compact than earlier generation models, making it easier to squeeze into HDMI ports that might have other devices plugged into them.
Uniquely, the new stick will draw power from the TV itself via a USB port, so there’s no need for a bulkier external power cable. Amazon confirmed it will have WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity, and there’s a new Adaptive Display feature that enhances accessibility, making text and menus appear bigger for those who need help seeing what’s on-screen. It will enhance smaller items such as text while simultaneously scaling up larger things like artwork.
Amazon said the Fire TV Stick HD will cost £39.99, and it’s taking pre-orders right now at Amazon UK.
