Samsung Electronics has just announced its answer to LG’s quirky StanbyME flagpole TV, with the launch of the Samsung Moving Style Edge smart television in South Korea. Like the StanbyME, it comes connected to a strange vertical stand that allows for flexible placement anywhere in the home.
LG debuted the original StanbyME TV in December 2023, so Samsung has been rather late to come out with a response, but it has finally done so. But unlike its rival, which developed a dedicated display for the StanbyME, Samsung has simply built a specialised stand to go with its existing Smart Monitor M7 model.
The stand is said to be 0.81 metres tall, which the company claims is more than sufficient to adjust the screen for comfortable viewing wherever you might be sitting, be it an armchair, a desk or somewhere else.
The Samsung Moving Style Edge is somewhat bigger too, with the display being 32-inches, compared to the 27-inch display on the StanbyME. It’s a 4K resolution monitor with 300 nits brightness and a 60Hz refresh rate, so that should be enough to put out some nice sharp pictures, even if they’re nowhere near as good as what you’ll get with an OLED TV.
It sports a simple, almost minimalist design, with the same bezel on all four sides of the display. Moreover, users have quite a selection too, with Samsung saying that both the TV and the stand are available in a variety of colours. In addition, there are two different stands to choose from. The Samsung Moving Edge Standard model comes with an L-shaped stand and costs 879,000 won (around £479) at launch, while the Lite version has an I-shaped stand and costs a bit less, at 839,000 won (£455).
In both cases, the height and tilt of the stand can be adjusted to suit whatever the user happens to be doing. In addition, the screen can be rotated from a traditional horizontal position into a vertical format, making it ideal for watching TikTok videos.
Another neat thing is that the display can be disconnected from the stand and replaced with another Samsung Smart monitor, supporting a maximum screen size of 55-inches.
The Smart Monitor M7 that comes with the stand features the Tizen operating system, so it has all of your favourite streaming apps, and also SmartThings integration, so it can be used as a control centre for smart homes. There’s Wi-Fi 5, plus a couple of HDMI ports and some USB slots, and it pumps out 10-watts of sound through its built-in speakers.
While the display can be disconnected from the stand, Samsung hasn’t gone quite as far as LG has with the recently launched StanbyME 2, which is the successor to the original LG StanbyME. The newer StanbyME 2 is designed to be detached from its stand and operate as a kind of giant tablet, and has touchscreen controls alongside a suitably thin chassis to suit that particular use case.
The Smart Monitors designed to be used with Samsung’s Moving Style Edge are also pretty slim, but they’re not touchscreen-enabled, and neither do they come with an internal battery, so you’ll only be able to use it when there’s a power outlet nearby.
In any case, Samsung is determined to ensure that the Moving Style Edge is a hit, and to coincide with its launch it has announced a new social media campaign called “Moving Style 202” with the slogan: “Combine freely, complete it in your own way.”
According to Samsung, there are 202 possible combinations, based on the user’s choice of display, screen size, resolution, display colour, stand shape and colour, and the optional shelves that can be fitted onto the lower part of the stand.
Samsung said it will give away 70 free Moving Style TVs to popular creators in South Korea, designating them as “Moving Style Creators”, on the condition that they create content showing off the many different ways the TV can be used.
So far, Samsung has not said anything about availability beyond South Korea, but we suspect it may well follow up with an international launch, given that LG’s StanbyME and StanbyME 2 are both available globally.
