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What Hi-Fi?
What Hi-Fi?
Technology
Robyn Quick

Amazon is following LG and Samsung's lead with its latest TV – but is that a good thing?

The Amazon Ember Artline TV on a dark brown background displaying a piece of art.

Amazon is taking on Samsung’s The Frame with its first-ever lifestyle TV in the form of the Ember Artline.

Like its Samsung rival, Amazon’s Ember acts as a TV that transforms into a “curated art gallery” when not in use, with over 2,000 art pieces to choose from.

The QLED TV boasts 4K resolution with a matte screen, as well as support for Dolby Vision and HDR10+. That’s already quite a challenge to The Frame, as that is limited to the latter. It’s impressively thin too, with a 1.5-inch design that should create the illusion of a picture frame.

As you would expect from an Amazon TV, the Ember Artline comes equipped with Alexa+ with plenty of AI-powered features. It even uses motion sensors (dubbed Omnisense technology by Amazon) to detect if you have left or entered the room to switch between modes.

There are plenty of options to let you customise your screen (which is available in both 55 and 65 inches), with 10 frame colours to choose from, including Walnut, Matte White and Midnight Blue.

In terms of connectivity, it includes four HDMI inputs. AirPlay is also available, as is Wi-Fi 6.

It will go on sale in four countries including the UK and US starting later this year, priced from £950 / $899 (around AU$1905) for the 55-inch model. That's quite a lot cheaper than The Frame, which will set you back £1299 / $1500 / AU$1799 for the same size.

This is far from the first time The Frame has faced rivals. The LG Gallery+ took aim at Samsung last year, as did Hisense's Canvas model, representing the increasing competition on the market. We were not hugely convinced by the latter during testing, however, as it offers poor contrast levels and low-quality sound. That resulted in a two-star rating overall.

While the Artline TVs are priced the same as Amazon’s Omni Mini-LED models, they use standard LEDs in the backlight, leading us to believe they will be more in line with the brand’s standard, non-Mini LED Omni QLED TVs in terms of panel specification – albeit with the new anti-reflective matte coating.

That said, there’s no mention of local dimming on the Artline’s product page, either. If that’s absent, it would represent a spec downgrade on even the original Omni QLED range, which would be disappointing. We’ve approached Amazon for clarification on this.

Still, the Ember's more affordable price tag than Samsung's The Frame and Alexa smarts could make it a worthy competitor.

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