Samsung The Frame TV (2022 Model) (Factory Reconditioned) (Open Box)

The TV is thin and nice looking, mounts flush to the wall with a single cord connection for all input and power which is all great. As soon as you use it it goes downhill fast. I couldn’t use the TV until I accepted the Terms and Conditions. After finishing mounting the TV at night the server that needs to accept the conditions was down (lucky I’m tech savvy enough to figure out that was the error because the message wasn’t clear). In the morning the service was back up and I was allowed to use my expensive new hardware. It’s loaded with bloat ware, pushes Samsung services on you. One of the key features I bought this TV for was it’s built in Chromecast - only way I watch TV is through apps on my phone. Unfortunately that only works if you’re logged in on the TV with the same app, and not even all apps are supported. My 5 year old cheaper Vizio TV worked better. The input controls are frustrating. Turning on a game console or starting to cast video should just switch the input, but the TV tries to do too much. Turning on a console it’ll switch to an input screen showing your game video in a little window and maybe will switch it to full screen after a delay if you’re lucky. Just now I connected one of the few apps I can actually cast to the TV and it spilt between a blank input on one half the screen and the YouTube video I wanted to watch on the other. Trying to just select the single input repeatedly turned the input off altogether until I managed to hack the arcane pattern of pressing or holding “back” on the remote. Speaking of apps the only official app from Samsung is their SmartThings app for all their branded IoT devices. It’s disappointing, especially in its support for the Frame’s art mode. There’s a bunch of pushing you to pay for high rez images of art you could easily download, making you dig to find the ability to do something like put up a picture of your family. Try to upload too many pictures and it’ll time out on you (why when it should be all on your local network? No idea). If you want to primary control your TV through your phone like most people these days, this TV is extremely disappointing. It’s a real shame how bad the software experience is considering it’s forced on you and ruins some very nice hardware. I’ll never buy another Samsung.