Samsung Music Frame Review: Surprisingly well-framed audio

If you’re after a speaker that doesn’t look like a speaker, then the Samsung Music Frame can deliver some pretty fine audio from its deceptively shaped frame — for a price.

Score: 3/5

In this review

Samsung Music Frame Specifications
Samsung Music Frame Design
Samsung Music Frame Performance
Samsung Music Frame Conclusion

Design

The Samsung Music Frame is – more or less – the companion speaker to Samsung’s existing Frame TVs.

In the TV space, the Frame models are meant to look less like a TV panel that you’re going to plonk yourself in front of to watch whatever it is that makes you happy, and more like a work of art that can also let you binge watch Netflix. The core idea here is more towards home décor than it is having a particularly “tech” look.

That’s exactly what the Samsung Music Frame tries to do as well. It’s a nearly-square speaker, but it’s built within an extruded frame that looks as though it’s just a box picture frame.

Indeed, there’s a front facing enclosure that you can drop a picture of up to 8x10 inches into. Samsung’s default image is of a record player, so naturally I had to find out if I could fit singles into its frame.

The answer was yes, and I think we can all agree that this looks so much better, can’t we?

The idea of the Samsung Music Frame is that you’ll hang it on your wall either solo or in a stereo pair if you’re particularly keen, hiding your audio gear in plain sight by distracting everyone with pictures of your children, puppy, brightest sporting achievements or whatever else suits your personal style.

The front frame pops off rather easily to reveal white backing for your pictures, which stay in place quite nicely. I’ve been using my old 45s as the pictures of choice for the entirety of my review period, and while I’ve not been wall mounting it, it’s never shown any signs of falling or dropping.

The Samsung Music Frame sans Frame. Is it just the Samsung Music now?

On that note, if you liked the look of the Samsung Music Frame but don’t want to wall mount it (or can’t because you’re renting), it does also come with a simple and heavy stand. That’s how I’ve tested it, because the model that came from Samsung was purely a loaner, and I didn’t fancy filling in any holes in my walls afterwards.

The stand supports it well, and a single thin silver cable supplies power.

The Samsung Music Frame has minimal physical controls, with a multi-function button used to switch between connection modes, onboard volume controls and a microphone mute button, needed as the Music Frame supports Amazon Alexa and Google Home if you configure it accordingly. Or leave it muted (as I did) if those aren't to your tastes.

Performance

Freddie Mercury is also an improvement over the stock record player image.
A massive improvement.

The Samsung Music Frame is built around an array of 6 speakers that deliver stereo sound from the front of the frame. It’s got inbuilt support for, well, just about everything, from direct optical audio input to Wi-Fi connectivity via Samsung’s Smart Things app through to Bluetooth 5.2, plus Chromecast, AirPlay and Spotify Connect to keep your music desires sated.

It’ll integrate with Samsung TVs as a stereo pair, and if you’ve got a suitable Samsung Smartphone to hand (I didn’t), you can apparently also use NFC to tap and pair and immediately start playing music from any phone-based audio source.

So it’s flexible in terms of connectivity; for my purposes and for this review I’ve predominantly used it in Bluetooth mode.

The rumours were true. I do have a criminal record. This one.

Honestly, my expectations here were not that high, because I figured that this was going to be all about the looks and much less about the audio quality. However, I was rather pleasantly surprised, because the output of the Music Frame is really rather good, with a nice deep presentation.

It can get overly loud quickly, and I don’t think that’s just a question of old man Alex shaking his fist at the clouds to speak of; at maximum volume there can be some distortion in some music playback that’s not present at more regular, human tolerable levels.

It also helps if you play tolerable music.

The real trick of the Samsung Music Frame is, of course, that it’s not always going to be apparent to anyone entering the room where you’ve got it running that this is where the audio is coming from; as distinct from having an obvious speaker-shaped device somewhere, they’ll just get the audio coming to them without it being a distraction.

Pop quiz: Name what this is from (without using a search engine)

Testing on my own family members – thankfully I didn’t have to run this past an ethics committee – they only really twigged to it because the Samsung Music Frame was a new item in the room, not because they could absolutely tell that this was where the endless Prince playback was coming from.

Samsung Music Frame: Alex’s Verdict

I am (probably) the only tech journalist on the planet to test the Music Frame with the Ying Tong Song.

At $699, the Samsung Music Frame is a pricey proposition for a standalone speaker, and I’ve no doubt that you can and could get audio as good or better for a little less than this.

However, that’s not what Samsung’s shooting for here. This 100% is a play for people looking at the overall décor of a room first and foremost, and then considering the soundscape they want.

If you want speakers in your home with good quality that don’t scream that they’re speakers to all and sundry, then these could be just what you’re looking for.

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Samsung Music Frame: Pricing and availability

The Samsung Music Frame retails in Australia for $699 outright.

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