Ambient mode lets Samsung’s 2018 QLED TVs double up as huge photo frames

Hanging a giant telly on your wall is great and all, but unless you’re actually watching something on it, you’ve essentially decorated your room with a monolithic black square. Samsung’s 2018 QLED TVs can smarten up your sitting room with Ambient mode, turning that space into a virtual art gallery instead. You can pick between photos, patterns, and colours, or even match your wallpaper with a smartphone app. The TV then draws a virtual shadow around the edge of the screen, to make it look exactly like a photo frame. Want more useful info? It can display news, weather and the time, too. It uses 40% less juice than when you’re actually watching TV, so shouldn’t send your electricity bills skywards, either. Other changes for 2018 include a streamlined wall-mount that takes minutes to fit, a super skinny cable between the TV and inputs breakout box (Samsung calls it Invisible, but it still looks pretty visible to us), as well as the all-important enhanced QLED picture quality with better contrast, thanks to a full local array backlight. Prices and a launch date are still TBC, so if you want to Ambient up your room, it’s time to start saving.