A choice of over 1000 preloaded artworks are available in living rooms with a new Hisense screen on the way to stores across the country.
TVs may well be known as the gadget you watch movies and TV shows on, or even play video games on, but they don’t have to be limited solely to those needs.
In the past few years, Samsung has shown that screens can be more, shifting from the simple black powered down screen of “off” into something a little more made for purpose in living rooms. Samsung’s “The Frame” was built with this in mind, turning TVs into a frame of art and allowing a gadget normally used for entertainment to be decorative when left unused.
Since The Frame’s release, we’ve seen artistic modes on an assortment of screens, but outside of Samsung’s lifestyle TV, there hasn’t been a whole heap of dedicated and made-for-purpose TVs acting as a picture frame of sorts. At least not for artistic frames and with the wooden frame you expect to see on a wall hanging.
Hisense looks to be giving that category a go with a screen it calls the “CanvasTV”, a 4K quantum dot LED-backlit TV with a matte anti-glare finish to make images look that much more natural on the screen.
The TV itself runs Hisense’s Vidaa U8 smart TV operating system, meaning it has streaming service apps available on it for movie and TV viewing, with support for Dolby Vision and a 144Hz refresh rate, too.
What makes it a little different from Hisense’s 2024 TV releases is the Vidaa Art App, which provides access to over 1000 pieces of art that can be run on the TV itself. You can also add your own photos to the CanvasTV using an app on your phone, effectively turning the large TV into a big picture frame of your own making.
“CanvasTV unlocks a new world for Hisense, further enhancing the functionality and innovation behind our home entertainment range,” said Chris Kotis, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Hisense in Australia and New Zealand.
“It is designed to be versatile and seamlessly adapt to our customer’s lifestyle,” he said. “With features such as interchangeable frames and a hi-matte screen, CanvasTV transforms your home into a gallery.”
Hisense didn’t say exactly which pieces of art were available in its CanvasTV and whether the list would be expanded over time, as is the case with Samsung’s The Frame. However, it does come with similar features to the competition, complete with swappable wooden frames to mask the TV design, power saving automated brightness control using a light sensor, and a motion sensor to detect when viewers are nearby, turning off the screen when they’re not.
The other important difference could well be the price, with the Hisense CanvasTV arriving in both a 55 and 65 inch variation, and priced at $1799 and $2299 respectively. By comparison, the Samsung models are slightly less expensive at $1999 for a 55 inch and $2499 for a 65 inch, though Samsung does offer more sizes, ranging from 43 inches all the way to 85.
Australians can expect to find the Hisense CanvasTV in stores by late September.
