The Music Frame from Samsung is a striking streaming speaker designed as a photo frame that can play your favorite music, but also audio from your Samsung TV. Read in this review of the Samsung Music Frame how well it can do that and much more.
In January 2024, Samsung announced the Music Frame at the CES consumer electronics fair in Las Vegas. This photo frame, equipped with a speaker with which you can stream music, has a big TV brother The Frame on which you can show thousands of works of art (from famous museums) via Samsung’s Art Store when you are not watching TV. Your TV turns into a work of art. The Music Frame was also designed with that in mind, because most speakers are not really beautiful and therefore often do not enrich your (living) room.
(text continues below image)
The Music Frame with big brother The Frame
Design Music Frame
The Samsung Music Frame (HW-LS60D) measures 35.3 x 36.5 x 14.3 cm and weighs over 4.5 kg. For example, you can place it on a sideboard and even hang it as a work of art, but because of its 4.5 kilos you have to secure it properly.
It has a ‘print’ on the front. Samsung supplies two prints as standard: one with a record player and one with blue colors. You can easily replace/exchange them, partly thanks to the included white passe-partout.
You can also place your own photo, but it is useful that it is 19 x 19 cm in size, so that you can easily place it in the passepartout.
On the back there are three inputs: optical, a connection for a dongle and the power supply. The latter cable is nice and thin and almost transparent, as we know it from The Frame and One Connect box and is about 3 meters long. There are also a number of buttons on the side, more about which later.
Control and connect
Just like most (smart) devices nowadays, you operate the Music Frame via an app. This can be done via Samsung’s SmartThings app itself, but it did not go completely smoothly. I preferred to operate the Music Frame via the Spotify app, and that worked fine. Other wireless connection options include Wi-Fi 5 with (Chromecast, AirPlay and Q-Symphony) and Bluetooth 5.2.
You can also operate the wireless speaker with your voice, choosing from Bixby, Alexa or Google Assistant.
Finally, you can also operate the Music Frame manually using 4 keys. However, Samsung has concealed them considerably and are located on the side at the back, probably because the Music Frame then looks nicer. I placed the Music Frame around a small round table so that I could easily reach these keys. But if you hang this photo frame speaker, it will be difficult to reach these buttons.
Sound
The Music Frame provides stereo sound through six built-in speakers: the two woofers, two tweeters and two mid-range drivers provide no less than 120 watts and produce a considerable volume. It is nice that it also has Dolby Atmos; the music was reproduced remarkably well in a spatial and room-filling way from this relatively small smart speaker. Supported formats are MP3, AAC, OGG, FLAC, WAV, ALAC and AIFF, so that’s fine too.
What also stood out was that it has a good bass response. The bass already sounded good on the table and when I held the (HW-LS60D) against the wall, it was almost an impressive weekend for such a flat speaker.
Price and availability
The Samsung Music Frame has a suggested retail price of 449 euros and has been for sale for some time.
Conclusion
The Samsung Music Frame is a smart, beautifully designed speaker with many streaming options, surprisingly good sound and in the form of a kind of work of art (just like its big TV brother The Frame) that you place against the wall or on a piece of furniture. However, the (recommended) price is on the high side.
Samsung Music Frame
Recommended retail price: 449 euros
+ smart beautifully designed speaker
+ surprisingly good (bass) sound
– duration
– SmartThings app needs to be improved
