Is this the best Samsung frame TV alternative? iFFalcon Mural TV review

The review

When it comes to TVs in our homes, there’s always a trade-off to consider. Do you want the highest-end specs with excellent picture quality, but force yourself to put a big black rectangle as the focal point of your living room? Or, are you willing to sacrifice a bit on the picture to get something that fits into your decor better? This is, of course, the objective for popular art-style TVs, but what if you want to spend less money and still get a great Samsung Frame TV alternative? I got my hands on the off-brand iFFalcon Mural TV and I think it’s a worthy budget options—with a few small caveats.

Normally in a TV review I’d put picture quality first here, but this is an art-style TV so I actually think its physical footprint and design is slightly more important. If you haven’t heard of iFFaclon, that’s not surprising. It’s a strange little offshoot brand of TCL that seems to be more available in other countries, particularly in South America. But I started seeing these TVs more on the Amazon Black Friday listings, so the brand seems to be putting more of a focus on the US.

What does that mean for the visual look of this device? Well the build quality is surprisingly solid! It feels really substantial, with strong metal bezels and a nice, flat, uniform shape. This is the point as it needs to sit nice and flat on your wall. While some TCL art TVs do come with wooden frames to put onto the bezels, this model didn’t. This could be a drawback for you, though you can buy some from iFFalcon for around $100. My wife would prefer to make her own to match our own home’s style more closely, so this didn’t affect our use case, but it may affect yours. Overall, I think this TV looks great and refined, which is important because we mounted it in our bedroom—a space we need to feel good about living in.

One of the most well-known drawbacks of the Samsung Frame is that its matte-style panel doesn’t look quite as brilliant as when you go for a glossy screen. This is, of course, intentional as the matte screen really helps the display look like a flat piece of artwork when it’s in art mode. The iFFalcon doesn’t actually have a matte display at all, and as a result it really doesn’t look all that convincing as a painting (at least not nearly as much as Samsung’s version).

However, what makes it a solid Samsung frame TV alternative is that this more traditional screen surface looks a heck of a lot better when watching actual content. I’d put this right up against a mid-range Samsung QLED TV for its brightness and vibrancy. However, the budget price point does show with color accuracy, delivering a bit too much warmth resulting in a pinky, cartoonish tint to some brighter programs. For our use-case, watching sports or late-night television, this TV is perfectly serviceable, and we love having it set back, mounted properly against our wall. Despite its glossy display, I think when we get a proper faux frame around it, it’ll look good.

Of course the value is the star of this show. As a Samsung Frame TV alternative, its ~$500 price point is very attractive. For that price level, you get features that punch way above their class, like a high 144-hertz refresh right, excellent brightness, Google TV smart features, and a premium, ultra-slim design.

Connectivity, software, and sound

Then there is all the extra stuff you think about with a television. First, the connectivity is surprisingly premium considering the slimness of this device. Samsung struggles with this, as they often sacrifice port selection or force you to use their wireless connection box. The Mural TV is a great Samsung Frame TV alternative because it offers multiple full-sized HDMI 2.1 ports, plus a digital optical audio output, and more. 

The software is also a highlight, as it employs the newer, more streamlined Google TV framework. I like the familiarity of this because it means you aren’t sacrificing on smart features. We’re using our Apple TV for media streaming, so I won’t need to get into the TV’s software too much, but it’s nice that it feels modern and should get software support for a long while.

Then there’s the sound. This is definitely a drawback for the TV, though as a Samsung Frame TV alternative, unimpressive sound quality is probably par for the course. Audio from the TV’s built-in speakers—though they purport to offer Dolby processing—is thin and spiky. It felt too quiet at low volumes and too harsh when we turned it up. We ended up buying an inexpensive LG soundbar on Cyber Monday, and leveraged the TV’s eARC functionality, so it’s not the biggest deal for us. But if built-in sound is a priority, this ain’t it.