Samsung have gone a bit divisive lately, first launching the giant Galaxy View tablet that some people think is pointless while others (us) think is cool, and now coming up with this unusual-looking TV.
Called the Serif, it was originally unveiled at the London Design Festival earlier this year, and looks refreshingly different from the oversized black photo frames everyone else is making.
Samsung say the Serif was “created to work as a piece of furniture as much as a piece of technology,” and we can completely see that. It looks like something you’d find at Bang & Olufsen, or in a high-end hotel room. It’s not what you’d expect from Samsung, and that’s a good thing – it shows they’re innovating.
The scrambled picture in the main image is called ‘Curtain Mode,’ and seems to be designed to let you have something on in the background without actually watching it. It looks a bit like what happens in The Sims when your character gets out of the shower to us (unless you had the patch… ahem) but we can see how it might be a nice backdrop while using the TV’s Bluetooth speaker functionality.
Serif TV is so called because from the side, it looks like a letter I, with serifs (horizontal lines, it’s a typography term) at the top and bottom.
Samsung’s logo uses no serifs, so it’s not a branding thing – it’s just cool, and “creates a small shelf on the top.” This, as Samsung demonstrate, is particularly useful for cats:
You don’t have to have the legs attached, it can also sit on its bottom serif:
Samsung Head of Design in Visual Display Yun-Je Kang says, “We anticipate that Serif TV owners will move their TVs away from the wall – perhaps positioning it in the middle of a room or even moving it around like a modular piece of furniture.” That’s a lovely idea in theory, but you’d have cables trailing everywhere. Sadly, we’re not yet in an age of wireless mains electricity, and most people have a tonne of consoles/set-top-boxes/other nonsense plugged into their TVs.
Also, we can’t help thinking the extra surfaces are going to attract dust like crazy, especially on the white version. You’re probably going to have to clean it, then unplug everything before people come over, but it’s totally worth it to make your house look like the photos.
The Samsung Serif TV is available in 40-inch ultra-HD at £1199, 32-inch full HD at £699 and 24-inch HD at £499. The two bigger sizes are available in white and dark blue, and the little one is in white and red. There’s no black at all. Kudos.
If you need one in your life right now, you can buy the Serif TV from Samsung and big retailers like Heal’s. Send us a photo when you’ve got one, we want to know how it looks in a real house.
All images: Samsung
