Amazon Looking to Reimagine TV With Launch of QLED Gallery Models

Amazon’s 65-inch QLED 4K Fire TV ($799) with Dolby Vision IQ and Alexa voice control, due for release Oct. 27, will ship with over 1,500 free “gallery quality” images “to transform the TV from an inert blank box into an intelligent and interactive canvas that can display photos and art,” said Chris Turkstra, Amazon general manager-Fire TV Products, in an Amazon post Tuesday. The TV offers the digital art display capability first promoted by Samsung with The Frame -- and more recently adopted by LG -- but at an Amazon-esque price. LG’s G1 65-inch OLED Gallery Design smart TV was selling on the TV maker’s website Wednesday for $2,399; the least expensive Samsung 65-inch Frame TV at Amazon’s Prime Early Access promotion Wednesday was $1,597, marked down from $1,997. Available digital art for the Amazon Fire TV includes landscapes, motion visuals, impressionist pieces and “photography curated from museums and artists around the world,” Turkstra said. Users can ask Alexa for more information about artwork in what Amazon is calling “the Ambient Experience.” The Fire TV can also give users access to widgets, Amazon Photos and Music, smart home controls and other “glanceable information,” said Senior Product Marketing Manager Dan Tuckman. The TV has adaptive brightness to adjust picture brightness to a room’s ambient light level. “We want to shift the baseline of what people expect from their televisions,” said Turkstra. A 75-inch version ($1,099) is also due for release Oct. 27.