I sat in front of the Amazon Ember Artline TV, and what I saw left me conflicted

Are art TVs the future? It's a question that seems to be on the lips, or at least the minds, of executives at all the biggest TV manufacturers this year. After a long period in which most brands seemed content to let Samsung have its little niche with The Frame, the landscape is shifting rapidly all of a sudden.

LG's bringing back the Wallpaper TV, TCL has big plans in the area, and now Amazon's done a classic Amazon and very rapidly brought out an art TV of its own – the Ember Artline. It's a 55 or 65-inch QLED TV that puts the emphasis on a large collection of free artwork that you can use to spruce up a wall of your choice, and I saw it in person at a recent Amazon event.

Amazon Ember Artline 55-inch: £949.99 at Amazon

Amazon's latest TV launch is available right now, if you're keen to get a new TV and want a matte screen that can liven up a room hugely with artwork.

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Spending some actual time with a new TV is always an interesting experience, and I made sure to grab the Artline's remote as soon as I could to get a proper feel for its UI and artwork, leaving me interested to see more.

Crucially, at briefings like these, you can play around with a TV but don't generally get time to sit and watch content for more than a snatched minute, so the biggest question mark that still lingers over the Ember Artline for me is how it looks with Filmmaker Mode turned on for a movie I know and love.

Concentrating on the artwork, though, I liked what I saw. The Artline has a matte finish that, along with the magnetic frame and recessed wall mount that you get with your purchase, basically marks it out from Amazon's other TVs. It works pretty well, too, dissipating light effectively, albeit not quite as invisibly as far more expensive models from the likes of Samsung manage.

The artwork on offer is great, too, divided into sections for easier browsing – so you can, for instance, choose a country to see what art Amazon has licensed from it, across a range of time periods. You can also select genres and styles, too, and there's more coming.

Amazon's reps told me that the art on offer won't be removed or cycled in and out; everything there is yours to keep, but with the promise that more will be added over time, including a generative AI option for those who don't need or want actual artistic intention on their art TV.

Curiously, though, I found the actual Fire TV UI on the Artlines I got to play with a little slower than I expected. At the same event, I got to handle the latest Fire TV Stick HD, which is an entry-level £40 piece of hardware, and it felt significantly snappier and more responsive than the baked-in software on the Artline.

That might be down to pre-release hiccups, and it's entirely possible that the full versions of the TV that are now available to order will be smoother and faster, but I found it odd given the controlled setting of an Amazon briefing. The setting also meant I couldn't test the TV's awareness feature, which turns the display off when nobody's in the room, to avoid the power drain of 24/7 operation for the art you choose.

Overall, the time I got with the Ember Artline left me wondering what direction I'd go in if I needed to buy a TV right now. I think I still lean towards accepting a TV for what it is and getting a pure OLED, since I just love how those panels perform (with my LG C2 giving me no reason to upgrade), but the art TV movement is clearly picking up pace.

Whether the Ember Artline sees the needle move further in terms of sales and popularity will be interesting to observe in the coming months, and we'll aim to get a full review for you so you can see how it stacks up in our view.