Samsung The Sero: Who is this for?

Today we’re checking out Samsung The Sero 4K QLED Smart TV. The Sero in Korean means “to stand”. Apart from the obvious where the TV is standing by itself, Samsung actually is naming this TV because of its ability to display vertical contents. Yes, this TV can rotate the display panel from the conventional horizontal mode into vertical mode.

In this overview article, I will be sharing my personal usage experience whether why Samsung has made this TV in the first place and whether if you should purchase this TV. For more in-depth understanding as well as the TV’s features, you may check out the video review below.

Video Review

User Experience

The Sero was announced back in CES 2020 and it caught our attention with its ability to rotate the display panel. It is built as a standalone TV much like The Serif whereby you have no option to wall-mount it. In other words, The Sero is not really here to replace your current TVs. They are more like a showcase piece or for those who are looking for a unique piece of home electronics that could double up as home decor.

There is even an optional wheelbase for The Sero so that you can push it anywhere in the house.

It only comes in a single screen size option – 43-inch and it uses the Samsung QLED technology. It has 4K resolution and Samsung even claims it to have 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut. In terms of the display quality, it is as expected from Samsung QLED. The colour reproduction is right on the spot and I generally have no complaint against it. Unless you’re looking for something that has superb contrasts like OLED panel, then you might need to look for something else.

Thanks to this unique form factor, there is actually a 4.1ch sound system built-in. Given the fact that you can’t really use any sort of soundbar with this TV, I think the built-in speaker is one of the most crucial components for The Sero. It is very loud with minimal distortion. The dedicated subwoofer makes the audio experience way better than most of the TV out there in the market.

The whole idea behind this design is to cater to the modern mobile users’ requirements where more and more user-generated contents are catered towards the vertical display, especially social media contents. TikTok and Instagram are just a few examples where users are spending most of their time on. That said, users will need to cast their phone display to The Sero in order to broadcast the content on it.

If you’re currently using a Samsung device with Smart Things preloaded, you can enable the Tap View feature to grant easy mirroring function on your device. Simply tap the device to the side of the TV and it will prompt a confirmation notice on your device to start the screen mirroring process. From here onwards, whatever you do on the phone will be shown on The Sero, which means TikTok never look so HD before and having YouTube maximised means the display will auto-rotate to horizontal mode.

Of course, you can also use the standard screen mirror function on other Android devices, however, you won’t be able to enjoy the auto-rotate function that is exclusive with Smart Things.

Now, things might seem fine and dandy at this juncture but when I dive deeper into the TV. Well, the operating system that runs natively on The Sero is still the standard TizenOS found on other Samsung smart TVs. Now, don’t get me wrong because TizenOS is a pretty good OS especially with all the developers support out there. My major complaint about The Sero is its integration with the apps since the developers never expected the existence of a vertical TV. In other words, all of the available apps ONLY works in horizontal mode. I was hoping Samsung would at least work with either Instagram or TikTok to bring TV version app to the store at least you can run a native vertical app on it without relying on screen mirroring.

Conclusion

All in all, Samsung The Sero 4K QLED TV is a pleasant surprise we never really expect from a TV manufacturer. We know vertical digital signage TV is not new but we never expected Samsung to do something so special trying to capture the attention of the millennials who started to grow even more attached to their phone. Having a big vertical screen like this at home means users can continue to consume their favourite modern content on a big screen without having to stare at the phone all the time. Then again, at the official price tag of RM6,999, it is a difficult pill to swallow for boomers and utilitarian users. That said, I would still foresee The Sero would gain a lot of consumers’ attention especially those who wanted something that could showcase their personal taste through their home furnishing choices.