Samsung The Terrace TV initial review: Great viewing in the great outdoors

Samsung is one of the biggest names in TV. While most will be familiar with its conventional range, it has a second range, which it calls "lifestyle".

You might think that every TV is about lifestyle, but once you've seen the offerings from Samsung in this category, things become a little clearer.

These lifestyle TVs are easy to spot, with names that because with "The" rather than a long complex set of numbers and letters - The Sero, The Serif, The Frame.

We set eyes on The Terrace, to see what Samsung's outdoor TV offers.

Design and build

• 55, 65 and 75 inch sizes
• IP55 rating
• VESA mount and soundbar mounts

To look at, The Terrace might just look like a slightly thicker television than Samsung's other sets. That is indeed true, it is thicker, but one reason for this is that The Terrace has been designed for installation outside.

That might seem like a slightly strange proposition in a wet and windy UK or northern Europe, but Samsung believes there is a market for such TVs, with three sizes available 55, 65 and a big 75-inch.

While that might seem perfectly placed on a Californian or Mediterranean terrace, there are some customers who want to have a TV outdoors, to expand the offering of their outdoor seating area, ideal for watching summer sports or entertaining.

Protection from the weather is of course a factor and The Terrace does come with a cover to protect the TV and a soundbar (if you've attached one) so you can keep the weather away from it when you're not using it. It's designed to be installed and left outside all the time.

The TV itself has an IP55 rating. This is unusual for a television, but IP ratings are familiar from headphones and mobile devices these days, so you'll know that IP55 means it doesn't matter if it rains on your TV and the wind won't blow dust into it.

Samsung also says that this device is designed to operate between -30 and 50C (-22 - 122F).

From a design point of view there's a Gore-Tex seal, while a panel on the back covers all the connections. That not only means it looks nice and tidy, but keeps the water out too.

There's a full selection of connections on the rear, including 3x HDMI and USB, also supporting optical and eARC - so it's fully loaded.

Of course, you will need a power supply for this TV, so it's advisable that you have it installed by someone qualified to ensure you have water protection there too; whether you have lots of connected devices, or just use Samsung's smart platform to stream content on this TV is up to you.

There's a standard VESA mount on the rear, so you can choose how you install it, while the TV itself has mounting points so you can hang a soundbar off it too, with a three-channel Terrace soundbar designed to match.

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Naturally, the remote control is also waterproof, while the cover includes a pocket to put the  remote in.

Features and performance

• 2000 nit peak brightness
• Anti-reflection display
• Streaming apps
• AirPlay 2, Alexa, Google Assistant

Aside from dealing with the weather, the other obstacle that The Terrace needs to overcome is the sun. We encountered The Terrace on a rooftop veranda, with a small shade above it: we imagine that most people will install it in a location with some overhead cover, but still dealing with reflections if going to be a factor.

To cut through reflections, this is a 2000 nit QLED panel. It has a full array illumination, so that's coming from directly behind the panel, but note that this is 4K QLED rather than the newer Neo QLED that you'll find on Samsung's latest "indoor" TVs.

The TV has an anti-reflection screen on it, designed to cut out the glare that you might get when the sun is shining bright.

We were fortunate to have some strong sunshine during our viewing and some reflections will still appear on the screen. To a certain extent, the absolute performance of the TV may well be governed by where it is installed, the direction the sun falls on that area and what furniture or other surfaces you have in the area, because that's what will potentially be reflected in the screen.

Generally speaking this isn't designed to be a TV that you'll use for your ultimate home cinema setup and from what we saw, it can deal with the worst of the reflections so you enjoy that outdoor entertainment whatever the weather.

We were mostly watching Samsung sample content - so it's designed to look good - but even looking at the menus and other on-screen navigation had that crisp and rich appearance that you expect from a Samsung TV.

The TV has a 20W sound system built in, but it's designed to be used with the Terrace Soundbar, a three-channel bar that will hang underneath and give you a much more solid performance. We had a small blast on that soundbar, which will deliver the volume and give you a richer audio experience - but hopefully, your neighbours won't be sitting too close.

Back to the TV itself and this is fully equipped with Samsung's smart features, so not only does it have a tuner (if you're planning to hook it up for terrestrial TV), but it can use its native apps to stream the major services - while allowing a connection to your phone to stream from that too.

It supports Samsung SmartThings and Apple AirPlay 2, it has Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, it works with Google Assistant and Alexa too, it's the full package.

Naturally, in the setting we saw The Terrace, we didn't have the chance to fully assess the performance of the TV, but if you're looking at an outdoor installation your choices are rather more limited than if you are looking at in indoor TV.

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