Samsung The Frame Pro vs Dreame S100

Samsung The Frame Pro is one of the relatively bright televisions. In synthetic tests, we managed to achieve values around 900 nits, which is quite a respectable result for a lifestyle model. In full-screen scenes, such as the board from the film The Meg or the initial sequence in Life of Pi, brightness maintained a level of 700–800 nits. These values allow you to fully enjoy the HDR effects and convey their cinematic magic. However, the situation becomes complicated when smaller, point light sources appear on the screen. The edge lighting used here, equipped with the ability to locally dim entire strips, does not manage these well. Sometimes, small elements are overly dimmed, which weakens the effect, or conversely – they are significantly brightened, but at the cost of losing the depth of black in that part of the image. This can be compared to light beams reminiscent of a laser beam spreading in dense fog – the effect is noticeable and bright, yet at the same time, it is quite unnatural and distracting. Fortunately, the colour aspect performs better. Thanks to the use of a quantum dot filter (QLED), colours are saturated, and the reproduction of the DCI-P3 palette exceeds 92%. Generally, films or series watched in HDR on The Frame Pro showcase a rich colour palette, even if contrast and the functioning of the dimming algorithms can sometimes distract us.

The Dreame S100 is a relatively bright television. In movie mode, the brightness we measured reached around 600 nits. This is a really good result, although not the highest when considering the competition at this price point. In fullscreen scenes, it is evident that the television can produce an image that impresses with its brightness. Unfortunately, when more complex scenes appeared on the screen, the local dimming algorithm in this model primarily focused on maintaining the deepest blacks. However, this came at the expense of HDR performance – and in a drastic manner. In such scenes, the brightness of bright elements dropped below 100 nits, which is a frankly tragic result, far from any HDR effect. One can improve this aspect, but not without a "however." It is simply necessary to change the local dimming setting in the television's menu, but then the blacks in such scenes simply become grey. It's a pity that Dreame couldn't better refine the local dimming algorithms, and the S100 is another example that the sheer number of local dimming zones does not always translate to a better image. As a consolation, it is worth adding that the Dreame S100 is advertised as a "QLED" type television, although in reality it uses a PFS LED filter. As a result, the colours are appropriately saturated, and the colour gamut coverage of DCI-P3 we measured exceeded 94%.

We achieved the best results, of course, in Filmmaker mode, which immediately showed that Samsung had put effort into the factory settings. In SDR content – the type most commonly viewed – The Frame Pro performed really well. The white balance and gamma were almost perfectly matched, giving the image a natural and cohesive appearance. Admittedly, there were some noticeable errors, particularly in skin tones and reds, which could be overly saturated, giving everything a slightly "warmed-up" character, but this didn’t significantly detract from the viewing experience in everyday use. For HDR content, the situation was similar regarding the white balance. This was at a good level; however, the biggest issue turned out to be brightness management. The EOTF curve was set in such a way that in many scenes, the image appeared blown out, with the brightest areas losing detail and turning into uniform patches of light. This severely undermined realism and caused the colours to appear overly sharpened. Fortunately, Samsung provides the option for manual adjustment of the curve in their televisions, so we opted for calibration, and its results can be seen below.

We tested the Dreame S100 in 'movie' mode and we definitely recommend using this setting for watching all types of content. Interestingly, within the deeper settings of the television, we also find a dedicated 'Filmmaker' mode, which is now available from almost every manufacturer. However, in the case of the Dreame S100, we do not recommend using it – it blocks all settings related to the picture and does not allow for any configuration in the menu - even motion smoothing. So, how do the factory colours of the S100 fare? Not too badly, but also not the best. The television itself was quite heavily tinted with blue components, which is clearly visible in our white balance measurements. This made the picture artificially brightened, and the colours had a slight bluish tint. This is confirmed by the Color Checker palette, which showed how the colour samples tend to drift towards blue, generating quite significant colour errors. The picture in HDR mode looked definitely better, where the colour errors were not as prominent, although they still fell far from perfection. Here, the white balance was also shifted too much towards blue, causing considerable errors in colour reproduction.

After calibration, the SDR mode looks absolutely perfect. We managed to eliminate the overly strong red saturation, which previously gave the image a somewhat excessively warm character. Colours have become more balanced, which resulted in a natural and pleasant reception of everyday content – from television to films and series from streaming or materials on YouTube. In HDR mode, the most work was required on the EOTF curve, which factory settings caused excessive brightening of the entire image. Calibration allowed us to largely "tame" this problem – the image stopped being overexposed, and details in bright areas became more visible. Of course, the limitations are set by the design of the television itself, as edge lighting reveals its constraints, and the smallest elements of light can still be overblown or blend into the background. However, this is a matter of technology, not just calibration. After the correction, The Frame Pro is significantly more enjoyable to watch, and it is certainly worth considering if you want to maximise the television's capabilities.

The Dreame S100 has proven to be a device very amenable to professional calibration. In its menu, we found a plethora of advanced options that allowed us to effectively correct factory errors. Thanks to advanced white balance correction – both in SDR and HDR content – we completely eliminated the excess blue components. The image immediately became much more natural and pleasant to the eye. After fully tuning the colours, the errors in the Color Checker test dropped below Delta E values of 2-3. For the average viewer, this means that any colour distortions have become nearly impossible to perceive with the naked eye. This is truly a pleasant surprise, as new brands in the television market often encounter significant issues with the correct implementation and functioning of sliders in the calibration menu. Here, everything worked as it should. The only thing we must criticise is the way the television manages its brightness in HDR. Due to the specific nature of the local dimming algorithms, anomalies can be seen on the EOTF curve we measured. Where high highlights should appear, there is a slight boosting of the curve above the reference line. In practice, this causes an unnatural brightening of some of the brightest elements in films or games. Despite this minor flaw, professional calibration brings about a huge, very positive change in this model.

Although the fluidity of tonal transitions in 4K HDR materials on The Frame Pro is not a problem at all, naturally, with a weaker signal - television, HD materials, or older Full HD films - imperfections may arise. Therefore, it is crucial how the television copes with these limitations thanks to its image processor. The noise reduction function works really effectively here. At the medium setting, it eliminates unwanted bands or artefacts, smoothing the image in a noticeable yet not excessive way. However, it's worth noting that Samsung tends to be aggressive in its approach - even at the lowest level of this function, it can "consume" film grain. So it's advisable to use it judiciously and adjust the settings to the material being viewed.

The upscaling itself is at a high level. The Frame Pro can effectively enhance older materials to a native 4K resolution while maintaining good sharpness and readability. Films and series in lower quality simply look better here. However, it should be mentioned that there is a minor drawback - typical for many Samsung televisions. With very old sources of poor quality, you may notice clipping of the image edges on the left side of the screen. It's not a problem that will ruin the viewing experience, but it's worth knowing that it might occur.

For scaling and digital processing in the Dreame S100, the technology that the manufacturer proudly calls Dreamind™ Pro AI is responsible. However, it must be clearly stated that this is not a proprietary processor, but merely a marketing name for a chip made by MediaTek – more precisely, the MT5889 model. Unfortunately, we are talking about a rather outdated unit, from a time when MediaTek lagged significantly behind the competition in terms of performance. This unfortunately has a direct impact on the image as that is what this chip also deals with. The upscaling in the S100 is quite mediocre, and the processor has a tendency to heavily and artificially sharpen edges (fortunately, this can be somewhat tempered with the sharpness slider in the menu). In the options, we also find the "Contour Smoothing" feature, which theoretically is supposed to improve tonal transitions. In practice, it offers almost no improvement – setting it to any level rarely eliminates visible banding of colours, but it can unnecessarily blur elements of the image that should remain sharp.

A separate issue is the phenomenon of overscan (cropping the edges of the frame), which is noticeable here practically all the time. Although there is an option to set the screen to display the full frame in low-resolution materials, this requires activating the previously mentioned Filmmaker mode. And as you know, this mode completely blocks the adjustment of any other sliders in the picture menu. In our test tables, we marked that the television offers an option to disable overscan, as technically such a function exists in the system – however, in everyday use, when maintaining sensible image settings, you will not be able to take advantage of it.

The smoothness of motion in The Frame Pro is not only due to the matrix, which operates with a refresh rate of up to 144 Hz, but also the image processor and the smoothing system. It is thanks to this that we can adjust the way films or sports broadcasts are displayed to our own preferences. There are sliders for reducing blurring and reducing judder – the first function improves the sharpness of fast movements, while the second helps to soften the effect of a "jumping" image during camera pans. So, everyone can choose between a cinematic motion character and a smoother, more "television" style.

When it comes to motion fluidity, the Dreame S100 performs really well. It features a panel with a refresh rate of 144 Hz, although in reality, the vast majority of people using it in a traditional way will still be limited to 120 Hz (as this is the maximum supported by today's equipment apart from PCs). Thanks to the high refresh rate, the image in motion remains really sharp, largely thanks to the well-functioning MEMC smoother. In the menu, we find predefined modes that allow the television to efficiently generate artificial frames, which effectively improves the fluidity of dynamic sports scenes, but also eliminates image stuttering in film and series materials recorded at 24 frames.

Samsung The Frame Pro does not pretend to be just a “living room” television; here, gamers will also find something for themselves. The manufacturer has ensured a full range of gaming features: we have support for variable refresh rate (VRR), automatic low latency mode (ALLM), refresh rates up to 144 Hz, and compatibility with both G-Sync and FreeSync Premium Pro. Additionally, there is the well-known Game Bar panel, which is a quick menu where key parameters can be checked on the fly—from refresh rates to enabled image processing modes. Are there any downsides? Indeed, The Frame Pro does not support Dolby Vision in game mode, but this is hard to consider a serious issue—most gamers use HDR10 anyway... which means HGIG mode. Exactly. The biggest surprise turned out to be the latest software update. Samsung… completely removed this option from The Frame PRO. In practice, this means that the television independently interprets HDR tone mapping in games, and the user has no way to enable settings developed for consoles. This is a step backwards that may disappoint more knowledgeable gamers hoping for full compliance with HGiG guidelines. We can only hope that this issue will be resolved quickly.

An interesting feature of The Frame Pro is also the unusual arrangement of HDMI 2.1 ports. There are as many as five available—four are located in the One Connect box, and the fifth, in micro HDMI version, is directly on the television. This is quite an unusual solution, but rather practical. Samsung clearly suggests that this is the port to which you should connect your console or computer. Why? Because it minimises potential delays associated with communication through the wireless One Connect, and in the case of gaming, every millisecond matters. We have written separately about input lag, but it can already be revealed here that by connecting equipment directly to the television, we achieve the absolute maximum in response speed.

The Dreame S100 seems almost like the perfect screen for a gamer. The television is equipped with 2 HDMI 2.1 ports with a bandwidth of 40 Gbps, which means that functions like automatic game mode (ALLM) and variable refresh rate (VRR) ranging from 48 to 144 Hz work seamlessly on consoles. It also features a well-designed gaming panel (Game Bar), allowing users to continuously monitor important parameters—from active picture modes to the number of frames rendered by the console, and even the option to add a crosshair in the middle of the screen. All of this looks great on paper; however, the biggest problem with the S100 is the implementation of HDR mode in games. The television does not have the HGiG format implemented correctly. As a result, an unsuspecting user may incorrectly configure the console when first using the screen. Poor configuration can lead to an image that is too dark or too washed out (as a guideline: we suggest setting the brightness in the Xbox console menu to around 600 nits, and in the PS5 to 12 clicks). The Dolby Vision format also proves problematic, as it often would not activate at all between the XBOX and Dreame S100. And when it was finally managed to be activated, playing was not possible due to a very high input lag often exceeding 100ms. If the manufacturer can improve the HDR issue in games via an update, the S100 will be truly excellent hardware for gamers. For now, however, compromises need to be accepted.