
(Image credit: Future)
When Amazon announced the Ember Artline, its first foray into the extremely on-trend world of art TVs, it fairly obviously looked like it was pushing the boat out. After all, while it's been making Fire TVs for a while now, most of them haven't had a specific USP other than generally good value to offer.
Now, though, it's brought the Ember Artline out in the UK and EU, a little while after it arrived in the US, and the TV's arrival also ushers in a bit of a new branding era. All of its actual TVs are no longer Fire TVs – they're Ember TVs, with the Fire TV OS pre-loaded on them. That should make things a little simpler for people to understand, and being able to write "Ember Artline" without worrying about the "Fire TV" bit certainly is a small relief.
The Artline makes no secret of its aim, and basically takes one of Amazon's existing top-range QLED displays and then sticks a non-reflective matte coating on the screen, as well as a thinner body and cleverly recessed mounting system to allow you to get it really flat against a wall.
That sets it up to fulfil its primary purpose – looking like a matte painting when you're not using it as a TV. Whether you pick up the 55-inch version for £950 or the 65-inch one for £1,200, you'll get two extras in the package when you order it. The first is that low-profile mounting kit, which is nice to see, and the other is your choice of magnetic "frame" for the TV.
These are super simple to install, too, since they literally just click magnetically onto each edge of the TV to make it look like it has a perfectly-fitting frame. There are a couple of wood-like finishes, then a bunch of colours to choose from, and that should make matching it to your room of choice fairly doable.
Having seen the TVs in person a couple of times now, I've been impressed by their design, especially those magnetic frames. It'll remain to be seen how they stack up to other TVs in the same price bracket, though, with the comparison to OLED sets being particularly interesting. The fact that Dolby Vision and HDR10+ are both present and correct, though, is a great sign.
The TVs are available to order from today in the UK, so you can get your hands on them immediately if you like the cut of their jib. For those simply looking for a new Fire TV stick, though, Amazon has smaller news on that front, too.
It has a new version of its entry-level Fire TV Stick HD – and for £40 you'll get a great 1080p experience that should be around 30% faster than the last-generation stick in terms of operating speeds. It's also slimmer to more easily fit behind your TV without making it hard to arrange your HDMI ports, which is always nice.
Perhaps the biggest upgrade is the addition of passthrough power through a USB cable, though, letting you get power from your TV instead of needing to plug another wall socket in.
