Would you like your television to look like a tastefully designed piece of furniture, rather than a hideous black slab of high-resolution escapism?
Samsung is bucking the trend of just racing toward bigger and better technical specs with Serif, a new framed boob tube that looks like it would more likely be sold at Sharper Image than Best Buy (assuming brick and mortar stores actually still exist anywhere).
French designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec created the product, Samsung's second such collaboration after hiring Yves Behar's firm Fuseproject to create a sleek, iMac-style (but curved) pedestal screen earlier this year.
Serif, which comes in white, dark blue and red, is more subtly surprising, though, with a "I" shape when viewed from the side. A back cover hides cables. Mostly, it's a stark reminder that pretty much all other TV sets look the same today—ugly, in a functional kind of way.
Samsung has yet to announce a price, but the piece will go on sale in Denmark, France, Sweden and the U.K. on Nov. 2. It's sure to find a market in the U.S., too, even if just among people who prefer to look at it while it's turned off—possibly with a cat on top.