Google TV in your backyard

When I’m trying to watch movies and shows with friends during the summertime, I’ve always wanted a way to watch any of my favorite content outdoors without worrying about whether my TV will be bright enough, even in the shade, or safe to bring outside my doorstep.

There are a handful of outdoor TVs on the market, but some offer less-than-ideal protection against the elements and can’t deliver the same impressive picture as an indoor equivalent. The Sylvox Frameless Pro Series is out to change all that, with a rugged, well-tested build and an almost edge-to-edge screen design. Can it surpass my expectations, rain or shine? Let’s find out.

I managed to get my hands on the 55-inch version of Sylvox’s 2026 Frameless Pro Series ($2999 at Amazon), and I mean both hands — it’s a hefty unit and built like a tank. Its all-metal housing makes this unit heavy but incredibly durable, with an IP56 dust- and water-resistant rating, meaning the TV will work in any weather conditions, whether in the sandy deserts of California or in torrential downpours in Florida. The TV isn’t rated to operate in very cold winter temperatures as it’s rated down to -22°F, but it can handle hot, sweltering summers up to 122°F. Sylvox also claims it can work seven days a week for up to 16 hours a day, which is good to know, but I personally wouldn’t keep it on 24/7, as it could lead to panel degradation over time.

One thing that likely allows the TV to handle many of the weather conditions it could face is its active cooling fans. Unfortunately, this is where the TV falls short: the cooling fans will always spin when it’s powered on, and it’s not very quiet. Even when the TV is in standby mode, the fans occasionally kick in every few minutes to cool everything down. This is likely so it can be installed outdoors in any ambient temperature, but it seems to do so even in cooler, more controlled environments like mine. Even if you have it out on your patio, the fan noise is audibly annoying. Nevertheless, this TV is truly meant for outdoor use, so don’t expect it to be the main TV in your living room.

The TV remote also feels pretty sturdy and has an IP66 rating, so it’s dust-tight and can handle heavy rain with no problem. That being said, the design of the remote is a bit bulky since it’s made to be used with cable TV for switching channels and even for teletexts using the multi-function colored buttons — but let’s be honest, not many people use that nowadays. I do wish the remote were a bit smaller and more responsive, too. I found that controlling the TV was sometimes laggy, from pressing a button on the remote to when a menu would appear or when I tried to confirm a selection. It’s not significant, but it is a bit sluggish at times.

I also got to test the Sylvox Outdoor TV with the brand’s Rolling TV Cart, and the construction of the stand was also very durable and is all-metal, which is great to see and inspires confidence. Building it together also didn’t take too long, and the instructions were clear and easy to follow. Just expect to call a friend, partner, or family member to help you mount the TV, as it definitely is at least a two-person job. The Rolling TV Cart is an optional extra for those who can’t fit the TV to a surface, but with the frameless design, it’ll look better mounted if you have the wall space.

Starting the TV up for the first time and setting up Google TV was pretty easy, but for some reason, the date was set correctly while the time was not. I later found out that the wrong time setting on the TV causes an error when trying to download and install new apps. You may have to manually enter the time where you live to resolve this issue, and this is likely just a Google TV OS bug rather than a hardware issue with the TV, but it is something to keep in mind when setting it up for the first time.

How is the image, though? As I mentioned before, it’s pretty bright, which is perfect for viewing your favorite movies and shows outdoors without the sun overpowering your TV’s image. It also has a 4K resolution at up to 60Hz, and an impressive 95% screen-to-body ratio, which is very high for an outdoor TV.

Although its brightness is unfortunately also partially to its detriment, especially in the Standard picture mode. It seems that some highlights may clip and be blown out. Otherwise, the TV’s able to produce a somewhat contrasty and vibrantly saturated image despite its LED panel technology. I personally don’t love that the sharpness and noise reduction are turned on by default in the Standard picture mode, but at least there’s no motion smoothing, unlike many modern TVs that have it on by default.

On the note of the overall picture quality, though, how does the Sylvox 55-inch Frameless Pro Outdoor TV fare in our color accuracy tests? Well, unfortunately, this TV is not the most color-accurate TV out there by any means, but it definitely is fine for your outdoor event TVs and for having a display for the front of your local business, as well as for casual outdoor movie-watching with your buddies out on the patio with a couple of drinks.

In our testing, the Sylvox 55-inch Frameless Pro Outdoor TV scored an average ΔE76 (Delta E, or dE) of 8.47 in the Standard picture mode, which is far from color accurate. For reference, a ΔE of >1 means any color differences are imperceptible to the human eye, so in this picture mode, you’ll notice a lot of inaccuracies across most colors. As for our ΔE2000 value, we measured an average ΔE2000 of 4.05, which is far from perfect; you’d want this figure to be ≤ 1.5 to be considered perceptually accurate. That being said, this TV’s true color accuracy potential shines in Movie picture mode, where it delivered an average ΔE76 of 0.9 and an average ΔE2000 of 0.52. Both are excellent results, with the ΔE2000 score indicating near-reference, perceptually accurate color reproduction.

Sylvox has made some interesting choices in how the TV reproduces color through these picture modes. Standard picture mode is not as contrasty or as saturated as it should be, and Movie picture mode has slightly less contrast and saturation, even compared to the Standard picture mode, but at least the highlights weren’t clipping like they were in the Standard picture mode. Another thing that I would have loved to see in the Movie picture mode is for it to have locked the color space to DCI-P3, which the TV does support. I ended up making my own custom user preset that looks close to what the image should look like, and at least the TV’s picture settings allow for a handful of adjustments.

The Sylvox 55-inch Frameless Pro Outdoor TV has a handful of connection options, which make it easy to implement and use the TV for many situations. The TV has three HDMI in ports, one of which is an eARC HDMI port for connecting soundbars and external home theatre audio devices, as well as two USB-A ports, an Ethernet port, Coaxial Audio Out, a 3.5mm headphone out, and an Antenna In.

The TV also supports Google Cast and Apple AirPlay, which can be helpful when you just want to start streaming from your phone. One weird quirk I’ve found, however, is that sometimes the Wi-Fi connection gets lost, and even when I try to connect the TV to a Wi-Fi network with excellent signal strength, it still cannot connect to the internet. Otherwise, the TV’s connection options will work for most people trying to get up and running, watching their favorite content.

Built-in audio as a baseline, but do you need more?

The built-in audio quality of most TV speakers usually isn’t going to blow your socks off or rattle any windows, and unfortunately, the Sylvox 55-inch Frameless Pro Outdoor TV doesn’t either. The TV’s stereo 12 W speakers, in the Standard audio mode, lack any meaningful sub-bass and bass, with what sounds like a decent amount of treble overemphasis. This means that some sound effects and music sound shrill and a bit too bright. For example, in Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack “Can You Hear the Music” from Christopher Nolan’s film Interstellar, the pizzicato of the violins sometimes felt more pronounced and louder than it should be compared to other instruments.

Additionally, the speakers didn’t provide much instrument separation or spatial width, with many instruments in the lows and mids getting muddied in the mix, making them difficult to pick out individually. Again, taking “Can You Hear the Music” as an example, the low- to mid-register of the violins and violas gets drowned out by the synths occupying the mids. I also found that dialogue in films can sometimes be hard to hear in the mix due to a lack of spatial width. Moreover, the low synthesizer note near the beginning of the piece also doesn’t have the bass strength or bass depth, which diminishes the impact of that low note because of the lack of sub-bass and bass.

The Cinema audio mode does introduce a bit more bass than the Standard audio mode, but it lacks sufficient clarity in the mids and highs to make for an enjoyable listening experience.

As mentioned earlier, the constant fan noise will also continue to haunt you for any passages in your favorite music or moments in a film that are quiet. Not only that, but for people who will use this TV at or above volume level 38, you may hear the chassis vibrate on a track with stronger low-mid to midrange. For example, in Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack, “A Lowly Shoe Salesman,” from Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer, the combination of the double bass, cellos, and low synth notes sometimes hits the TV enclosure’s natural resonant frequency.

The built-in TV speakers are serviceable and are okay for casual moviegoers, but if you’re expecting the Dolby Atmos claim from Sylvox, then you may be a bit disappointed. Again, for businesses using this TV to play audio to accompany any visuals, it’s most likely going to be fine, but if you’re using this for personal use at home in your backyard patio, you may want to invest in a better sound system with a subwoofer that’ll still sound alright in an open-air environment.

If you’re looking for a TV that you can feel comfortable leaving in your backyard outdoor patio to watch a game with your buddies, or if you’re a business looking to have a TV to display information or advertisements for your store, then Sylvox’s 2026 Frameless Pro Series could be a great option for you.

However, if you’re a movie buff who wants to view their favorite films outdoors, then the color accuracy, highlights clipping, and simply okay sound quality over the constant whirring of the internal cooling fan may be a turn-off for you. This TV is not meant for critical listening or viewing, but it does unlock the ability to use a TV outdoors, which some people seek. It’s a great TV, but definitely not for everyone, and certainly not for every use case.