What is Samsung TV Plus, and should you try it?

With the amount of different streaming and in-built apps out there at the moment, it can be difficult to keep track of them all. This is definitely the case with Samsung TV Plus, as the majority of people have no idea what it is, and what channels you actually get with it.

Fortunately, with a bit of research, you can find out exactly what Plus has to offer, and if it’s right for you. Let’s go through what this app has to offer and see if it’s worth installing, or uninstalling, on your television.

What is Samsung TV Plus?

When it comes to free TV channels, there’s usually no harm in checking them out. Unfortunately, the market is full of different apps to choose from, which makes things a little confusing, as you don’t want to sign up to a long term subscription service spending more money than you can afford.

Fortunately, Samsung TV Plus is a free video service that comes installed with all new Samsung TVs from 2016 onwards. This adds more than 50 extra channels to your television for no additional cost to you. It is also available on newer model of Samsung smartphones too.

Essentially, this is just Samsung venturing into the online streaming model that’s working so well for many of their competitors. Nowadays, pretty much everyone is looking for a smart TV to use instead of a standard model, as you get some much more variety to choose from.

They actually added quite a few new channels to the streaming service over the past few years, with a good variety of TV shows and other options on there too. Plus, one thing I do like is that you don’t need to enter any payment details to use it. So, no PayPal account or credit cards necessary here.

Whilst it isn’t the biggest and best service out there, it’s definitely worth checking out if you own a Samsung already. It was also announced at the end of 2020 that the Samsung TV Plus app would also be available in the Play store for some Samsung Galaxy users, so it could be worth checking out if you can download it.

Bear in mind that if you are using the mobile app, then you will need a good internet connection. As well as this, it will use up some of your data too, so make sure that you have enough if you’re using your phone, as streaming television content can eat up your data very quickly.

But what else is there to know about the app? Well, let’s look at the channels you can find on the service, as well as its longevity in the market.

How many channels are on Samsung TV Plus?

The amount of channels that you can watch will really depend on the country you’re located in. If you’re in the UK, then you’ll have the ability to watch 50+ different channels through TV Plus.

But if you’re in other countries, you might get a different amount (the US has more than 100 channels to watch, for example). What channels does it include? Well, it has an array of different channels like;

Movies – Dust, Filmstream, Movies Central.
News – CNN, Bloomberg TV+, Euronews.
Entertainment – All Drama, Big Name, Fail Army.
Sports – Absinthe films (snowboarding), Edgesport, FTF, MMA TV.
Kids – Toon Goggles, RIC TV, Pocket.Watch, Teletubbies.
Music – Qello Concerts, Stingray Karaoke.

This is just an example of the channels that you get with Samsung TV Plus. I know what you’re thinking – I’ve never heard of any of these channels. And whilst this is true, Samsung TV Plus do seem to be adding more and more services to their platform over time.

Recently, they’ve also partnered with both Rakuten TV and Pluto TV, which are also included within the TV Plus interface too. So, there will likely be more coming to it in the near future.

We know that the Bob the Builder & Friends channels are arriving in 2021, so there will definitely be some new channels for the kids to watch.

How long has Samsung TV Plus been around?

Actually, the service has been around since the end of 2015, but it was fully launched in 2016. It’s been talked about again recently because they’ve been adding more channels to the service, as before there was a very limited number of free channels for you to watch.

Samsung have said that TV Plus will be available on any smart TV purchased from 2016 onwards. So if you have a fairly new model, then you’ll have access to TV Plus on there to watch.

Is Samsung TV plus free?

The good thing about TV Plus is that it’s completely free, so you don’t really have anything to complain about! It’s some additional channels for your television, and although not everything on there is great to watch, there’s definitely some good stuff on there on occasion.

If you don’t like Samsung TV Plus, then it’s very easy to remove the channels from your television. You can simply delete the app on your smart TV, which will get rid of all the channels. However, you do need to delete all of the channels first; you can do this by opening the channel list, selecting the channels and deleting them.

The app is actually integrated into the Samsung TV, so you can always get the channels back if you need to. If you have a newer Samsung Galaxy (like the Galaxy S10) or Note (like the Note 10) mobile phone, then you’ll probably be able to find it on that device too.

Is Samsung TV Plus any good?

If we’re being honest, the selection choice on Samsung TV Plus doesn’t compare to other paid services out there like Netflix and the rest. Of course, there’s a lot of channels on here that you’d probably never watch, and some people might think that a lot of them are just filler.

However, it’s more than likely that over the next few years we’ll see a lot of different channels added to the service, as they make more and more deals with different streaming services.

So whilst it might not be the best thing in the world right now, in a few years it could be a reason to opt for a Samsung TV over another brand.

Also bear in mind that it doesn’t cost you any extra as it comes pre-installed on Samsung televisions, so there’s really nothing bad about it.

What to do if your Samsung TV Plus is not working

If you’re having problems with TV Plus, then you’re not alone. It’s a fairly young app and there are probably still some niggles with the design. When it’s not working, the best thing to do is to factory reset your TV and see if it fixes the issue – you can do this by going to Settings > General > Reset.

If this doesn’t work, then you can also try turning it off at the wall for ten minutes, which might also resolve the problem. This will allow your televisions memory to completely reset, and should allow you to access the streaming service.

When you’re using the app, then you can actually get in touch with Samsung via the 3-dot menu in the top right hand corner. Select Contact Us, and send Samsung your self-diagnosis so they can work out where things have gone wrong.

The final option is to give it a few days – sometimes, there might be an issue their side which should resolve itself over time.

Conclusion

Sometimes, you may not even know whether something is more like a Fire stick for streaming, a digital service like Freesat, or simply an app for your television. There are so many being released that even I find it pretty hard to keep up!

Quite simply, the Samsung TV Plus service is just an additional feature that you’re going to find in any new Samsung smart TV that you purchase over the next few years. Whilst it might not be the deciding factor for most people in purchasing a new smart TV, it’s still something worth thinking about.

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About Jess

Hello, I'm Jess and I take care of all of the imagery we use here at Spacehop. Although I'm not as tech savvy as some of the other here, I have worked in HR for several years, so you'll probably hear me imparting some of my wisdom here on occasion.

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