Spotify comes to Samsung smart TVs

Owners of Samsung's astonishingly thin 2012 smart TVs will soon have another app to play with: Spotify. A deal has just been inked that will give Spotify Premium subscribers access to millions of streamed tracks and their playlists directly through the set. That means you'll need to pay a small monthly charge to Spotify get it to work -- in the UK that's £10 per month.

The app has a different interface to the one you may be used to from the desktop application, and has been designed to work with a TV remote. It's very similar to the one I use at home on my Virgin TiVo box -- take a look at the gallery above to see what it looks like.

That's straightforward enough to use for those familiar with Spotify, but it's incredibly slow to respond to button presses -- here's hoping the Samsung version will be significantly snappier when it arrives.

The app will work on E-series TVs that were released in 2012 to begin with, such as the ES8000 and ES9000, and will appear on as-yet unspecified Blu-ray players later on. Because those top of the range E-series TVs are so thin, one thing they aren't so good at is producing great sound, so you'll want to think about hooking up a decent set of speakers if you want top-notch sound quality.

The app will be available later this year in the UK, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Here in the UK, the Spotify app will join popular services such as the iPlayer, Netflix, LoveFilm and Skype.

Dan Saunders, director of content services for Samsung Electronics Europe had this to say about the deal in a press release: "Great music demands great sound quality. With the new Spotify app, people no longer need to fuss about connecting cables from their laptop or tablet to hi-fi equipment. Spotify for Samsung Smart TVs and home theatre systems brings Spotify's huge music library directly into your living room."

Have a click through the pictures above to see some screenshots of the Spotify app in action, and let me know if you're impressed or not in the comments below, or over on our jumping Facebook page.