Salamander Designs Berlin C/BL221/WE 46"

It's a breathtakingly expensive wooden box that our benchmarks hilariously scored worse than most TVs. Get it if your aesthetic demands £2,500 furniture; otherwise, it's a monumentally overpriced stand.

The real surprise was just how little this cabinet does for its size and price. It weighs 134 pounds unloaded, so 'portable' scored a 9.7 out of 100, which means if you need to move it, you'll need a friend and a chiropractor on speed dial. Cable management is tidy and well-thought-out, and the adjustable shelves make squishing in an AV receiver less of a battle than it could be. But our benchmarks accidentally exposed a truth: connectivity scored in the 5th percentile. There are zero HDMI ports, zero smart home integration, and it will never stream a single episode of anything. It's a box. A very, very expensive, beautifully made box.

Skip the TV-shaped competitors completely. The actual rivals here are other high-end AV furniture, like BDI's Corridor series or Salamander's own Synergy line. BDI gives you similarly stunning materials and better shelf adjustability, often for slightly less. And honestly, a wall mount costs fifty bucks and makes your TV float. If you're committed to a statement cabinet, this one is handsome, but you're paying a massive premium for the Chameleon finish and the brand name. Meanwhile, the TV market has moved on without it. The current top five includes the LG C5 OLED55C5PUA, Sony BRAVIA XR XR77A95L, Samsung Neo QLED QN75QN990FFXZA, Hisense U8 Series 100U8QG, and TCL QM8K Series 75QM8K. Every single one of those is bigger than 50 inches, which means the Berlin 221 can't even hold the screens people actually want right now.

Worth it? For about 98% of humans, no. The price bounces between $2,299 and $3,185 across vendors, so that $886 spread means you absolutely must shop around if you're set on it. For the same money you could buy a gorgeous 55-inch OLED, a sturdy $200 stand, and still have enough left over for a really nice dinner. The Berlin 221 is a luxury furniture piece first and a TV stand second, and unless your budget has comma problems, it's terrible value.

This thing is not a TV. Let's get that out of the way immediately. The Salamander Designs Berlin 221 is a 61kg, textured Wenge wood cabinet built to hold a display up to 50 inches, and our testing database had a full meltdown trying to benchmark it. It gave it a 36th percentile for picture quality and a 13th percentile for HDR, which is objectively hilarious for a piece of furniture. What you need to know: it's extravagantly built, immaculately finished, and costs more than most of the TVs it'll ever house. If your living room has a name and a dedicated interior designer, keep reading. If not, you can stop now.

If you're looking for anything remotely budget-friendly, portable, or smart, this isn't it. Go get a $100 Best Buy special and use the savings to buy the actual TV. This cabinet is strictly for those who view AV furniture as an art installation.

Buy the Berlin 221 only if you have more money than sense of gravity and need a museum-grade plinth for a sub-50-inch TV. It's impeccably made, but it's a throne for a screen that'll likely be obsolete before the cabinet ever looks worn. For everyone else, walk away and put those thousands toward a better display or, you know, almost anything else.