«What on Earth is that?» «Oh my…» «That’s insane.» These are however a handful of real recorded reactions from family and friends coming into my workplace and seeing the Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 for the primary time.
A curved, attention-sucking 57in monolith with an ultrawide 32:9 facet ratio and a pixel-packed 7680 × 2160 Mini LED show, it is a display not like another. At $2,499/£2,200, it is also an object of pure luxurious, designed to dominate your imaginative and prescient whereas offering an unmatched expertise of immersion whereas gaming and dealing.
Naturally, given its dimensions, worth, and common general ranges of lunacy, this isn’t an off-the-cuff buy. However, rammed with the newest and biggest tech, it does look set to be absolutely the pinnacle of gaming monitors for the foreseeable future, overshadowing even its mighty Samsung Odyssey OLED G9 sibling. However is it actually well worth the astronomical asking worth?
Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 57″
Editor’s Selection
Completely bonkers because of its dimension, specs, and worth, that is the equal of shopping for a supercar to tear up the observe with out a care on the earth. Should you’re an fanatic with deep pockets, put together to be blown away.
- Big display for immersive gaming
- Unimaginable for productiveness
- Eye-searingly vivid
- Very good blacks for a non-OLED
- Quick refresh price and future-proof connectivity
- Very costly
- Will get noticeably sizzling throughout use
- Takes up a critical quantity of house
Design
- Dimensions (with stand): 1327.5 x 601 x 499.6mm
- Weight (with stand): 19kg
- Gigantic, simple to assemble
The Grand Canyon. Large Sequoia timber. The Octuple Bypass burger at Vegas’ Coronary heart Assault Grill. Everyone knows they’re big, however no image or video can do them justice. And the identical goes for the Odyssey Neo G9 on this 57-inch display dimension. Should you’re wanting on the image above and pondering, «gee, that’s an enormous monitor», then consider me after I say that no image can precisely convey simply how giant this factor is within the flesh.
For some tough context, it is equal to having two 30in 4K screens immediately subsequent to one another, with, after all, no pesky central bezel to break your immersion. Due to its Mini LED nature, it’s additionally noticeably thicker and heavier than, say, the 49in Odyssey OLED G9 which, at 9kg, is half as heavy as its 57in titan-like relative.
The Odyssey Neo G9 is so giant, the truth is, that merely carrying it upstairs, assembling it, and putting it on my desk was a real ordeal. By the point I used to be performed, my again was hurting (which, in equity, is dodgy at the very best of instances), and I used to be already dreading having to disassemble and pack it again up for assortment on the finish of the overview interval. At the least most individuals gained’t have to fret concerning the latter — should you’re the soon-to-be proud proprietor of a monitor of this calibre, it ought to serve you nicely for a few years to come back. Simply get a mate spherical that will help you with the heavy lifting.
Regardless of the herculean effort it took to truly shift the stand and monitor’s mixed 19kg weight, the precise meeting of the Odyssey Neo G9 was a doddle. Merely clip within the stand, tighten 4 screws, slide within the v-shaped base, tighten a pair extra screws, and it is performed – so long as you have bought somebody that will help you carry it up, you are good to go.
As soon as in situ, it is a sight to behold, virtually drawing you in with its personal gravitational discipline. With a vertical size of round 140cm, it barely suits on my common workplace desk, with the v-shaped stand encroaching fairly a bit into the dear keyboard and mouse territory. For sure, you may need to ensure you’re rocking a considerably giant desktop set as much as home this all-encompassing beast, or mount it to the wall for essentially the most space-saving expertise.
Sheer dimension apart, the Odyssey Neo G9’s 1000R curve additional provides to its unapologetic vastness. However, as with Samsung’s different curved gaming screens, this bend is important to assist guarantee that you may extra simply see the perimeters.
Elsewhere, the design is every little thing you’d anticipate from a top-tier Samsung gaming monitor, with the identical white shiny plastic rear and LED Core Lighting so as to add a touch of basic Gamer Aesthetic with out going utterly overboard.
Options, sound, and connectivity
- DisplayPort 2.1
- 3 x HDMI 2.1, 2 x USB 3.0, 1 x 3.5mm headphone jack
- No audio system
- Rear LEDs for atmosphere
In contrast to a few of Samsung’s different high-end screens (and regardless of its huge asking worth), the Odyssey Neo G9 would not have the brains of Samsung’s Tizen OS encased inside it. Which means no apps like Netflix, no stay TV, no Gaming Hub streaming, and no distant. With nothing however a regular onscreen show (OSD) and rear joystick management to tweak the settings, it is a pure monitor, by way of and thru.
Now, one may confidently argue that the omission of all these additional options on some of the costly gaming screens on the earth is fairly unfair. However should you occur to frequent the assorted corners of the web the place PC players and monitor fanatics talk about issues like «subpixel layouts» and «scanlines», you may rapidly uncover that almost all of customers spending this form of cash on a monitor need the purest expertise attainable, with no pointless bloatware.
The identical argument could possibly be made for the shortage of built-in audio system. Once more, the vast majority of PC players would not be caught useless utilizing their monitor’s built-in audio system, opting to make use of headphones or devoted audio system as an alternative. Whether or not or not these omissions are an enormous deal, is as much as you, however anybody with the Odyssey Neo G9 on their shortlist ought to, on the very least, be planning on a high quality devoted sound answer to do it justice.
Extras apart, it is time to dive into the ports. There is a beneficiant choice of them, consisting of a 3.5mm headphone jack, three HDMI 2.1 ports, a twin USB 3.0 hub, and the star of the present, a single DisplayPort 2.1 providing.
The latter stands out, because it makes the Odyssey Neo G9 one of many first, if not the first monitor on the earth to launch the newest model of the DisplayPort normal. With out diving too deep into the bottomless pit of port requirements, the principle benefit of DisplayPort 2.1 is that it virtually doubles the utmost refresh price obtainable.
DisplayPort 1.4, for instance, enables you to attain a max of 480Hz, 240Hz, and 60Hz at 1440p, 4K and 8K resolutions, respectively. The brand new 2.1 normal nonetheless, bumps these numbers up considerably, to 900Hz, 480Hz, and 165Hz. Now, even essentially the most highly effective graphics playing cards from AMD and Nvidia, aren’t really able to operating AAA titles at these decision/refresh price combos, however upcoming GPUS over the subsequent few years will.
Naturally, this appears like an enormous win for the Odyssey Neo G9, however there is a catch — it has a most refresh price of 240Hz which, at first look, seems to make the newer port format redundant. However should you enable your self to dive into the depths of DisplayPort requirements, you’ll discover that 2.1 helps thrice the bandwidth of 1.4 (80Gbps vs 32Gbps). This additional bandwidth signifies that screens with DisplayPort 2.1 (coupled with GPUs which are highly effective sufficient to do them justice), can attain 4K 240Hz with out show stream compression. Or, to present it its extra technical title, chroma subsampling.
In different phrases, the Odyssey Neo G9 will allow you to get pleasure from full, uncompressed colors, for essentially the most correct expertise attainable. Now, whether or not or not you may really discover a distinction is up for debate, and in the true world, you greater than seemingly will not, until you are critically scrutinising one thing like small textual content on a colored background. However hey – a minimum of you are getting the newest tech in your top-of-the-line monitor, which can assist the very best graphics playing cards for years to come back.
Display and efficiency
- Jaw-dropping immersion
- Very good brightness and HDR efficiency
- Will get highly regarded
So what’s it like really utilizing a 57in Mini LED monster as your most important monitor? In a phrase – immersive. The sheer expanse of display, coupled with the aggressive curvature, signifies that your complete world could be very a lot dominated by it throughout use. And that is with out even mentioning the unbelievable 7680 x 2160 decision which, whereas not true 8K because of the decrease quantity of vertical pixels, nonetheless supplies an impressively sharp end result for a show of this dimension.
Gaming is, briefly, a beautiful expertise, particularly in titles that lend themselves to a primary particular person view. From racing round in Forza to flying over rolling hills in Flight Simulator, there’s an virtually VR-like stage of depth, brute-forced into your eyes by the sheer dimension of the show. It is actually fairly magical, and may even provide you with a aggressive edge in shooters like Apex and Halo, as you are handled to a a lot wider discipline of view, letting you see flanking enemies earlier.
The draw back to this all, is the truth that should you’re sat fairly shut, you may actually have to maneuver your neck to view the corners and ends of the display. This is not an issue in one thing like Flight Simulator, however in a fast-paced first particular person shooter, you do not need to waste valuable seconds turning to verify in your ammo or your radar. Fortunately, some video games like Halo Infinite allow you to tweak the place of the onscreen HUD, letting you progress them extra in the direction of the centre for simple viewing. In others although, you would possibly wrestle, until you sit additional away from the display or obtain a mod.
Productiveness by the best way, is as superb as you’d anticipate on a monitor this dimension, and having the ability to ditch the faff of a number of screens throughout testing was a really welcome expertise. The flexibility to have a number of home windows open without delay with out having to alt-tab between them is a robust productiveness enhance, though I did discover myself with a little bit of a sore neck from craning to see the far edges of the display. Nonetheless, a small worth to pay for Large Display Ascension.
On the media entrance, it will come as no shock to be taught that there is hardly any content material obtainable past a number of YoutTube trailers and drone footage that may refill the huge 32:9 ratio show that the Neo G9 provides. That signifies that something you are prone to watch may have giant black areas both facet of the content material. It is to be anticipated and is one thing that any ultrawide proprietor has to get used to, and the additional flexibility to have content material side-by-side is definitely a profit.
As for the fantastic 240Hz refresh price, I may solely obtain it in lighter video games like Rocket League (the place the efficiency and on-screen motion at 240Hz was buttery clean). Regardless of testing with AMD’s mighty 7900XT (which has the newest DisplayPort 2.1), all of my different extra demanding video games like Halo Infinite, Hogwarts Legacy, Cyberpunk 2077, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and extra, failed to achieve even near 240fps in max settings.
From previous testing on lower-resolution screens, I do know that even Nvidia’s mighty RTX 4090 cannot attain 240fps in increased settings both. Come the subsequent technology or two of graphics playing cards although, and you will virtually actually be capable to make full use of the Neo G9’s most refresh price, making it a prime contender for followers of future-proofing.
Specs apart, I will even be the primary to confess that by 35-year-old eyes can’t decide any cheap distinction between 120 and 240Hz both, so relaxation assured that you just gained’t be disillusioned throughout the anticipate much more highly effective playing cards.
Onto the brightness. Able to reaching 1,000 nits, the Mini LED nature of the show signifies that it is able to eye-searing brightness. In comparison with an OLED monitor just like the OLED G9, the distinction in brightness is, virtually actually, night time and day. I attempted utilizing the Neo G9 on max brightness settings initially, however quickly turned it down to avoid wasting my eyes from being strained. The truth that there’s a lot extra brightness within the tank ought to I would like it although, could be very reassuring.
On the flip facet, darkish areas are dealt with by 2,392 native dimming zones, mixed with the best 12-bit black ranges. Working collectively to dim darker areas with extra precision to scale back issues like vivid halos round mouse cursors on darkish backgrounds (or simply to enhance the distinction and expertise usually), dimming zones are one of many most important methods for non-OLED screens to enhance their black ranges.
Samsung’s efforts haven’t gone to waste right here both, because the blacks on the Neo G9 are critically spectacular. I put it by way of its paces with an onslaught of OLED TV demos, and in isolation, the black ranges get impressively near true-black. The advantages of this distinction is reaped in gaming as nicely, particularly should you’re sneaking round in darkish environments and do not need to miss out on any of the main points.
Now, utilizing an OLED show instantly after utilizing the Neo G9 made it clear that even that variety of dimming zones will not work miracles — and you will discover blacks wash out should you view them from the facet (not that you’d place your self that approach in actuality, thoughts).
So sure, OLED will stay king of distinction and black ranges till the holy grail of Micro LED rolls round to avoid wasting the day. However with out an OLED display to instantly examine it to, you’ll not be disillusioned in what the Neo G9 provides on the distinction entrance. It is a large win, too, as a result of the Neo G9 has managed to serve up spectacular black ranges and better-than-OLED brightness, with out the concern of OLED burn-in hanging over it.
Now, I am a very paranoid tech consumer, so the OLED screens that I do have in my home trigger me no finish of stress after I’m utilizing them as a PC monitor. Regardless of understanding that there are preventative measures like Pixel Shift in place to keep away from burn-in, I nonetheless often swap to a clean display, cover the taskbar, and transfer home windows round to scale back the dangers of burn-in. To have the ability to use the Neo G9 freely with none of that nonsense, is liberating, to say the least.
There is only one problem although. The Neo G9 will get extremely sizzling throughout use. After a number of hours on a heat day, my workplace felt like a sauna in comparison with the remainder of the home. Granted, a gaming PC churns out lots of warmth throughout intensive duties like gaming which actually doesn’t assist, however I’ve by no means skilled this stage earlier than. You possibly can virtually really feel the warmth radiate off the display should you’re too shut, which I suppose is a boon for the winter months. It’s not a dealbreaker by any means, however nonetheless one thing to remember should you run sizzling.
Verdict
There isn’t any dancing round the truth that $2,499/£2,199 is a staggering sum of money for a monitor. For most individuals, in these instances, it is a right away barrier to entry, and one which’s unlikely to change into extra accessible any time quickly.
However in the identical approach it is pointless lamenting the value of the newest Lamborghini, it is simpler to simply sit again from the sidelines of the true world and admire a product that is as extravagant and bonkers, as it’s impressively highly effective.
No different product on the time of writing will give you the expertise that the Neo G9 is able to delivering. It is not even shut. Its spec-shattering dimension, decision, brightness, refresh price, and curve, make it a novel providing for essentially the most elite of fanatics to get pleasure from. For the remainder of us, it is an object to covet, to put on the post-lottery buying record. Should you do end up fortunate sufficient to expertise it in your (hopefully huge) desk although, then have enjoyable. It is a wild trip.
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