Samsung Odyssey G9 G95SC review – OLED done right

2024 is about to be the 12 months when the OLED gaming monitor actually takes off, with dozens of latest fashions having been introduced in comparison with only a handful of choices final 12 months. This Samsung Odyssey G9 G95SC is one of final 12 months’s fashions, however it’s nonetheless an astonishingly succesful show.

This 49-inch Samsung OLED panel drops straight onto our greatest gaming monitor record as the very best tremendous extensive gaming monitor we’ve but examined. It’s not only a fairly 5,120 x 1,440-pixel face both, as this panel can trot alongside at 240Hz and delivers the type of super-fast response time we’ve come to anticipate from an OLED show, making it very succesful for aggressive gaming, though there are a couple of caveats to contemplate.

Word: this monitor is understood by a couple of completely different mannequin names in numerous areas, with the particular mannequin reviewed being referred to as the S49CG95S, however the generic identify is the G95SC.

Samsung Odyssey G9 G95SC specs

The Samsung Odyssey G9 G95SC’s specs are, imagine it or not, a standard sight as of late, a minimum of by way of the 49-inch display measurement matched with a 5,120 x 1,440 decision. It’s actually the identical panel that may be used to make two 27-inch shows with a 2,560 x 1,440 decision, however it hasn’t been reduce down the center.

Furthermore, it’s not simply the display measurement and backbone that’s turning into extra commonplace, with Samsung specifically bringing out a number of screens of this measurement and backbone that may tick alongside at 240Hz. It’s the OLED facet that’s at the moment actually uncommon, although a number of latest similar-spec shows have been introduced at CES 2024 and are set to reach within the subsequent few months.

Samsung Odyssey G9 G95SC design

In case it wasn’t already clear from our photos, and the 49-inch display measurement determine we’ve already talked about a couple of instances, it is a actually massive monitor. It stretches to a ridiculous 47 inches extensive (the 49-inch measurement is from nook to nook), mainly spanning the entire width of a typical 4ft/120cm desk.

The show additionally has a slight curve to it –  with an 1800-inch radius (1800R) – which suggests the show initiatives ahead barely and also you want a whole lot of airspace above your desk to accommodate this display. Fortunately it’s not as unhealthy because the Samsung Odyssey Ark with its far deeper, wraparound show.

Whereas the display is pretty massive, Samsung has executed an excellent job of maintaining the remainder of this monitor as compact as potential. The stand is barely 9 inches/23cm deep and the foot of the stand is flat and skinny, so it doesn’t utterly take up desk area and make it unusable – there’s loads of room to suit stuff beneath the panel.

This sense of slimness applies to the panel too. Whereas it isn’t as constantly skinny as massive parts of the LG 27GR95QE, it does nonetheless retain the flexibility of OLED screens to be made impressively skinny on the very edges, broadening gently to nonetheless be solely a modestly chunky boy the place the middle of the panel meets the stand.

As for the general styling, Samsung has largely nailed the steadiness of fresh sophistication with out being boring. The silver stand and rear of the panel look a bit of completely different from the same old plain black finishes of many gaming displays, however the general look doesn’t tip over into being too outlandish. In the meantime, there’s a ring of RGB lighting on the rear, however it’s a reasonably sensible addition for those who do select to maintain it on, and it disappears into the translucent plastic when it’s off (certainly it’s off by default).

There’s additionally a fan behind the show to maintain the panel and electronics cool. It is vitally quiet – it’s a must to put your ear to the panel to listen to it – however it’s a possible level of failure and a passive cooling system would have been preferable.

Samsung Odyssey G9 G95SC options

Just like the aforementioned LG 27GR95QE, this Samsung OLED gaming monitor has an attention-grabbing mixture of uncommon additional options, whereas additionally omitting some barely extra widespread gaming monitor staples.

Essentially the most outstanding characteristic is one shared with that LG panel, which is the addition of an infrared distant management for tweaking the menus and speaker/headphone quantity, in addition to utilizing the TV’s sensible options. In contrast to that of the LG display, this distant isn’t largely simply helpful for reviewers like us who have to continually fiddle with all of the display’s settings, however it has some longer-term use too. That’s due to the sensible TV options, and in addition as a result of the quantity management feels rather more helpful when paired with precise audio system reasonably than only a headphone jack.

As for these sensible TV-like options, nicely, it is a contentious concern. The S49CG95S contains built-in Wi-Fi that permits you to load up the show with a variety of video streaming companies and different apps through a Samsung account. That is an attention-grabbing addition that has two main downsides.

The primary is the intrusiveness of the sensible TV options. Hit the house button on the distant and it doesn’t take you to the primary settings menu however brings up the sensible TV menu that utterly blanks out the display aside from displaying the menu choices. When you aren’t fascinated by utilizing any of those options, it feels very obtrusive.

What’s extra, Samsung doesn’t appear to have actually thought by means of the truth that, when you have a PC and different such computer-like gadgets connected to a monitor, it’s probably you’ll have already got entry to Netflix and Disney+ through your PC. Certain, the built-in apps and distant management make these companies extra handy, however we strongly suspect a major variety of individuals received’t be fascinated by signing into them through a Samsung account. Furthermore, when you have your principal PC audio system or gaming headset hooked as much as your PC, not through your monitor, audio output from these companies received’t be routed to these audio outputs.

Nonetheless, the audio system are an excellent addition as they’ve rather more energy and vary than most monitor audio system. They’re good for watching your favourite actuality exhibits or catching up along with your YouTube subs, and supply a pleasing pay attention for enjoying any music that’s not too bass-heavy and at modest desktop-listening volumes.

It’s a disgrace Samsung couldn’t have fitted a subwoofer or some audio system with much more bass vary to essentially make these an entire substitute for entry-level gaming audio system, however they’re nonetheless a welcome step up over the efforts of most opponents.

As for the place this show is missing in options, you don’t get a pop-out headphone stand or carry deal with, there’s no onscreen crosshair, and there are not any extra elaborate RGB options both. We don’t lament most of these commissions, however a few of these additions might be helpful for some avid gamers.

Connection choices are additionally pretty primary for a show of this measurement and worth, with only one DisplayPort 1.4 enter and two HDMI 2.1 video ports, together with a three-port USB 3.0 hub. Furthermore, accessing the ports is a ache, as they’re tucked around the again of the show and face inwards in the direction of the stand. The USBs are additionally USB-C, which is future-facing however finally nonetheless not that sensible in terms of widespread mouse/keyboard/headset/webcam connections.

Additionally, our first take a look at pattern of this monitor had picture glitches that appeared to be right down to a dodgy principal board, and we’ve learn some consumer evaluations speaking about related points with this show. This might nicely be because of the manner the ports are oriented, with the burden of the cable flattening on the port, however we will’t say for sure. It’s additionally simply potential {that a} massive, heavy, delicate panel resembling this one will likely be extra liable to delivery injury than a smaller show, however both manner any good retailer will honor a return for such a problem.

Samsung Odyssey G9 G95SC picture high quality

The S49CG95S impresses on nearly each entrance in terms of picture high quality. For a begin, the massive panel and 5,120 x 1,440 decision mix to make for an incredible desktop area that, not like the LG 27GR95QE, produces moderately sharp textual content, making the display appropriate for work in addition to gaming and different multimedia.

The panel tech used right here is Samsung’s QD-OLED, which makes use of quantum dots to boost the panel’s brightness and coloration vary output with out placing additional pressure on the OLED a part of the panel – cranking up brightness/saturation on OLEDs can in any other case result in accelerated onset of burn-in. Whereas this panel tech has these advantages, most crucially it additionally doesn’t endure from the identical textual content fuzziness as LG’s WOLED panel tech.

Right here, whereas LCD panel varieties resembling IPS nonetheless have barely higher textual content crispness, you’ll be able to genuinely get away with net searching, engaged on lengthy paperwork, and going about all of your normal each day humdrum laptop actions with out inducing additional eye pressure. That’s an outline we couldn’t use for the LG 27GR95QE. Within the above picture, each the LG (left) and Samsung (proper) have some coloured fringing however the Samsung on the appropriate has sharper and extra consistent-color edges to black-on-white textual content.

What’s extra, Samsung doesn’t make use of as aggressive brightness-adjusting algorithms as on that LG display. OLED panels want to make sure they don’t present the identical brilliant coloration for too lengthy to forestall burn-in, so will dim massive areas of white background, for example. On the 27GR95QE this produced very noticeable speedy adjustments in brightness, whereas I’ve hardly seen any such adjustments when utilizing this Samsung panel. Which will imply this panel does succumb to burn-in extra shortly, however there are lots of handbook strategies you should utilize to scale back the probability of this occurring (utilizing darkish modes, auto-hiding the taskbar, and so on).

One other win for this show is its semi-gloss coating means the pure black that the OLED panel can produce isn’t made to look considerably grey by any ambient gentle. Add this to the panel’s barely greater 250nits common brightness in comparison with the LG, and also you get gorgeous high-contrast and high-color-saturation pictures. This show pops in such an effortlessly compelling manner.

What’s extra, whereas colours can stretch all the best way to 120% DCI-P3 protection, permitting for the additional saturation of HDR, this panel doesn’t exaggerate colours in regular non-HDR use. Every part seems to be punchy however pure. You don’t even have to tinker with the colour steadiness to get the image trying proper, both. Out of the field, coloration steadiness and gamma are respectable, and simply switching from Eco Mode to Unique Mode will get you mainly excellent picture high quality, in accordance with our checks.

The one slight letdown is that HDR didn’t appear to stretch the show a lot past its default capabilities. We didn’t discover a marked enhance in spot brightness or coloration saturation. The show nonetheless seems to be pretty – and is healthier than 99% of gaming displays – however it may possibly’t rival the newest miniLED shows for his or her dazzling 1000nits+ HDR.

One issue to notice, although, is that whereas the 32:9 superwide facet ratio of this panel is nice for desktop workspace and may swimsuit some tremendous widescreen motion pictures, it’s not essentially the most sensible for many video content material. You’re primarily losing all the two outer quarters of the display by watching a 16:9 video in fullscreen on this panel – it’s not a rival for an enormous OLED TV on this respect.

Samsung Odyssey G9 G95SC gaming efficiency

As you’d hope and anticipate of a 240Hz OLED display with a claimed response time of 0.03ms, the S49CG95S may be very completed in terms of gaming. Whereas our measurements put the typical response time at nearer to 1.2ms – and there was a stunning quantity of response time variance throughout checks and completely different display modes (as little as 0.7ms and as excessive as 2.5ms) – the general really feel of the show continues to be that it’s lightning-quick to reply.

Leap into the likes of Apex Legends, and this show is buttery easy and an utter pleasure to make use of. Nevertheless, simply because the display form has an impression on video viewing, it impacts video games too. Loads of video games assist the facet ratio however the best way the view is stretched on the edges in some video games could make for an odd feeling, significantly for FPS video games the place you’re transferring shortly – the perimeters of the display simply really feel like they’re transferring so shortly, which might be distracting.

Leap right into a racing or flight sim, or play slower-paced visually gorgeous video games, although, and the superwide view is fairly awe-inspiring. Nevertheless, you’ll want a strong GPU to run video games on the show’s native res. My Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 was struggling to hit double-figure body charges in Cyberpunk 2077 with the sport’s particulars moderately cranked up.

Fortunately, there’s an easy-to-access 16:9 mode for shortly dropping the display to a standard gaming-friendly facet ratio. You lose the advantage of half the display, however a minimum of aggressive video games really feel extra regular and this 2,560 x 1,440 decision places much less pressure in your GPU.

Samsung Odyssey G9 G95SC worth

The Samsung Odyssey G9 G95SC worth is $1,299, which is clearly very excessive, however really presents comparatively good worth for what you get. There are only a few OLED gaming displays of any measurement obtainable for underneath $750, so it’s not unhealthy in any respect to get a show that’s this massive, and with these specs, together with the sensible TV options, audio system, and distant management. Nevertheless, we do anticipate to see a wave of extra inexpensive OLED gaming displays arrive within the subsequent couple of months that would change the sense of worth of this panel.

Do you have to purchase the Samsung Odyssey G9 G95SC?

When you’re after the final word gaming monitor you should buy proper now, there’s a powerful argument for the S49CG95S being the one to get. It delivers on options, picture high quality, and gaming efficiency, all whereas not being massively overpriced when you think about the scale of the display.

There are two principal the reason why you may need to look elsewhere. The primary is that purchasing an OLED nonetheless comes with dangers of burn-in. They’re getting higher however it’s nonetheless potential that, significantly with common daytime use for work, a show like this can endure in years to return.

The second cause is that the scale/facet ratio of this display means it doesn’t all the time present its worth. For lots of aggressive gaming, you’ll need to keep away from utilizing the complete width of the display, whereas for lots of video that display actual property is wasted too.

It’s really primarily desktop work and a few sorts of video games that actually profit from that wraparound view. You may get monetary savings and get extra out of your display in terms of gaming and video by choosing a 34-inch ultrawide OLED as an alternative, for example. In the meantime, for watching video, a big conventional-shape OLED TV can be a greater wager.

Samsung Odyssey G9 G95SC options

There are two principal gaming monitor options to the G95SC. There are different related OLED panels that aren’t fairly as extensive, or there are 49-inch superwide displays utilizing completely different display tech. We’ve listed an instance of every sort under.

In the meantime, for much more choices, try our greatest gaming monitor information for our present high decisions, and this show has leapt straight onto it.