Hands-on with Samsung’s sweet new Odyssey Neo G9 and Odyssey OLED gaming monitors
Samsung’s CES 2023 presence has all been about revealing new TVs, monitors, foldable, slidable and other display concepts, and even a Galaxy A series phone. The Odyssey Neo G9 and the Odyssey OLED gaming monitors were among the new products that we managed to get some hands-on time with earlier this week, and we came away pretty impressed!
The Odyssey Neo G9 is the more interesting product here, thanks to its 57-inch screen, 32:9 super ultra-wide aspect ratio, and the fact that it’s the world’s first Dual UHD (4K) display packing a crazy 7680×2160-pixel resolution. The display panel is based on Samsung’s Quantum Mini-LED technology with 240Hz refresh rate and a low 1ms response time.
The Neo G9 also has a 1000R curvature. While curved monitors are not always preferred, this is the rare exception where a curved display makes sense because the 57-inch ultra-wide panel eliminates the need for a triple monitor setup, especially when gaming up close. The monitor is HDR-capable (with a peak brightness of 1000 nits) and officially supports AMD’s FreeSync Premium Pro tech (it should also support Nvidia’s G Sync tech, even if it isn’t officially certified for it).
Bigger screen sizes are a common theme with these monitors
Last but not least, the Neo G9 is among the first monitors on the market to support the new DisplayPort 2.1 specification. We haven’t been told what other ports the monitor will support, but we can expect it to feature HDMI 2.1 ports – though with only AMD’s latest Radeon GPUs coming with HDMI 2.1 ports right now, it isn’t a particularly useful feature at this time.
As for the Odyssey OLED monitor, it builds on the 34-inch Odyssey OLED monitor Samsung announced back in 2021. The screen size has been bumped up to 49 inches; the monitor uses Samsung’s QD-OLED technology and has a 1800R curvature. Its refresh rate goes up to 240Hz, backed by a super-low response rate of 0.1 ms, and the monitor has a Dual QHD resolution of 5120×1440 pixels.
The 49-inch Odyssey OLED monitor still uses Samsung Smart Hub for a built-in smart TV-like experience. Apps like Prime Video, Netflix, and YouTube come preloaded so there’s no need of a PC if you want to watch movies and TV shows on popular streaming services. The monitor also supports the Samsung Gaming Hub so you can play games through the Xbox and Nvidia’s GeForce NOW streaming services.
Details on the monitor’s ports and whether or not it is officially certified for Nvidia’s G Sync technology are still unavailable, but we were impressed with the vibrant, punchy, and bright colors enabled by the QD-OLED tech, and the increased screen size should ensure better gaming immersion and media consumption and improved productivity.
Samsung isn’t divulging pricing or availability details for either product right now, though you can be sure these will be on the expensive side of the spectrum and the Odyssey Neo G9 in particular will cost a pretty penny. We can expect a release no later than the second quarter of 2023, but again, nothing is confirmed at the moment.
Check out our video below to see our hands-on experience with the 57-inch Odyssey Neo G9 and 49-inch Odyssey OLED monitors.
