Samsung’s giant Odyssey Ark Mini-LED gaming monitor is now available for pre-order
The Odyssey Ark, Samsung’s giant Mini-LED gaming, was unveiled earlier this year at CES 2022. It is now available for pre-order in some markets, including the US. It costs an insane $3,500, and if you can shell out that much money, you can pre-order it in the US starting today via Samsung’s website.
If you pre-order it today, you are eligible for a $100 instant discount and some freebies to make your gaming setup more functional. Through Samsung Finance, you can get easy financing options like paying $72.92/month for up to 48 months. In South Korea, the monitor is priced at KRW 3,400,000 million (around $2,610) and will be available starting September 7, 2022.
Samsung Odyssey Ark features and specifications
The Odyssey Ark has a 55-inch 4K Mini-LED panel with a 165Hz variable refresh rate, a 16:9 aspect ratio, and a 1000R curvature. The display has 1,056 local dimming zones and 14-bit processing, and as a result, it has 16,384 black levels and a static contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1. It also has a 1ms grey-to-grey response time and support for AMD FreeSync Premium Pro.
Samsung has marked this monitor as Quantum HDR 2000, which means that it can reach a peak brightness of up to 2,000 nits in some scenarios. However, you can expect it to easily sustain over 600 nits of brightness for long periods of time while gaming or watching videos.
Thanks to its flexible stand, the gaming monitor can pivot to a vertical setup, and Samsung is calling it the Cockpit Mode. The Odyssey Ark can display three virtual monitors in a vertical stack, so you can use three different windows without switching between them. The stand also supports tilt and swivel. Plus, there are three VESA wall mount options: 200×200, 300×300, and 400×400.
Its built-in speaker setup is impressive, too. The Odyssey Ark has four speakers, one in each corner, and two woofers. Samsung claims that the total speaker setup output is 60W, and the frequency response goes as low as 45Hz and as high as 20KHz, which results in a good amount of bass.
The Odyssey Ark comes with the Flex Move Screen feature. It lets you adjust the size of the image between 27 inches and 55 inches and change the aspect ratio between 16:9, 21:9, and 32:9. The monitor can be controlled using the bundled Ark Dial. As its name suggests, it has a dial to navigate around the on-screen display menu.
It also features a solar panel, just like the updated One Remote that comes with Samsung’s high-end 2022 TVs. You can also charge the Ark Dial remote using a USB Type-C cable.
The Mini-LED gaming monitor from Samsung connects to your device using the One Connect Box, which has four HDMI 2.1 inputs, two USB 2.0 downstream ports, one USB Type-B upstream port, an optical port, and an Ethernet port.
The Odyssey Ark monitor runs Tizen OS, just like Samsung’s smart TVs and the Smart Monitor lineup. This means that it has access to a lot of audio and video streaming apps. It also has support for various cloud game streaming platforms, including Amazon Luna, Google Stadia, Microsoft Xbox, Nvidia GeForce Now, and Utomik.
Other features of this new gaming monitor include the Game Bar, which shows you a lot of information, including the frame rate, refresh rate, HDR, and VRR. There is support for Alexa, SmartThings, and Samsung Game Hub. You can know more about this unique gaming monitor from Samsung in our hands-on video below.
