Not for everyone | Samsung Odyssey G9 Review | TechManPat

the samsung odyssey g9 on paper is the best gaming monitor you could imagine i remember writing a list of what i want in a monitor and after years the g9 ticks nearly every single box but it's not perfect and maybe it's a little bit early to even buy one that is if you can even manage to find any stock welcome my name is pat and i am techmen pat here is my review of the samsung odyssey g9 make sure to like this video if you did and subscribe to see more let's roll the intro [Music] at this price range you cannot just watch one review and decide so i hope to give you another angle of what this monitor is about and if it's worth your hard-earned cash or cash that may not have been hard earned either way at 2 800 australian dollars and 1 500 american dollars it is expensive i have linked below some reviews that i found really helpful when i originally looked at this monitor and some that i found now that have done a great job on the technical aspect of this va panel my approach has always been the numbers don't really matter but in this case they do quite a bit so let's talk about the basic specifications the monitor is 49 inches diagonally it's super ultra wide at 32 by 9 aspect ratio which works out to be about two 27-inch 16x9 monitors without that basil in the center it has ridiculously high curve at 1 000 r it boosts a max refresh rate of 240 hertz on a va panel at the just shy of 4k 5120 by 1440 resolution it also works with both freesync and g-sync premium in regards to ports it has two display ports version 1.4 one hdmi version 2.0 three usb ports where one is the service usb it has picture in picture with multiple sources but it won't run those at full refresh rates and there are no speakers which is great comes with a display port cable and power cable and includes the usb 3 hub cable finally power consumption is less than half a watt i would also like to add that living in western australia means it's getting quite warm this time of year and this monitor gets quite warm too you can clearly hear at some point in time the plastic expanding and creaking quite a bit however i would say the build quality overall is quite good and i don't see any of the issues that forced a recall earlier this year i understand my model was produced much later than the ones people were having issues with but wait there's more it has hdr 1000 certification 1ms response time 2500 to 1 static contrast ratio a base amount and of course the most important addition to any gaming product right now rgb so yes lots of boxes tipped but let's turn this upside down and start with the bad samsung provides a vase amount because the ergonomics of the monitor are pretty terrible the height adjustment is so small it doesn't really help with taller people it's an inch too low for me and have to compensate by lowering my chair but this may not bother you it bothers me because the desk still stays at the same height so you might be shouting at your screen saying hey pat the vase amount that's what it's for nate well smartass let me tell you how useless it is right now now unless you're mounting it to the wall i'll give you that which isn't an option if you have a height adjustable table then there is no vasa arm bar one that is available right now to buy well it may only be 15 kilograms the curvature means the weight is spread out forward against the curve and there isn't a vase amount arm right now that can handle that there is one that i mentioned that i have found for 600 australian dollars and it requires a diy modification to stop it from sagging while on the topic of stance the stand included looks nice but it is very wobbly yes the monitor is big beautiful but come on samsung build it better stronger faster so to finalize the sound conversation why the hell is there a headset hook at the back who's going to reach over or around this ridiculous monitor why next if you buy this monitor and you end up shouting at me again on another video you will notice an insane echo like effect i can literally hear my voice in a surround sound when i sit at the certain spot usually the center where i would prefer to sit not a deal breaker but it's kind of annoying especially distracting when you're on a video call with somebody else dark uniformity is also a hidden miss my panel isn't too bad and it won't be a deal breaker but it's certainly not perfect there is hardly any light bleed which is good but the eight bright zones the black bright zones they don't really help much and only work well in particular scenarios but nonetheless they're welcome to be there then the firmware it's a mess samsung had to send out three updates by the time it was working okay but that's not all their fault a lot of lane goes to nvidia 2 and i have not been able to test radeon cards due to the well radio on being radon until the 6000 series comes out next month then it'd actually be good as of the date of this video rtx 3000 cards cannot run this monitor with g-sync and 240hz enabled at the same time you can turn on g-sync with 120 hertz mode or 240 hertz mode without g-sync it's fine on the rtx 2000 series which is the minimum required to run this monitor to its full potential so let's keep going rgb on the back is useless does not light up enough to make the wall behind the monitor look cool so if you have an open desk in the middle of the room not against the wall then yeah sure it might even look cool finally the last detrimental factor of this monitor and it's a double edged sword and not really samsung faults per se but if you're looking to buy this it's something to consider the super ultra wide ratio of 32 by 9 is very very wide a few years ago when 21 by nine came out people were complaining how incompatible it was with many games and many games had to update their engines to work with 21x9 many did it in such a way that the sides get stretched out quite a bit into the center it looks quite jarring but for me it wasn't too bad some games look brilliant some not so much and so some people hate the stretch look i will never buy it this is by far much worse than a 21 by nine so to balance this out the width is an absolute powerhouse of productivity and iphone 1 will never go back to 21x9 but the latest firmware allows you to force a certain ratio from the monitor's osd so if something is not compatible you can sort it out directly in the monitor without having to deal with the windows 10 settings because windows 10 is broken very broken and thank you samsung for adding a little joystick to navigate the osd but i would like to add one more thing a dedicated on off button would be great at the moment to turn off the monitor you have to click the joystick a few times select the off button and then click again now that we have all the bad things out of the way let's talk about the good because there is plenty of good here certainly 2 800 worth of good let's start with the refresh rate in my opinion the minimum for games should be 60 frames on a 60hz monitor and for fast paced first person shooters 120hz and up for competitive play you need as much as you can get but let's not get ahead of ourselves there are diminishing returns beyond 200 hertz the difference you see between 200 and 240 is tiny not like when you went from 60 to 144 and i feel that this monitor is right in that sweet spot of perfection and i absolutely love high frame rate monitors and the included freesync and g-sync are very helpful in maintaining a tier free experience when i tested it in the 120hz mode because that's all i could do the typical effective range of g-sync technology is from 30 hertz up to the maximum refresh rate of the display and trust me it helps a lot with fluctuations i would like to add the 240hz mode without g-sync i saw very little screen tearing as the frame rates were fairly stable in most games i played i would also like to mention that there is a bit of tuning i did on the monitor to get it just right i hope to clarify it's not a negative point but some settings just don't work well so luckily a bit of troubleshooting got me a really good result now i can go about high refresh rate monitors for days and how good they are and in the case of the odyssey g9 there is little to no smearing with response time set to faster it's an absolute dream the fastest setting has some smearing so i would suggest you avoid that one and set your black levels to around 13. and amongst all that there is a low input lag setting having that on really helps clean up any over and under drive using blur buster's site i tuned it to my liking so my experience with the response and refresh for times has been brilliant and i cannot say enough that this is one of the best panels i have seen in a while in regards to response and refresh rates this va panel has been tuned by samsung to compete with the best of tn and ips first of all it is much better than tn panels and i think it's on the heels of an ips panel next up the curve and this is something that could put people off it's a very high curve it's a one-man monitor too you will not be able to enjoy this with a friend next to you unless they're really close the viewing angles perform best for one person the curve is significant enough to look odd from other angles secondly photoshop this has been discussed online quite a bit how does it affect straight lines well editing with photoshop and in design has been absolutely fine i'll keep the application in center or to the side in one of the areas where we would call the 27-inch area i had no problems working with straight lines because of where you sit and the curvature to you everything looks fairly straight now eye strain is a big issue for many many have been working from home and it's important to take care of your eyes and i for one will admit this monitor hurt my eyes at first it felt weird looking around but after a few hours i was very much already used to it and in fact i felt like my eyes were maybe a bit more relaxed i don't know if that's because i went from not relaxed to relaxed but i have linked a study below about curved monitors helping with eye strain and i can't vouch for it but i have used this monitor for extended periods of time with no eye pain this leads very well into the panel and color conversation i came from an ultra wide ips panel and i used to grade video and do lots of photoshop work the colors on this monitor are much more pronounced they are brighter fuller and they pop now the problem with this va panel is that it's not necessarily true to life and so if photoshop and video grading is your livelihood this is not the monitor for you but if gaming is your jam then games will look magnificent and the colors are the brightest most vivid i have ever seen it also has eight lighting zones which can be seen when loading a game moving your mouse around will turn one on as you pass it's quite a nifty little way to look at it i personally don't think that's enough zones but playing tomb raider i did not notice the lines in between that you might see against the black background it was absolutely fine i would like to add it also means that the peak brightness in these little areas is a lot higher it's up to that 1000 it's not the whole screen but it's these areas that will light up really well and that's a great segue into hdr finally a monitor worth turning hdr on with the odc g9 has hdr 1000 certification meaning that you can reach a peak brightness of 1000 nits though it can only be sustained for a short time in those areas this monitor is very bright hdr looks absolutely incredible the colors the brightness the contrast the experience i had is what i felt when i saw 144 hertz refresh rate for the first time ladies and gentlemen hdr is finally here and it's awesome but like i mentioned you won't be grading your hdr video content on here but you can consume and enjoy hdr films and games and be blown away i can't even show you how this looks as your monitors just won't be able to show the true look just like you can't see what a high refresh rate monitor looks like when you're watching it from another device before we finish this review let's talk about the most important aspect of this monitor and that is gaming there's also the reason why people buy it and it's also the way it's marketed it's not hard to imagine that a wider monitor makes gaming immersive it's an experience like no other the level of immersion possible with this monitor is actually mind-boggling microsoft flight simulator is gorgeous forza motorsports is fun again rpgs suck you into the world they build in shooters you get an edge over your enemy in rts games you can see more and manage more during a gameplay session there is nothing more than you and the game your peripheral vision is filled with gameplay and you feel like you're almost in vr in a very acceptable good feeling way and that is the best way i can describe it i know what i said it sounds a bit woolly and yeah some games don't look great and get the black bars on the sides they aren't the games you should be playing on this monitor so make sure to check what games you play or you plan on playing and if they support these ridiculously high aspect ratios but for now this is the best you can get what i would like to see in the future is a bigger screen altogether with a 4k resolution that would be absolutely insane so to summarize it's not for editing photos and videos nor hdr grading it's for high refresh rate hdr gaming with vivid colors and performance that is unmatched on any other monitor in my opinion there just isn't anything like this on the market right now with all these specs is it worth 1 500 american or 2 800 australian dollar ruse would like to put it to you this way it's easier to drop two and a half grand on a 64 inch oled tv in fact many people justify it and you can drop 500 on a tv and get a similar experience maybe even similar size in monitor land there is your top of the line everything in one and if you spend more time in front of your monitor than on a tv then yes it's worth the money i watch maybe one hour of tv every couple of days and the rest of my life is spent in front of a monitor i want that time spent to be an experience positive and easy and not painful to the eyes and that's what this monitor offers in saying that the cost doesn't stop at the monitor you will need an extra powerful pc i recommend an rtx 3000 or radeon 6000 series cards to get the most out of this monitor otherwise don't even bother buying it and cpu to match that would certainly be the zen 3 lineup coming up november friends thank you very much for watching this review of the odyssey g9 it's an absolute beast i am very impressed with it i would highly recommend it if you're looking for a monitor an all-out monitor and you don't really care about price there are other monitors that will hopefully try to review and the g7 looks like a really great in-between and it's certainly priced more affordably thank you very much for watching make sure to like this video if you did and subscribe if you would like to see more thanks and bye [Music]

Channel: Tech Man Pat

Views: 70,928

Keywords: reviews, technology, gaming, samsung odyssey g9 review, gaming monitor, samsung odyssey g9, 49 inch monitor, samsung g9, va panel, refresh rate, 5120 x 1440, high definition, 49 inch samsung curved monitor, best gaming monitor, super ultra wide, super ultrawide monitor, best 1440p monitor, pc gaming, 49 inch monitor setup, 49 inch monitor trading, 49 inch monitor gaming, 49 inch monitor desk setup, high refresh rate, 49 inch monitor arm

Id: cBziTAR6Iic

Length: 15min 6sec (906 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 02 2020