There are gaming monitors, and then there’s the Samsung Odyssey OLED G9. Between the 32:9 display ratio, and the dual QHD resolution, the 49″ curved monitor is a big upgrade over a lot of flat screens.
Easy to setup, and with a lot of excellent bells and whistles, the smart monitor impressively fills your field-of-view. So, is it worth the buy? Here’s my full review with recommendations for who will get the most from this big desktop display.
Odyssey OLED G9 design
The Odyssey OLED G9 sits on a solid pedestal that doesn’t take up much desk space, and lets you raise and lower the screen, or turn it 180 degrees for a vertical view.
You may want a little help setting up the screen, as it’s heavy, but I was able to set it up alone because the box does come with the screen facing away from you. When you open the box, you’ll take out the base and other materials first, so once you are ready, you can remove the packing materials and attach the base securely to the screen. From there, you can lift the monitor out using the base, to maneuver it to your desk.
The whole screen is quite slim, and has fairly small bezels, with all the ports for the monitor in the middle of the screen. A cutout in the back of the base acts as a cable management solution, and the ring around the back of the monitor is a LED light.
Samsung calls it Core Lighting, and you can turn it on in the settings, and even synchronize it to what’s on screen. It’s a fun feature that even backlights your screen a little if your monitor is against a wall.
Overall it’s a sharp design that looks great, and works well, but it will surprise some people. While you may think you have a lot of space on your desk, the Odyssey OLED G9 is a very large monitor. It looks and works best when you have the space for it.
I wish the ports on the back of the monitor were laid out better, as I had a hard time accessing them and if you use HDMI and DisplayPort at the same time, it can be a tight fit.
Finally, the small, light remote control has a really simple button layout, and works well overall.
Display and resolution
The ultra-wide screen looks great for overall computer gaming. At 5,120 x 1,440 DQHD resoltuon, it’s a bit below 4K, but what it lacks in raw pixels it makes up for with brightness, AI upscaling, a 0.03ms response time, and an impressive 240Hz refresh rate.
The refresh rate, in particular, makes gaming look smooth and crisp, so thanks to the sheer width and curvature of the screen, gameplay feels incredibly immersive.
The Odyssey OLED G9 offers VESA DisplayHDR True Black 400 HDR for more realistic colours and depth that brought my games to life in a big way. This works well for a lot of content on the monitor, but it’s definitely especially ideal for gaming, movies, and creators.
Overall, I found the monitor really useful as a creator with Adobe Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and other creative software.
And there are so many other features that improve overall gameplay and creating. AI Upscaling offers a lot of benefits, depending on what you have connected to the monitor, and if you don’t need the entire screen for gaming, you can use Multi View to multitask, or display two inputs on the screen at once.
Smart features
As an entertainment hub, the Odyssey OLED G9 includes streaming services, Samsung TV Plus channels, and quick access to jump between your inputs.
I connected a few of my favourite apps, and watched movies and TV shows, and the overall experience and quality was good, as long as you have a strong internet connection of course. Samsung has always excelled at delivery great smart experiences, and this monitor met all my expectations. The only down side is that none of the streaming content fills the full width of the screen, so that’s worth considering.
Samsung Gaming Hub delivers game streaming to the screen experience, so you can play Xbox Game Pass titles and connect your favourite controller.
It’s also worth mentioning that the monitor offers built-in speakers, but the sound quality is not tremendous, so it’s worth having other speakers for your setup.
Final thoughts
From a PC gaming perspective, the Samsung OLED G9 is excellent, with a great mix of features in a quality display, and it’s very immersive. Using the screen for creative editing also felt like a natural setup, and I loved the way I could spread out my tools in Adobe Premiere Pro.
Console gamers or users that don’t have a powerful PC may not find the G9 as appealing, considering the quality won’t be the same, especially in terms of resolution or using the full width of the screen.
The bottom line is: if you want to spend a little extra for a premium PC gaming setup, this is an excellent monitor.
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