The biggest, sharpest curve that a gamer can lay eyes on
Samsung’s Odyssey G9 is the company’s top-of-the-line gaming monitor, and a massive one at that. This 49-inch,1440p curved screen can wrap around your sight lines and then some, with a bright, colorful picture that will satisfy most gamers. It’s pricey at $1,429.99, but its size and gaming-specific performance help justify that price for serious players of flight sims and racers who prefer one gigantic, enveloping widescreen panel to a bank of several with seams between. The Design: As Wide as All Indoors The Odyssey G9’s screen is surrounded by a very thin black band flush with the panel, with only a small bezel on the bottom edge, adorned with the Samsung logo in the center. A four-direction control stick and power switch sits on the underside of the monitor, around the right third of the screen. The back of the monitor is white, a fairly uncommon design choice we’ve also seen in Alienware’s gaming monitors. (The panel would complement one of the white-toned, a.k.a. « Lunar Light, » Alienware desktops or laptops well enough.) It connects to a relatively thin but sturdy V-necked stand that sits on a wide, V-shaped base. The stand features height adjustment, but because the monitor is so big, it doesn’t allow for any tilt. Samsung’s “Infinity Core” lighting system sits where the stand attaches to the back of the monitor. It’s a ring of RGB lights that evokes the look of a turbine, with 52 colors and five lighting effects accessible through the monitor’s onscreen display (OSD) system. The power connector sits to the left on the back side of the monitor, facing down. An HDMI port, two DisplayPorts, a USB hub input, and two USB ports can be found on the right side of the back of the monitor, under a snap-off shield. Measured Performance: Surprisingly Bright, Super Color The Odyssey G9 is a 49-inch,5,120-by-1,440-pixel QLED monitor with a 32:9 aspect ratio. It features a 1000R curve that’s quite pronounced for its size, effectively encompassing your field of view when you’re sitting comfortably in front of it. It features a refresh rate of 240Hz with Nvidia G-Sync Compatible capabilities for adaptive sync. When I first tested the Odyssey G9, I noticed a patch of brightness near the middle of the right edge of the screen in most conditions. This appears to be a defect of the edge-lit light source, and a replacement model that Samsung immediately sent didn’t exhibit this problem.
