There’s no way to make the following statement without sounding bizarre, but here goes: My favorite thing about the Samsung Odyssey OLED G9 gaming monitor is its dinky little remote. No, really.
Doubling down on the oddness, I’m on the level when I tell you I love the little white Samsung remote more than almost any other part of the Odyssey. Not only is this OLED panel capable of incredibly wide viewing angles and astonishing black levels, it’s also a goliath. This 49-inch curved monster devours my desk but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Whether jumping between a dozen different tabs in Google Chrome, taking advantage of 49-inches of screen real estate to create the ultimate Photoshop canvas or swinging around a deserted pirate colony with Nathan Drake in the gorgeous PC version of Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, the advantages of editing and gaming on a 32:9 monitor can be both revelatory for both work and play.
The unfussy Samsung remote gets my Peter Tingle going.
And yet it’s still that unfussy Samsung remote that gets my Peter Tingle going. It’s not even like this kinda barebones remote is all that special. Sure, I like those chunky volume buttons and each input on the device responds with a satisfying click; be it for Samsung TV Plus, NetFlix, Disney+ or Prime Video buttons.
Watching some of the best streaming services on the Odyssey OLED G9 is a cool bonus, no doubt. Native 32:9 content may be rarer than recent Australian Open winners whose names don’t end in Djokovic, yet thanks to OLED’s ability to completely turn off pixels, the large black bars that appear around 16:9 content completely blend in when watching shows or movies in a dark room. You’ll see no hint of annoying light bleed here.
What I appreciate most about the Samsung Odyssey OLED G9’s remote, though, is the simple fact it exists at all! Make no mistake: Getting a remote bundled with one of the best monitors isn’t all that common. Something my hideously crooked neck can attest to.
I’ve owned too many PC displays to count over the years. Some of them have been perfectly fine, others made me want to tape my eyelids shut the contrast was so bad on them, while the likes of the incredible Alienware AW3423DWF is an ultrawide QD-OLED gaming monitor that sports such wonderfully accurate colors and damn near perfect screen uniformity, I consider it close to flawless.
And yet it still doesn’t come with a freakin’ remote.
Killjoy stick
I hate those stupid OSD (on-screen display) joysticks that have dominated the monitor market for years. They suck. If I could chuck them into the endless abyss of Room 101, OSD inputs would be getting thrown in there alongside mushrooms and every Brazilian wandering spider on the planet.
They’re awkward, they’re almost always placed out of your direct field of sight and choosing the right direction button on one of them feels like playing the geekiest form of Russian roulette.
I’ve bashed my head on the bottom of monitors fumbling with OSD joysticks.
Down the years I’ve bashed my head on the bottom of monitors fumbling with OSD menus because the joystick’s input/buttons are normally hidden out of view. Imagine if you had to reach behind a wall-mounted TV every time you wanted to change a channel. PC users experience this kind of hassle daily, all because of OSD joysticks. It’s infuriating and with past monitors, once I get the picture settings just to my liking, I try to avoid this awful creation whenever possible.
Thankfully, my weekly night terrors of joysticks and giant South American wall-crawlers have abated… at least the first one has.
The presence of the remote for my Odyssey OLED G9 is a godsend. It provides a user-friendly experience every single day and after four months of owning this monstrous yet awesome monitor, I still don’t take it for granted.
Remote play
Accessing my PC (which is hooked up via a DisplayPort cable) is a doddle. All I do is press the Home button on the remote, then use the circular selection wheel to navigate to the input icon for my gaming rig. And hey presto! Doom Eternal at 240 fps in no time at all.
This wheel also lets me scroll through the Odyssey’s various handy tabs with zero fuss. I can quickly access settings to edit my picture setup to an obsessive degree, and switching between gaming presets or tinkering with HDR settings is a breeze thanks to the remote. While the Game and Media tabs also let me play the likes of Game Pass and Nvidia GeFore Now apps on top of the previously mentioned streaming platforms.
The Samsung Odyssey OLED G9 is one of the best curved monitors you can buy. Its peerless black performance and stunning 240Hz support for the best Steam games (that I regularly take advantage of thanks to my Nvidia RTX 4090) should come as no surprise to me. What does still cause me to take pause is the fact I love its damn remote so much.
Monitor manufacturers, heed my plea: Release more PC displays with bundled in remotes.
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