Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 review

The Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 ($1,799) is one of the largest gaming monitors I’ve ever seen. At 57 inches, this ultrawide monitor makes the 49-inch Samsung Odyssey OLED G9 seem tiny. That’s not a problem considering how the Odyssey OLED G9 is one of the best curved monitors and best gaming monitors.

That expansive size isn’t the only thing this monitor has going for it — packing a 1,000R curved display, sharp 7,680 x 2,160 resolution, smooth 240Hz refresh rate and fast 1ms response time for good measure. Those specs, combined with the immersive field of view, help draw you in when playing the best PC games. The expansive size is also great for keeping multiple windows open.

Despite its unwieldy size and steep price, the Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 is a stellar gaming monitor. Find out why in my full review.

@tomsguide

♬ original sound - Tom’s Guide

Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 review: Specs

Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 review: Price

• Currently $1,999 

The Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 is currently available on Samsung's website for $1,999. That’s pricey, but considering how the monitor originally sold for $2,499, saving $500 makes the price sting less.

Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 review: Design

• Sleek and elegant
• Takes up a lot of space

Samsung is advertising the Odyssey Neo G9 as the world’s first dual UHD monitor — meaning that it’s the size of two 32-inch 4K monitors. At 57 inches wide, the Odyssey Neo G9 is absolutely enormous. But that wide field of view provides for an immersive gaming experience.

If you like placing your gaming keyboard at an angle, the V-shaped stand’s legs don’t get in the way. The monitor glides smoothly up and down on the stand, which makes it easy to adjust to your preferred height. It can tilt forward 2 degrees and back 10 degrees. That’s not a wide range of movement but it didn’t bother me. 

With the stand, the Odyssey Neo G9 is 52.3 x 23.7 x 19.7 inches and 41.9 pounds. Unless you’re the Incredible Hulk, you’ll want a strong friend or family member to help you set up the monitor. That said, attaching the monitor to the stand isn’t hard and overall setup only takes a few minutes.

Aesthetically speaking, it’s a stand-out stunner — starting with a glossy all-white chassis covering its back. Accent lines help break up the surface. Like the other Odyssey monitors I’ve reviewed, RGB lighting surrounds the monitor mount. And in case you’re wondering, you can configure the RGB lighting to correspond with what’s happening on the display. You can’t see the light patterns if you’re in front of the monitor (naturally), but small lights underneath the display align with the backlighting, which is a nice touch.

A back panel hides the monitor’s generous number of ports. This includes three HDMI 2.1 ports, a lone DisplayPort, four USB-A ports (2 upstream, 2 downstream) and a headphone jack. Removing the back panel isn’t too difficult, but snapping it back in place can be a finicky process. And given the monitor’s size, you’ll need to go around to its back to connect or disconnect any cables. You can tuck the cables through an opening on the stand, which helps keep your desk clean.

Though the Odyssey Neo G9 looks frighteningly huge, there’s no denying it’s an elegant piece of hardware.

Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 review: Display

• Expansive 57-inch display 
• Excellent picture quality

The Odyssey Neo G9’s 57-inch curved display is a marvel to behold in person. Not only is its 1000R curvature immersive, but images look bright and colorful at a sharp 7,680 x 2,160 resolution. The contrasts between dark and light elements aren’t as pronounced as they would be on an OLED panel, but this monitor’s mini-LED display doesn’t disappoint.

Doom Eternal and Dirt 5 looked phenomenal on the Odyssey Neo G9. The 32:9 aspect ratio allowed me to get lost in those games’ respective environments since I was able to see more of my surroundings. Having a wider field of view was also helpful in Doom Eternal since it was easier to avoid potential sneak attacks. The colorful worlds also came through in stunning detail thanks to the overall fantastic picture quality.

There’s a total of nine display modes. Like the Samsung Odyssey OLED G9, five are dedicated game modes. The five game modes in question include Game Standard, RPG, FPS, RTS and Sports.

Each display mode is slightly different and optimized for the genres they’re named after. These are fairly standard modes for gaming monitors but it’s good to the variety. I stuck with Game Standard mode since it delivered a nice balance of brightness and color accuracy compared to the other modes.

So how well did the Odyssey Neo G9 do in our lab tests? Aiming our Klein-10A colorimeter at the display with brightness set to max, we found that the screen achieved an average brightness of 619 nits of brightness in Game Standard mode.

That’s pretty darn bright, especially when you’re viewing windows with white backgrounds. “Retina-scorching brightness” is an apt description. Other gaming monitors we’ve tested are dim in comparison. For instance, the Alienware AW3423DWF achieved 236 nits while the Acer Predator X32 FP topped out at 404 nits in their respective Game Standard modes.

All of the Odyssey Neo G9’s display modes produce slightly oversaturated colors, which tend to complement game graphics. I like how colors are expressed in both the Alienware and Acer monitors, but if I had to choose, I’d go with the Odyssey Neo G9 since its colors appear more realistic.

The Odyssey Neo G9 allows for picture-in-picture from two different sources simultaneously. For instance, you can connect a PS5 Slim and view a console game on one part of the display and a website on the other. This could be useful if you’re stuck in a game and want to watch a YouTube tutorial video.

Note that consoles like the Xbox Series X only output at 16:9 — meaning that you’ll have to deal with black bars on the side when using the Odyssey Neo G9. That said, you’ll still have a good time since console games look and run as well as PC titles on the Odyssey Neo G9. 

Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 review: Performance

• Fast 240Hz refresh rate
• Supports AMD FreeSync Premium Pro

Games run silky smooth thanks to the fast 240Hz refresh rate and low 1ms response time. Adaptive Sync and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro technologies also ensured a seamless experience. I didn’t experience a single hint of input lag as I navigated the hellish landscapes of Doom Eternal or cruised through the hills of Rio De Janeiro in DiRTt 5.

When testing games on the Odyssey Neo G9, I used the Alienware Aurora R16 desktop, which is one of the best gaming PCs I’ve reviewed. Our review unit packed a 13th Gen Intel Core i7-13700F CPU, 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. I swapped out its Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU for an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX, so I could utilize FreeSync Premium Pro.

The experience was great, as I mentioned above, but games still ran well with the Nvidia card. I didn’t see a hint of screen tearing or choppiness in either instance. 

Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 review: Interface

• Simple interface
• No joystick for menu 

The Odyssey Neo G9 features a relatively straightforward OSD (On Screen Display) that’s similar to other Samsung gaming monitors. However, it doesn’t have streaming or TV features. That could be a bummer if you wanted to watch movies or stream games directly on this monitor, but I don’t mind having a no-frills gaming-focused OSD.

As for the interface itself, its primary blue lettering and black background makes it easily legible. Signal information such as picture mode, response time and refresh rate always stay at the top. You can also access all of the aforementioned display modes via the OSD and adjust their respective brightness and color options (to name a few).

Instead of a joystick, you access and navigate the menu via a thumbpad located underneath the panel’s center. The pad, with its four buttons for up, down, left and right is easy to use and fairly responsive. That said, I would have preferred a joystick or something similar since that’s what I’m accustomed to on other gaming monitors.

Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 review: Verdict

The Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 is borderline ridiculous due to its expansive 57-inch panel. However, that same panel with its 1000R curvature helps make games feel extremely immersive. Not only that, but the ultrawide display is also great for working with multiple open windows. Toss in a zippy 240Hz refresh rate, low 1ms response time, and overall vivid image quality, the end result is an overall awesome monitor — provided you have enough space on your desk for this behemoth.

If the Odyssey Neo G9 is too much monitor for you to handle, or if you can’t justify paying its lofty $2,000 asking price, then the 34-inch Samsung Odyssey OLED G8 is an excellent alternative from Samsung. It has most of the same features as the Neo G9, only with a gorgeous OLED display. For a cheaper alternative, the $999 Alienware AW3423DWF makes for another excellent option.

If you want an immersive PC gaming experience or wish to have a single ultra-wide monitor instead of a dual-screen setup, the Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 is worth considering.