Samsung 57″ Odyssey Neo G9 Dual 4K Mini-LED Curved Gaming Monitor (Review)

It isn’t every day that you get to sit down and test out such a massive gaming monitor. Mostly because it is the only one of its size outside of a few others that have simply been teased or announced, but not yet available. This is the Samsung 57″ Odyssey Neo G9 Dual 4K Quantum Mini-LED Curved Gaming Monitor, and it has been available for a number of months now, for a price.

The next best option when it comes to overall size is the 49-inch monitors out there. And when they joke about size mattering, it is no joke with this model as it stands firmly against the 49-inch models of the world. Similar to that of the Samsung Ark 55-inch monitor, which holds its own all the same.

This is a massive ultra-widescreen curved gaming monitor with up to 4K@240Hz, depending on the video card you have driving it. Which is going to take something special, since even the RTX-4090 has trouble trying to do this. In fact, you might as well call this one future-proofed a bit, as it will be able to grow into any upgrades that might come along with the RTX 50-series whenever it releases. As it will likely require the RTX 5080 or 5090 to get the most out of this.

It is also a heavy one, so you’ll want to make sure you have a friend nearby when setting it up. This isn’t 100% necessary, but it would save your back a bit. It is nearly 42lbs with the stand (around 34lbs without it). Not to mention the amount of desk space it takes up with just its stand. The legs have quite the reach to them, which is something you’ll have to consider when determining if you want to use it or not. Otherwise, you’ll be looking for a VESA arm capable of withstanding a 34lb monitor (which we do recommend in order to keep those legs from getting in the way of everything else you have going on across your desk.

Surprisingly, it doesn’t take much to assemble it compared to some monitors. There is no guessing when it comes to attaching the stand (which happens in two parts, including the overall stand and its base). As you unpack the box, it reveals the back of the monitor. You then attach the stand right then and there, followed by its base. Then (preferably with a friend), you lift it out of the box and carefully place it on your desk. The instructions clearly show where you should or shouldn’t grab hold of it when doing so.

From here, you are just trying to figure out how to run its power and data cables. Since the data cables aren’t long enough to route to the ports and down to your tower, if you plan on using the white plastic shield that runs across the back, and keeping everything neat. It’s nice to have a shield running across the back to cover the cables and ports, but we found it to be best to skip. Especially if you have the back of the monitor facing the wall. This way, you can get the cables to your PC without any fuss.

You will likely want to choose to go with the DP cable over the HDMI for purposes of refresh rate. Of course, this also depends on the card you have. If 4K@120Hz is the best you can drive, then it wouldn’t matter. This is the limit of the HDMI 2.1 connection, regardless. With the DP 2.1 connection, cable, and card compatibility (the hard part), you can achieve up to 240Hz.

Once you have gotten this far, you will be rocking the equivalent of two 4K monitors on your desk (or less, if your card can’t handle dual-4K). An achievement that looks pretty nice.

So when it comes to using a VESA mount (wall or arm), there is a bowl-like attachment it comes with that slides into the space on the back of the monitor were its stand normally attaches. This brings the holes outward where a mount can reach them, and with the normal screw hole locations for said mounts.

Again, it is very important to understand that this monitor is 34lbs without its stand. Not all mounts can sustain that kind of weight (especially, arm-style mounts). So you have to make sure you buy into one that is rated for this. Preferably rated for higher weights than this, so you know there will be less chance of an arm leaning/tilting from the weight.

If you choose to stick with the stand that comes with the monitor, you won’t be disappointed. At least, as long as the legs of the stand do not interfere with the setup or shape of your desk. Samsung includes a quality stand with the monitor that perfectly holds the weight of the monitor.

In fact, if you compare the stand to the few available arm mounts out there capable of a monitor this heavy, it would be easy to assume that the stand is likely worth close to $100 just by itself. Some of the arms out there are inflated as high as $300+ (although you will likely see competitive options hit the market with more balanced pricing around half that price).

The stand is incredibly easy to work with and as long as the full length of both legs sit flat on your desk, it does so without any worry of tipping forward (just something to keep in mind). In most situations, you should be fine, and L-shaped desks will offer the best scenario when the monitor is located at the appropriate middle elbow-point of the surface as the legs will take up the minimum amount of space.

Not only is the stand well-manufactured and strong, but it also matches the color and shape/theme of the monitor.

There are a total of three HDMI 2.1 ports and a single DP 2.1 (DisplayPort). You also get two USB-A ports and two USB-B ports, as well as a headphone jack that can also be used for stereo speakers.

With the USB ports, you are able to make use of the monitor as a KVM (or hub for a single computer). Insert the adapters or cables for your mouse/keyboard and then the USB-B connections run to your computer(s). If you have two in use, you can use the same mouse and keyboard on two different computers. Easily switching between them as you go.

The monitor also supports both Picture-in-Picture (PnP) and Picture-by-Picture (PbP) when making use of the inputs across the back. All of this can be controlled via the on-screen menu.

Issues that can be fixed

Of course, nothing is perfect and this is the first generation of a screen of this size from Samsung. It’s also a VA panel, so don’t expect that it will look like the company’s Mini-LED TVs just because of the tech. It is big, it is bright, it is curved, it comes with some of the highest resolutions in a monitor and more. But it isn’t the best when it comes to the overall picture. For a better image, you’d still be better off combining multiple fancy 4K monitors.

With something as new as this, you are likely to run into some issues. Some can be fixed with firmware updates and others may have to wait it out until the next-generation model (if it’s more of a hardware issue).

If you spend your time reading reviews, you’ll likely know that this model has suffered from things like weird flashing, lines, and even restarts while it is wigging out in such ways. You may not be able to enable HDR in Windows 11, or you might not see all of the refresh rates available to you. You may even see odd blotches of black forming within white backgrounds (like the background of a website) that look a bit like a lava lamp (we haven’t run into that before with any other model, but we did see it for ourselves with this one). Thankfully, these issues “should” be able to be remedied with a firmware update. It worked for us as it has done for others. So don’t return it until you have given this a try!

Of course, updating the firmware is also tricky, sadly. You may not be able to just format a drive and run with the update as the monitor has been having major issues recognizing formats. It needs to be FAT32, but you’ll have to use diskpart in Windows to format it as Window’s right-click GUI-driven format options just don’t seem to do the job. If you try to format normally (we’ve tried within Windows and macOS), it typically errors with “No update files found on your USB device. Please check your USB device and try again (File name: M-T9549GGAA-****.*”

So from within Windows, stick in a thumb drive that is preferably 8GB or less (larger drives may not be seen by the monitor), and you will want to do the following:

• Open Command Prompt and type “diskpart” and hit enter
• In the new window that pops up, type “list disk” to find your thumb drive
  • NOTE: MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHICH ONE THAT IS!!
• Type “select disk X”  (X = your thumb drive)
• Type “clean“
• Type “create part primary“
• Type “select part 1“
• Type “active“
• Type “format fs=fat32“

Now, drag and drop the updated firmware img file that you can find from visiting Samsung’s product page for the monitor here onto the thumb drive (we used version 1005.3, ourselves). Take the drive and plug it into the back of the monitor using the USB port labeled “Service”. Head to the menu on the monitor, go to Support, Software Update, and then click once more to trigger it. It should see the file on the drive.

Once it is done updating, you will want to head back to the support page and download/install “DEVICE(INSTALL)” driver package for a final touch.

Now you should have a working monitor that is no longer haunted by these issues. Unless it was physically damaged during shipment, at least. Some of the issues it fixes feel as though firmware wouldn’t fix anything, but surprisingly enough, it does.

Now it is great to see that Samsung has fixed a lot of this stuff through firmware, but it doesn’t justify that the monitor was released to the public like this. Did the company not physically put the monitor through serious testing before releasing it? It kind of feels that way, and this surprises us as we are normally huge Samsung fans.

Thus, this resulted in a loss of score. Because there have been a lot of returns by customers for this model, and most of them are likely due to how serious these issues “appear” to be and how difficult it is to troubleshoot them. You see so many user reviews describing these issues, and that they returned the monitor, thinking it was due to failing hardware. Or they couldn’t update the firmware and gave up and returned it.

When you buy a new monitor, you shouldn’t have to go through so much troubleshooting just to get it to work. Especially when it has an MSRP of $2,499. It just doesn’t make any sense.

For those looking to keep their monitor because they made it this far, then you should no longer have weird black blotchy lava lamp effects, white lines, strobing/flashing screens, resolution change issues, missing refresh rates, or lack of HDR selection.

If you still experience a lack of certain refresh rates, it should solely be due to the rest of your setup (aka, the limitations of your video card). However, you may still run into odd visual issues that may or may not be fixable using firmware, as Samsung continues to tweak it. At one point while we were removing the rest of the plastic from the monitor (the sections not blocking ventilation), the screen broke out with a bunch of white horizontal lines. It was unexplainable, and we couldn’t tell if it was due to static electricity or if someone slightly brushed against the DP connection. It hasn’t done it since, but the DP cable is a locking one, so it shouldn’t have been that. So another gremlin worth keeping an eye on.

Issues that you’ll have to live with

This monitor is a beast, so it kind of acts like one as well. For one, it has a satisfying light click as it powers on or off. For those who were around back then, it is almost similar to that of a CRT back in the day. Not as loud, but still there. This is because it is power hungry and requires 300W to light up. This kind of feels like moving backward a little for those who have spent all these years trying to make their home energy efficient.

Where there is power being consumed, there is heat. The more power you consume, the more heat byproduct you get. Thus, this monitor does put out a little heat. But you have to be close (too close to really) to notice the radiating heat on your face. So it won’t be an issue of being radiated by it all unless your face was a few inches from the screen. The heat isn’t terrible, so it shouldn’t heat up your space or anything. But if you touch the back of the monitor, you’ll feel a little warmth. So make sure it has plenty of space to breath with nothing bocking the vents on the back or bottom.

There is also a noticeable amount of light bleeding with this model. Especially with HDR enabled. You may/will notice any brighter areas of the image will have a slight halo effect running around it. It is best to keep HDR enabled only when you plan to play a game or watch an animated movie that would benefit from it. Keep it turned off everywhere else. Then play with the settings in custom mode to help dial some of this out. You can make a huge improvement by doing this, but I included it in this section since you won’t be able nip all of it in the butt.

We found a good post here on Reddit where a user offers a good list of calibrated settings that seem to look nice and balance things out well for this monitor. Even then, you might find yourself switching back and forth since its great for colors but not as much when you have a lot of white space on the screen as it will have a slight blue hue to it all.

For the cables that come with the monitor, there needs to be more length to everything. With how the cables route across the stand and into the section that you are supposed to use the cover for, you aren’t left with much anything to reach your tower. Samsung should have considered this and included longer cables (6-10 feet would have been perfect). So there is a chance that you will be running to Amazon or Best Buy to find longer cables. We wound up using this one from UGREEN that got the job done and is rated to handle the 4K@240 of the monitor (and more).

There is also no remote for this monitor. The Samsung Ark comes with a remote that offers all sorts of shortcuts for the user. Making use of the monitor much easier. This monitor lacks any remote whatsoever. So you are stuck controlling everything from a tiny joystick and directional pad on the bottom of the monitor. No shortcuts or anything fancy to make use of.

Finally, there is a subtle/slight electric buzz coming from the bottom/left side of the monitor. Not a huge deal at all since you can only really hear it in a decently quiet room (or office) and if you stick your ear within a foot of that corner of the screen. At a normal distance from the monitor (a few feet), it is very hard to tell. Likely, it has something to do with all that wattage passing through the monitor.

Video Cards (What will get you 4K@240?)

This part gets a little tricky. I keep pointing out that the resolution you end up using will heavily depend on your graphics card. This is because DisplayPort 2.1 is in its infancy and most cards won’t support it. Even the RTX 40 series cards only support up to 4K@120 on this monitor per spec.

Right now it is a game of give and take. The RTX 40 series offers more power, but it doesn’t support DP 2.1 and costs more. The AMD Radeon 7900XTX cards support DP 2.1, cost less, but aren’t as powerful (but come closest to the 4080). However, they can support (supposedly) the 4K@240 thanks to the DP 2.1 support.

So as of right now, if you want 1440P@whatever to 4K@120, the RTX 4080 or 4090 is a powerful option. However, if you want to max your refresh to 240Hz, you’ll be best getting the AMD Radeon 7900XTX. And in our honest opinion, the 7900XTX is going to be your best balance until Nvidia’s RTX 50 series launch. But that launch likely won’t happen until the end of this year or the start of next, so there’s going to be quite a wait for that (and who knows how available they will be).

Our Conclusion

Honestly, we felt that OLED beats Mini-LED in this case. Mini-LED has a lot of potential as things come close. It just doesn’t seem to be consumer-ready yet. For the price, we expected a lot more than this. We openly challenge Samsung to prove us wrong with something else. But from what we’ve seen thus far, we haven’t been as impressed as we thought we would be, when it comes to how much this monitor costs vs the hoops you have to jump through to get it to work.

That’s not to say this isn’t a great monitor. It is truly massive and offers an amazing picture once you dial it in. When it comes to LED vs Mini-LED, you will definitely see a difference. Blacks are noticeably black and colors can be quite vivid, even without HDR enabled. It just takes some work to get there in dialing it in. Even then, it isn’t perfect due to the bleeding. When it comes to TVs, Samsung is killing it with Mini-LED. Just not with monitors (yet). At least with Mini-LED, you aren’t at risk for burn-in like you are with OLED. It also has an incredible stand/mount that it comes with (which helps with the score some).

What really stings for us is the sheer amount of firmware/troubleshooting that is required. I can see why it experiences so many product returns. Cable routing is not the greatest due to length issues; it is lacking a remote, and that price tag makes you think that it shouldn’t suffer from or be missing anything. This is what has the most effect on the score this round.

So, for the price, none of this is really fitting. It just doesn’t make sense, and it seems that Samsung is starting to realize this. It launched with an MSRP of $2,499 and within a few months dropped to $1,999. At the time of writing this, it’s been dropped most everywhere to $1,799 already. This is starting to make a little more sense now. Although it is listed as “for a limited time only,” so it may not remain at this price. Thankfully, it’s quite a bit more fitting at this cost. The company just needs to eliminate the firmware issues before sending it out to users.

Specifications:

• Screen Size (Class): 57-inch
• Flat/Curved: Curved
• Resolution: Up to 7,680 x 2,160
• Aspect Ratio: 32:9
• Contrast Ratio (Static): 2,500:1
• Contrast Ratio (Dynamic): Mega DCR
• HDR10+: HDR10+ Gaming
• Viewing Angle (Horizontal/Vertical): 178(H)/178(V)
• HDR (High Dynamic Range): VESA DisplayHDR 1000
• Response Time:1ms(GTG)
• Active Display Size (H x V): 1394.6112 x 392.2344 mm (54.9 x 15.44 inches)
• Color Support: Max 1B
• Color Gamut (DCI Coverage): Typ 95%
• Panel Type: VA
• Frame Rate: Up to 240Hz
• Screen Curvature: 1000R
• Mini LED Local Dimming: Yes (2,392 zones)
• Features: Windows Certification Windows 10
• Eye Saver Mode: Yes
• FreeSync: FreeSync Premium Pro
• Flicker Free: Yes
• Image Size: Yes
• Off Timer Plus: Yes
• Black Equalizer: Yes
• Refresh Rate Optimizer: Yes
• Super Arena Gaming UX: Yes
• Picture-in-Picture: Yes
• Picture-By-Picture: Yes
• Virtual AIM Point: Yes
• Auto Source Switch: Auto Source Switch+
• Adaptive Picture: Yes
• Quantum Dot Color: Yes
• Core Sync: Yes
• KVM Switch: Yes
• Power: Type (Internal/External)
• Internal Power: Power Supply AC100-240V 50/60Hz
• Power Consumption (Max): 300 W
• Display Port: Display Port 2.1 (x1)
• HDMI Port: HDMI 2.1 (x3)
• Headphone: Yes
• USB Ports: 2
• USB Hub Version: 3.0
• HDCP Version (HDMI): 2.2
• HDCP Version (DP): 2.2
• Set Dimension with Stand (WxHxD): 52.3 x 23.7 x 19.7 Inches
• Set Dimension without Stand (WxHxD): 52.3 x 16.9 x 13.3 Inches
• Package Dimension (WxHxD): 57.3 x 16.5 x 21.9 Inches
• Package Weight: 59.1 Ibs
• Set Weight with Stand: 41.9 Ibs
• Set Weight without Stand: 34 Ibs
• UL Glare Free: Yes
• Tilt: -3.0deg(+/- 2deg) ~ 10.0(+/- 2)
• Swivel: -15.0deg (+/- 2deg)~ 15.0(+/- 2)
• Stand Type: HAS
• HAS (Height Adjustable Stand): 4.72 inches (+/-0.2 inches)
• Stand Color: Black
• Wall Mount: 100 x 100
• Front Color: Black
• Rear Color: White
• Factory Tuning (Calibration): Yes
• Color Modes: Entertain/Graphic/Eco/Game Standard/FPS/RTS/RPG/Sports/Original/Custom
• Factory Calibration Report: Yes
• Accessories: HDMI Cable, DP Cable
• Power Cable Length: 1.5 m

Are you a manufacturer or distributor that would like us to test something out for review? Contact us and we can let you know where to send the product and we will try it out.