The new Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 gaming monitor delivers a 49 inch super ultrawide display which will take your gaming to the next level with Quantum Matrix Technology and Quantum HDR2000 display that has a 240Hz refresh rate. Defy Reality with immersive gameplay and maximised productivity. The Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 is available at Harvey Norman now.
I’m a big advocate of ultrawide monitors. After using a 35” ultrawide for both productivity and gaming for the last 18 months, I was confident in thinking there was nothing that could quite match or improve upon the experience. Productivity tasks thrive on the wider screen, making multi-tab reports an absolute breeze while also giving you the flexibility to consume video content without compromise. Gaming on an ultrawide is where the experience really becomes special, though. Games that support the bump in resolution and larger aspect ratio give you a wider view of what you’re seeing – enhancing the immersion and opening up a potential competitive advantage against the traditional 16:9 monitor. There’s truly nothing quite like it, and I thought I’d seen it all in this space right up until Samsung’s Odyssey Neo G9 landed on my doorstep.
Samsung’s Odyssey line of gaming monitors have been around for some time now, but the Odyssey Neo G9 is this year’s top of the line gaming monitor from the company. And the benefits of Quantum Mini LED are easy to see – a bright, vivid colour range complemented by Quantum HDR2000. The company’s Quantum Matrix Technology allows for ultra-fine and precise control across the display, making dark areas noticeably darker and brighter pictures properly pop. As well as this, the Odyssey Neo G9 uses the same technology seen in Samsung’s line of NeoQLED TVs.
This is designed to enhance the gaming experience on both PC and console, where colours are vibrant and the wide-ranging contrast options make games like Deathloop and Little Nightmares 2 look phenomenal. This is further complemented by the monitor’s 240Hz refresh rate that goes together with full G-Sync compatibility. Essentially, there’s a smorgasbord of features here, allowing for a range of different gaming scenarios – whether it’s competitive play or taking on the next big single-player adventure.
Setup and assembly is relatively straight forward (as long as you have a desk big enough to house it). I was initially thinking a 49” ultrawide would be overkill in the ultrawide space, but gee was I wrong. This feels like the premiere PC gaming experience.
Gaming is where the monitor truly excels, unsurprisingly. Playing games that support the monitor’s native 5120×1440 resolution in 32:9, the experience is unlike anything else on the market. The best way to explain this sheer bump in resolution is that it feels like a blend of having a VR headset strapped onto your noggin’ and watching something in a theatre – the monitor has a 1000R curve that wraps right around your eyesight and matches up with your peripheral vision to make for gaming sessions that you can just melt into.
The Odyssey Neo G9 represents a different experience entirely to what’s been seen before, which makes it a great option for those venturing out on single-player adventures. Titles of all sorts, whether competitive or single-player, really benefit from the implementation of snappy 240Hz support and G-Sync, coming together to present a feature-filled gaming monitor.
Booting into Rockstar’s cowboy epic, Red Dead Redemption 2, was awe-inspiring – the lush scenery across Armadillo was a sight to behold. There’s a wide field of view to call on and this made confrontations with outlaws and the police feel a lot less chaotic due to the sheer amount of screen real estate I had to look at. I could effectively account for where I needed to plan my next attack or if the numbers were too great and it was time to retreat.
Another fantastic example of a game that makes the Odyssey Neo G9 shine is Playground Games’ Forza Horizon 4. Exploring England’s lush scenery has never looked so damn good, and the sheer difference the bump in resolution makes thanks to the monitor is astonishing. Like Red Dead 2, there’s so much more to look at and the immersion of cruising around many of the beautiful English landmarks in the game is unmatched when compared to some other non-curved monitors.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, strategy and simulation games see massive improvement with the boost in resolution, too. Age of Empires, for example, feels like a completely different experience thanks to the large aspect ratio. This is also true in Frontier Development’s fantastic Planet Coaster. As someone who spends far too much time trying to build ridiculous roller coasters and making the perfect park, the wide resolution allowed me to effectively plan and build on my parks without needlessly scrolling and panning. It feels akin to taking the training wheels off of a bike, really.
Thanks to the monitor’s 240Hz refresh rate, competitive titles play fantastically well. As long as you have a PC with a graphics card that can handle pushing out higher frame rates, games like Call of Duty Warzone and Apex Legends really come to life with the large resolution and snappy refresh rate. This, combined with the monitor’s 1ms response time, almost feels like a proper competitive advantage. In games where reaction times are everything, the Odyssey Neo G9 excels in offering everything a competitive gamer could want. This was especially noticeable in my go-to competitive game, Rocket League. Having the extra screen real estate meant I could see the whole field of play, allowing me to expertly plan attacking and defensive manoeuvres and plays with relative ease.
For times where productivity work takes priority, the Odyssey Neo G9 is on another level to other monitors on the market. I was able to have two word documents and an excel spreadsheet open at the same time, referencing and reworking pieces with relative ease. This was a big reason as to why I’d invested in a 35” ultrawide a year and a half ago, and having used the Odyssey Neo G9 for a month I again feel like the extra real estate makes for a compelling reason to invest again. In the world we live in today – where working from home is more important than ever – Samsung’s Odyssey Neo G9 is a brilliant all-in-one option for those that need to balance multiple applications, tabs and windows.
Samsung’s delivered big on their behemoth gaming monitor. Sitting down for the first time and booting the monitor up, I was ready to be impressed and it’s safe to say I was. While it does represent a significant investment, playing games feels so very different to what you get on a television or other monitors. And with more games allowing resolutions up to 5120×1440 with the 32:9 aspect ratio, now’s as good a time as any to give super ultrawide a shot.
