$999 is a load of money but this uberwide OLED gaming monitor from Samsung is still my Black Friday bargain
Is there a point at which a gaming monitor gets too big, too unweildy? Maybe, but who cares, just look at this thing, corner-to-corner made of Samsung’s snazzy QD-OLD panel tech, all 49 inches of it. We first clapped our eyes on it in July. Then it was $1,599, now it’s already plummeted to just $999 on Amazon in the run up to Black Friday.
Yep, that’s still a whole lotta money. But it’s remarkable to see a premium mega sized OLED gaming monitor hit this price level so soon after launch. Lest you have forgotten, the Samsung Odyssey OLED G9 G93SC is a 49-inch 32:9 aspect monster sporting QD-OLED tech and a native resolution of 5,120 by 1,440.
It’s an interesting alternative to another massive Samsung beast, the Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 G95NC Dual UHD is even bigger at 57 inches and offers fully dual-4K 7,680 by 2,160 resolution. But it’s an LCD monitor with a mini-LED backlight, rather than OLED. It was also even more expensive at $2,499, though it too is now available at quite a discount, albeit still for a lot of money at $1,999 on Amazon.
If you’re lucky enough to be playing in this part of the market, which should you for? Well, aside from being half the cost, the Odyssey OLED G9 G93SC has some obvious advantages.
For starters, it’s OLED and that means per-pixel lighting that even full-array mini-LED LCD monitors like the G95NC can’t even get close to. So, the G95NC is brighter, but this OLED monitor still delivers a much more realistic HDR experience.
It’s faster, too. In fact, Samsung’s QD-OLED technology is so quick it makes the whole issue of pixel response moot, a problem solved, nothing to worry about, effectively instant.
The other major upside of the Odyssey OLED G9 G93SC is also one of its weaknesses, namely the relatively low resolution. It has far fewer pixels than its bigger dual-4K brother. But that means less overhead for your GPU.
In theory, the bigger 57-inch beast hits the same 240Hz as this OLED monitor. But with all those pixels, you’ve got zero chance of hitting 240fps in the latest and most demanding games, even with an Nvidia RTX 4090 (and as it happens, the RTX 4090 doesn’t support DisplayPort 2.0, so it can’t output at dual-4K 240Hz, anyway).
Meanwhile, this OLED monitor actually has slightly fewer pixels than a conventional 4K panel, making it a great fit with currently available high-end GPUs. You’re still left with the fact that the extreme 32:9 aspect ratio doesn’t necessarily work well with all game genres. And there is the worry of OLED burn-in once you get past the three-year warranty. But we’ve spent quality time with the Samsung Odyssey OLED G9 G93SC and can say with confidence that it’s one of if not the best gaming experiences on offer at any price. It’s spectacular.