SAMSUNG 49-Inch Odyssey G9 DQHD Monitor LS49CG954ENXZA

3 Months Later:

Although I’m still head over heels for this monitor, especially for productivity, there are still 3 things that bother me.

#1) The monitor stand is really not a good stand. It should be able to go at least another inch higher. I’m only 5’7, and with the monitor at max height, I’d find myself slouching so that my eyes were ‘above’ the monitor. Sure, there is a monitor arm that can handle the G9. The Ergotron HX with the HD Pivot, which is what I got. But spending an extra 400$ (CAD) on a 1700$ Monitor is a bit insane to me. They could have easily made a stand that got this bad boy higher, but costs and what not I guess.

#2) The flickering issues are only fixed if you enabled the VRR setting in the menu. But at least if you have that setting enabled you won’t get flickering. Although for me even with it set to off, I’d strangely only get flickering in loading screens, or rarely in some menus.

#3) After talking with colleagues who also own Odyssey monitors (G7 or G9). They also have the weird issue with certain colors appearing as alternating bright/dark lines rather than a homogenous color. I should count myself lucky as this only occurs on the very top of the monitor and the top corners. My other colleague who has a G7 says that any red on his screen will show as alternating pink/red lines. (Not really pink but a bright shade of red) Your mileage may vary, but I’m slowly getting used to it.

Note on Performance: This isn’t really a con or something that bothers me. But I’m pretty shocked to see this monitor is definitely giving my RTX 3080 a run for it’s money. Games like RDR2 will run around 70 to 90 FPS in intense scenes, where plains and open ares can run at 120 fps-ish.

Note of Movies : I have to say. If you can find movies that “support” the 32:9 it’s really something. Sure you’ll get a bit of black bars on the side, ~5inches or so on each side. It almost feels like watching a movie on a personal cinema screen.

Overall no regrets. But even though I got the monitor on special, the monitor arm came and ate away at those savings. Buy on special, and careful with the HX arm resellers, I saw the price go from 380$ all the way to 500$ depending on the time of day. (I’m assuming it’s based on stock, but seriously it feels like you’re buying it off the stock market.)
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Original Review:

PROS:
1) Even better than 3 monitors for productivity. After taking some time to setup some FancyZones. I’m really blow away at how amazing it is to be able to work across a panel of this size. I’m upgrading for a Triple monitor setup (on a Ergotech 3 monitor arm). And even a few days in. I’m amazed at how much more effective it is to have all your monitors on the same continuous panel. Again, FanzyZones are a must but once you’ve got it tuned to your liking. It’s amazing
2) Next level immersion with games that support the aspect ratio. Seriously something that cannot be explained in words and needs to be experienced to understand fully. My wife who’s not a gamer at all now has taken an interest to driving games just because of how immersive it is.
3) Really Vivid Colors. Going from a TN Panel to IPS I was blown away by how vivid colors were. So I was concerned switching to VA. But it’s also very punchy. (But strange pixelization with the color orange.)
4) Super Bright, not a fan of HDR and I’m not using it. But with HDR off, the panel can be really bright with pretty damn good blacks.

CONS:
1) Stand is a little wobbly, I use a Pixoo-TV to nudge it underneath one of the sides to help stabilize it. Definitely needs a very stable surface to work on. Depending on how sturdy the desk is not sure a monitor arm would help for wobblyness. But it’s expected at a panel that size.
2) Not sure if it’s the combination of having this monitor with a second 1080p TV hooked up. But there is an odd behavior that if I try to launch a game which doesn’t have any widescreen resolution, or set to a low resolution by default. It can cause the display to freak out. It’ll display the image best it can be with immense lag and with weird redraw issues. And in some cases this would cause my 1080p screen to get ‘disabled’ where I would need to plug/unplug the Monitor. In any case if running older games on this monitor I’d suggest forcing windowed mode.
3) Although the colors look really good on this monitor. (Not even calibrated) But there is 1 color that looks weird. Some tints of orange instead of appearing as fat uniform color. I can see some kind of matrixing/pixelation going on. It’s not all shades of orange just some in particular.

IN BETWEEN:
A lot of features CANNOT be abled at the same time, or lock other features to preset values.
When enabling Adaptive Sync/GSYNC the monitor seems to lock the Pixel Response time to Fast or Fastest. Which makes it so that fast moving objects on screen will have leading (or trailing) coronas. Definitely not as noticeable if you would have with GSYNC off, and pixel response time set to standard. But then again, with my PG279Q, (IPS Panel) although I don’t experience coronas at all. Small details would get very, blurry with fast motion. Playing 2D games with fast scrolling wouldn’t be a nice experience on that monitor. For me at least, I prefer some form of corona if it means I can still see the object with acceptable level of detail. This obviously is subjective and a matter of preference.

CONCLUSION:

I think that even though this monitor has it’s quirks. For me at the very least, It’s got enough good things that overshadow the bad. And from a productivity stand point it’s hard to go back after you’re had a taste of this size.

And if you have the PC to power this beast, it will give you a immersive gaming experience like no other. Seriously driving and first person shooters on this thing are mind blowing. (WHEN PROPERLY SUPPORTED!)

Honestly expected a bit of a brighter picture. my LG C2 OLED is way brighter than this but you can’t beat the immersion you get from this thing. 4k would definitely make this an absolute must own.

everything perfect with … but … when i receive it it was doing something strange… i have multiple screen on my pc and when i got to another input on my other screen … and return to the pc on my other screen after … there is a bug in link with the refresh rate and g sync … if you put the game mode at off you will never see this bug .. buttt what ,s the point to have a 240hz monitor if you can only put it at 60 hz cuz you cant put game mode … the screen go black .. the only solution i found was to restart pc …. they do optimisation … update … a lot often … one to two time a week .. .and i dont go often on another input this month so i dont really see the probleme anymore ..i hope it will not come back

there is another bug … when i close the monitor and let another one open cause its oled and dont want to burn it threw the night … they say something about my task bar and cant hide it …. is it win 11 freaking ? but dont act like this to my 2 other monitor .. i just have to click on the message and return in the option reput hide taskbar but each time you close it … in long term it,s not funny

without these two problem … that a found minor … this monitor is reallyyyyyy something … oled is lifeeee wow just wowwwwwww black are black and light are amazing …. the most beautiful monitor i had see in my lfe … by farrrr 5120×1440 … you will need something to push this .. a 4090 it s just perfect with this .. i was on 21×9 and was not sure about 32×9 … in final it s take 2 days and i was in love with .. it s take ressource but at this moment there is no oled 21×9 2160 … so at least my 4090 it s usefull with this …

a lot of option and a strange menu … with some channel free of tv on it … i dont use it but maybe some people will like this option if he dont have tv at home .. it s a + …

in final i gave it 4 star … im probably lucky to dont have allllll the problem people seem to have and very more armful then the 2 little probleme i ahve with … i can live with the 2 problem i have .. its not perfect … but i hope i will not have a dead monitor out of nowhere like other people talk about or something like this that is a game changer …. will see what future is … samsung monitor seem to have a Quality controle problem … to bet on a mointor like this one that are not ultra new and not the first batch seem a better idea then go another one really really new and playing with the luck … but this one at the moment is 3.9 on amazon … you still take a bet … i had take it .. and at this moment im happy doing it … like i said will pray this luck continu …. it s why i give him 4. .. if i can put 4.5 i gave it … at the moment cuz my furst bug seem disapear by the update .. with the bug still here i was more like 4 or 3,5 but is not there anymore so 4,5 .. cross finger for the future .. i hope i help someone t o know if he take a bet on this monitor or not 🙂

I read online forums and watched all the Youtubers for 3-4 months before purchasing this monitor. My two worries were scaling applications easily like a two monitor setup, and if a 2060 video card could push hard enough to play games as 30X0 series video cards are nearly impossible to find at the time of this review. There’s a downloadable app called PowerToys with a something called “Fancy Windows” that allows you to divide up the screen very easily for productivity apps and it’s actually glorious for me. I have 3 apps divided up evenly on the screen and there is lots of real-estate for it at the native 5140×1440. I had thought that I would have to run the 2060 video at 1080p, but have been surprised that by turning down to medium settings in games I can 70-90 fps in top titles at the full native resolution. I know most people would prefer to see over 100 fps, including me, but whether it’s g-sync or something else, it feels smooth and is truly incredible. Far Cry 5, Witcher 3, Doom Ultimate, Battlefield 4, Battle Front 2, Elder Scrolls online all look great with minimal to no stretching at the sides. Fallout 76 is a mess as it has terrible support for Ultrawide. I only had to turn one game down to 1080p and I honestly cannot really tell. RTX is unusable dropping even Quake RTX down to 13 fps but it was never a great option on a 2060 anyway. In terms of the monitor itself. HDMI sound is not working. I’m deciding if I want to try a firmware update to fix this. I’m not sure it’s that important to me. HDR is great in games and most games see it and turn it on without needing to turn on the dismal Windows implementation of HDR. The colour is great and the whites are very white. I didn’t know what I was missing with my old ASUS gaming monitor. I definitely recommend this to a gamer that is savvy with their tech. If you are not a tech type and are uncomfortable with changing resolution settings and fixing glitches when you change the wrong setting, you might want to wait until there is better windows and game support for these.