Samsung has been teasing the arrival of its 57-inch Odyssey Neo G9 (G95NC) since early January 2023. The monitor was first announced during the leadup to CES 2023, promising to deliver 57 inches of Dual UHD (7680 x 2160) gaming. Samsung decided to whet our appetites again in August when UK preorders for the monitor opened at £2,199, including 20% VAT.
Since then, we got a chance to get a hands-on (and more importantly, eyes-on) the Odyssey Neo G9. The monitor is as menacing in person as it appeared in the first press renders that we saw. The design is familiar to those acquainted with the Neo family, as you’ll find black bezels around the display and a massive black stand to support the 33-pound weight of the bare monitor.
Turning around to the back, Samsung switches things up with a glossy white finish for the rear display housing and the vertical portion of the stand. A circular RGB orb (supporting CoreSync and Core Lighting+) is located at the center rear of the panel and serves as the junction point for height, swivel, and tilt adjustments. You can also wall mount the monitor with a VESA 100 bracket. Just be sure your bracket is securely mounted to a wall stud.
Samsung outfitted the Odyssey Neo G9 with a plethora of ports, including three HDMI 2.1, one DisplayPort 2.1 (lossless Display Stream Compression is supported), a built-in USB 3.0 hub and a headphone jack. The company is also intently focused on cable management, so it uses a large plastic panel to hide the unused ports and direct your cables to one central location near the stand.
The plastic panel is a bit wobbly, measures roughly 2.5 feet long and is held in place with clips. We can see how this hidden cable management would be appealing if your desk is an open space (i.e., not placed directly against a wall). Still, the plastic panel is a fussy detail on this otherwise well-executed design. Luckily, interacting with the panel is something you will probably only do occasionally after setting up the Neo G9.
The Odyssey Neo G9 visually impresses thanks to a 57-inch 1000R VA panel with Mini-LED backlighting (2,392 dimming zones). Sitting down in front of it, it's tough to try and substantively compare it to other high-end monitors, some of which offer QD-OLED or other competing panel types.
Even leaning in, I couldn't discern individual pixels, and overall the screen looked extremely good. But honestly, the sheer size of the screen does a lot of the heavy lifting of making the G9 impressive to use. That said, there are more than a few games that don't officially support the ultrawide 32:9 aspect ratio. Starfield is one recent high-profile example, though the developer has promised ultrawide support is coming in a future update.
Samsung claims that the gaming monitor has a static contrast ratio of 2,500:1. Minimum brightness for the panel is 350 nits, while typical measurements are dialed in at 420 nits and maximum brightness is rated at 1,000 nits. Gamers will appreciate the 1ms response time and maximum refresh rate of 240Hz with AMD FreeSync Premium Pro support, which is outstanding for a resolution of 7,680 x 2,160. We just hope you have the CPU and GPU firepower to do the Odyssey Neo G9 justice.
Of course, all this visual and gaming goodness doesn’t come cheap. Preorders in the United States open today for $2,499. For comparison, the 55-inch Odyssey Arc launched with an MSRP of $2,999 and currently sells for $1,999 at Amazon. However, Samsung is attempting to sweeten the deal for early adopters by offering a $500 credit for preorders placed between September 18 and October 1. The $500 credit can’t be used to reduce the price of the Odyssey Neo G9, but can be used toward the cost of any other Samsung device at the time of purchase.
