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00:00I can barely fit this whole thing in the frame look at it hey guys I'm Tomatek
00:20chap and this absolute beast is the new Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 and it takes the
00:26already bonkers G9 from last year with its massive 49 inch extra curvy super
00:33duper ultrawide 5k 240 Hertz display to the next level with a brand new mini LED
00:39panel so not only is this the brightest monitor that I've ever tested peaking at
00:44over 2300 nits it also has darker blacks than a regular LED LCD way better
00:50contrast and actually there's a lot less blooming and haloing around bright
00:54objects than you might expect however with a spec sheet as long and as crazy
01:00as this it doesn't come cheap the Neo G9 will launch for about twenty two
01:04hundred pounds or twenty five hundred dollars and that's a lot of money
01:08especially when you consider you can pick up the original G9 for less than
01:13half of that never film and drive kids it's just it's just too dangerous so
01:18first of all a big thank you to Samsung for actually sending this over for me to
01:21have a play with and also sponsoring this video but as always all opinions
01:25are my own and I was just really keen to get this in to test what kind of a
01:29difference mini LED actually makes and the bottom line could I actually get
01:34used to using something this big you can also see I've got Windows 11 running on
01:39this which I'll talk more about in a second but if you do enjoy the video and
01:42appreciate the early access look at the Neo G9 then a cheeky little like and
01:46subscribe would be lovely okay so first things first and we have to talk about
01:50this curve when I was setting this up on the desk I could fit my whole head
01:55under it and I have a big head seriously hats just don't fit me now Samsung says
01:59this is a 1000 R curve meaning it tracks the curve of a circle with a 1 meter
02:05radius I mean you can see just how curved this is but it also means that
02:09actually if you have four of these around you you could have a proper 360
02:13round desk setup but this is a much tighter curve than most ultra wides and
02:18super ultra wides and while it may look a little bit ridiculous at first glance
02:22when you sit down in front of it everything just starts to make sense the
02:26curve means the screen really does wrap around you and it keeps the whole panel
02:30a more consistent distance from your eyes however being so curvy it also
02:35picks up pretty much every reflection you've got going on behind you and it
02:39can give you a sort of stretched 3d kind of reflection effect which isn't ideal
02:44so really you're gonna want to take this down to your basement man cave if you've
02:48got one at least block out all the lights behind it so just like last
02:52year's g9 Samsung again have gone with this proper sci-fi with a design
02:55there's a glossy white plastic body and this circular RGB area at the back or
03:00what Samsung calls core lighting in fact this has just been upgraded to core sync
03:05which means the lighting changes to match the on-screen action but otherwise
03:09it's identical to last year's g9 is there anything more glorious than a 32
03:15by 9 5k Age of Empires 2 definitive edition if I knew this is how I'll be
03:20playing this game like 20 years ago when I first started playing it I don't think
03:24I would believe you this is kind of ridiculous actually like last year's g9
03:27though we still have a lot of adjustability with the monster you can
03:30adjust the height goes as low as that so lower than my mug in fact so you could
03:36probably maybe visa mount a couple of these maybe three for your stock
03:41trading and your GME stocks and all that stuff you can go as high as that
03:45you've also got rotation was that pivoting I forget which one is and also
03:50a nice bit of tilt and it's actually a reassuringly stable stand given just how
03:56ridiculously big this is but let's take a step back because why would you
04:00actually want a super ultra wide anyway when there's so many fantastic regular
04:04gaming monitors already out there well for one you're getting twice the screen
04:08area and field of viewing games as you get with a traditional 16 by 9 monitor
04:13and still 50% more than a 21 by 9 ultra wide so that means we're getting more
04:18visual information like enemies coming into view sooner which genuinely could
04:22give you a competitive advantage and it makes games especially ones with
04:26incredible game worlds and vistas feel all the more immersive super ultra wise
04:31are also good at replacing multi monitor setups the neo g9 is basically two
04:36regular 1440p monitors stuck together without the ugly bezel in the middle
04:41which means you can effectively run native 1440p apps side-by-side and this
04:46is the best bit with Windows 11 I've installed the developer preview here you
04:51can see the start menu is now in the center by default which is a lot more
04:54comfortable to use than having to go right to the bottom left and also the
04:58snap tool is more flexible now so it's easier to actually organize and
05:02multitask with different apps across the screen now if we jump into the
05:06settings menu I'm still getting used to Windows 11 a little bit here but display
05:10resolution 5120 by 1440 so Samsung are saying this is a 5k display because we
05:16have well over 5,000 pixels on the horizontal axis but it is only by 1440 I
05:21say only that's still pretty good but it's not as sharp as a proper 4k display
05:26so obviously you'll still get a sharper image on a 27 inch 4k display but given
05:31the size of this I think the pixel print density is more than enough and of course
05:35the other thing to think about when it comes to high resolutions like this is
05:39whether your PC is actually powerful enough to fully take advantage of this
05:43and crucially max out that 240 Hertz refresh rate because you'll need a
05:47seriously beefy GPU to get high frame rates out of the latest triple-a games
05:51and even with an RTX 3090 in my build I can barely hit 240 FPS in most games
05:57with maxed out settings although older or less demanding games like you know
06:01Age of Empires, Dota, Starcraft, Overwatch or Rainbow Six Siege I have been able to
06:06fully max it out however this isn't just good for PC gaming because while you
06:11won't be able to take advantage of the ultra wide aspect ratio on console we do
06:15get a brand spanking new HDMI 2.1 port so it's properly future-proof for any
06:20potential 4k 120 Hertz modes on PS5 or Series X we also get picture-in-picture
06:27mode and also picture-by-picture mode where you can divide the screen between
06:31two separate input sources so maybe from a laptop and a desktop or more fun
06:36I think a PC and a console so you can have your Series X or your PS5 running
06:41on one half of the screen up to 1440p which you can specify on the Series X
06:46and then essentially a full 27 inch 1440p desktop with your YouTube or your
06:51Spotify or your Discord on the other side of the screen so the size is one
06:55thing but we already had that with the original G9 what's different now is we
06:59have a screen with Samsung's quantum matrix technology which is a combination
07:03of mini LED and 2048 dimming zones so it's a VA panel and we get an ultra
07:10smooth 240 Hertz refresh rate but I should say to get that full 240 you will
07:15need a recent GPU that supports DisplayPort 1.4 with DSC or display
07:20stream compression but that is true of any 240 Hertz monitor but the benefit
07:25you get going from a regular LED LCD monitor to mini LED is obvious blacks
07:31actually look black rather than a muddy gray and that's partly thanks to the
07:34panel which allows for more gradations of greater black but it's also the
07:38massive increase in dimming zones that makes the biggest difference so regular
07:42LED LCD screens are backlit using a matrix of LED lights which are then
07:48grouped into different areas different zones which can then be controlled and
07:51dimmed according to what's on screen which is fine but mini LED takes that to
07:56the next level with I think 140th the size of the LEDs which means they can
08:00cram a whole lot more in and with more individually dimmable groups meaning the
08:05processor can then dim or brighten smaller local areas of the screen at a
08:09time so lighter areas don't then bleed into darker areas creating that bloom
08:14or haloing effect that we all know and hate so where the old G9 had 10 dimming
08:20zones across the entire 49 inch screen now we have 2048 200 times more dimming
08:29zones there's still some haloing which is made more noticeable by the darker
08:33blacks but this is a massive improvement and it's not just about better contrast
08:37because having more LEDs means brightness can be higher as well and
08:41Samsung claims this can hit a whopping 2,000 nits of peak brightness in HDR
08:46content which is double what the older G9 could manage and they're calling this
08:50the quantum HDR 2000 standard so I was a little bit skeptical but I tested it
08:55and yes the Neo G9 can do it and then some I actually measured a peak of over
09:002,300 nits that is seriously bright however this is peak brightness and the
09:06display does start to dim after a few seconds leveling out at around 900 nits
09:11which it maintains and it's still very bright how long it maintains the full
09:15brightness seems to depend on how big the peak brightness area is because in
09:19my video tests the smaller the area the longer it maintained the full brightness
09:23and so streaming HDR TV shows and movies looks incredible on this although while
09:29we do get HDR 10 plus support sadly there isn't any Dolby Vision although of
09:34course this impressive brightness is limited to HDR content whether it's
09:38movies or games and obviously PC HDR gaming is well the supports a little bit
09:42patchy still but when you're back to SDR content which is what you're probably
09:46gonna be looking at most the time then we're getting a 400 nit brightness which
09:49is still pretty good but really you're gonna want to use HDR to get the most
09:53out of this color accuracy is impressive though I measured 100% of the sRGB 99%
09:59Adobe RGB and 94% of the DCI p3 color gamuts I should say though that
10:04Samsung's official figures state 125% sRGB but that's essentially just a
10:10different way of measuring it gamut coverage 100% versus gamut volume 125%
10:16but either way that is very impressive for a gaming monitor and also being
10:20curved means there's a lot less color shift when you're looking at the edges
10:24although like most screens if you move off center then there is some shift from
10:27whites to gray one issue I have found though is that you can't manually set
10:32the response time to its overdrive setting if adaptive sync is enabled and
10:37it's the same with low input lag mode which means I'm probably not getting the
10:41fastest advertised response time having said that being 240 Hertz response times
10:46are pretty speedy anyway and ghosting artifacts were minimal but back to
10:50gaming and while the size and the curve are still styles of the show here having
10:55mini LED does make all the difference looking at the Sun in a game with HDR on
10:59almost hurts it's so bright you know in a good way and the greater contrast
11:04helps colors to pop and the combination of that huge amount of peripheral vision
11:08running at high refresh rates it really draws you in and it's as close to a kind
11:13of VR experience as you'll get outside of strapping a headset to your face
11:17surprisingly I didn't really find myself moving my head to look at the sides of
11:21the screen as it was more for just my peripheral vision now unfortunately I
11:25don't have the time to play as many games as I used to I would like to I
11:29spend about half my life in Premiere Pro and just look at the size of that
11:33timeline it's beautiful although really what it means is I can have my project
11:38files and media browser to one side and then maybe split the screen in half I
11:42know it's a cliche term but there's just so much screen real estate to play with
11:46and if you are using something with a timeline like this while this is
11:49primarily a gaming display it's also going to be a fantastic work monitor for
11:53me as well there are a couple of niggles with this though because not all games
11:57actually support 32 by 9 some like Rainbow Six Siege actually maxed out at
12:03an ultra-wide 21 by 9 so it's hello to those black bars again and for work I
12:08think I prefer it if it was a little bit taller maybe 32 by 10 rather than by 9
12:13which would give us a 51 20 by 1600 resolution instead of 1440 just to help
12:19things feel a little bit less letterboxy and there also aren't any speakers with
12:23this which would have been nice given the price okay let's wrap up and I think
12:28the jump to mini LED is one of the biggest upgrades to gaming monitors that
12:33we've seen in years it really makes a big difference and while of course mini
12:37LED isn't exclusive to Samsung this is one of the first ones we've seen on a
12:42proper super ultra wide and I'm very impressed it is of course very expensive
12:47but I'd argue you're getting a lot of screen for your money here and while
12:51last year's Odyssey g9 was fantastic at launch and still very good if you want
12:55the absolute best picture quality then the neo g9 is in another league entirely
13:00and then there's the Odyssey g7 which is smaller and cheaper either with a curved
13:05or new for this year a flat screen version so this thing literally turns
13:10head I think it's pretty much unquestionably the highest spec most
13:15over-the-top super ultra wide gaming monitor you can buy it's not for
13:20everyone of course and also you'll need a pretty powerful PC to get the most out
13:23of it and also where possible I would recommend trying to play or watch stuff
13:27in HDR so you can really take advantage of that crazy brightness but when you're
13:32sat in front of this thing it is a genuinely jaw-dropping experience but
13:36what do you reckon would you be tempted to have one of these on your desk would
13:39it even fit on your desk let me know what you think of the neo g9 in the
13:43description below no in the comments below even in the description is my
13:47link to this if you fancy checking it out for yourself thank you so much for
13:50watching guys and I'll see you next time right here on the tech chat