Samsung Odyssey Neo G9/G95NC S57CG95 Monitor Review

The Samsung Neo G9 has a large 57-inch screen with an aggressive 1000R curve that may take time to get used to, especially if you aren't used to curved displays. It has black feet and bezels, and the body is white plastic. There's also a ring of RGB lighting on the back where the stand attaches to the monitor.

The overall build quality is good. There aren't any obvious issues out of the box, and the stand holds the screen well enough for a display of its size. There's a lot of wobble, but that's normal for something so big. The biggest downside is that the monitor gets very hot after a long usage period, and it even got up to 50°C during testing. It feels hot to touch, especially the metal top portion of the monitor, and it can quickly warm your room if you use it for an extended time.

We experienced another issue where portions of the screen randomly displayed areas of solid color. There was no pattern as to when it happened, and it only occurred a few times during testing, as we couldn't replicate this issue when we tried. It only happened with an AMD graphics card, but it's unclear what caused the issue. You can see an example of it here. If you experience the same thing, let us know in the Comments.

The ergonomics are passable, especially for such a large monitor. Besides the fact that you obviously can't rotate it into portrait mode, it still offers most common adjustments to help you find an ideal position, but it feels stiff on the stand to make these adjustments. The back of the stand also features a clip for cable management.

The wide-set feet take up a lot of space, so you need a big table to place it on, but there's still enough space to put your keyboard and mouse between them. The thickness of the monitor is measured from the side of the monitor to the back of the stand, and the thickness from the center to the back of the stand is 10.7" (27.3 cm).

The thickness is measured from the side of the screen to the back of it, and the thickness from the center to the back is 3.8" (9.6 cm).

There's a directional pad underneath the center of the monitor to control the on-screen display.

• HDMI cable
• DisplayPort cable
• USB-B to USB-A cable
• Power cable
• VESA mounting adapter
• User guides

This monitor has a great contrast ratio. Its full-array local dimming feature helps it display deep blacks next to bright highlights, making it a great choice for dark room gaming.

The Samsung Neo G9 has Mini LED backlighting with 2,392 zones, and the local dimming feature performs fairly well, but it could be better. There's blooming around bright objects, like around subtitles, or even when there are black bars on the sides. However, this blooming looks worse from the sides than when viewed in front. Whenever there are smaller bright objects on the screen, it crushes those highlights and dims them too much, so they lose details, and they're harder to see. Lastly, although the dimming zones are small, it's visible when they turn on and off, which can be distracting depending on the screen, but the algorithm keeps up with fast-moving objects well. Overall, while it's fine for a local dimming feature on a monitor, it isn't as good as other high-end monitors like the Samsung Odyssey Neo G9/G95NA S49AG95.

Settings

• Picture Mode: Original (Calibrated)
• Local Dimming: High
• Brightness: 100
• Contrast Enhancer: Off
• Color Tone: Warm 1

The Samsung G95NC has fantastic SDR brightness. It easily gets bright enough to fight glare, and while it maintains its brightness fairly consistently across different content, full-screen windows are dimmed a bit. The Real Scene result is with a 32:9 aspect ratio, and it gets a bit brighter with a 16:9 aspect ratio as it goes up to 826 cd/m².

Settings

• Picture Mode: Custom
• Local Dimming: High
• Brightness: 100
• Black Level: Low
• Color Tone: Warm 1

The HDR brightness is great. Bright highlights pop, especially small objects that stand out against the rest of the image. These results are with a 32:9 aspect ratio, and it gets much brighter with a 16:9 aspect ratio as it reaches 815 cd/m² in the Real Scene test. The EOTF is okay, as it crushes blacks and overbrightens brighter scenes. Because of the sharp roll-off at the peak brightness, it lets highlights get the brightest they can. The EOTF performs better with Color Tone set to 'Standard,' as you can see here, but it doesn't get as bright as the 'Warm 1' setting.

The horizontal viewing angle is disappointing. The image quickly washes out from the sides, even if you're sitting slightly off-center. You have to sit at the center of the screen to see the most consistent image across the entire display.

The Samsung Neo G9 has a disappointing vertical viewing angle. The image is inconsistent if you stand up and look down at the monitor.

The gray uniformity is decent, but there are some issues. There are dark areas throughout, especially in the center, as it has noticeable dirty screen effect. This can be distracting with multiple windows and documents open across the screen.

The black uniformity is fantastic with the local dimming feature enabled, but it doesn't eliminate all blooming. Disabling the local dimming feature results in some backlight bleed, though.

This monitor has very good accuracy before calibration. Most colors and the white balance are only slightly off, and the color temperature is nearly spot-on with the 6500K target. Gamma is a bit off, though, as most dark scenes are too dark. The monitor doesn't have a dedicated sRGB mode, but setting the Color Space Settings to 'Auto' locks colors to the sRGB color space, and you still have access to other settings. If you don't set it to 'Auto,' colors are oversaturated, which you can see here.

The accuracy after calibration is remarkable. There aren't any remaining noticeable inaccuracies.

The SDR color gamut is incredible. It has perfect coverage of the common sRGB color space besides saturated blues. It also has good coverage of the Adobe RGB color space used in photo publishing, but it oversaturates reds and blues and undersaturates greens and cyans.

The HDR color gamut is good. It has great coverage of the commonly used DCI-P3 color space, with fantastic tone mapping. It also displays a wide range of colors in the Rec. 2020 color space, but tone mapping is worse as most colors are off, and greens are undersaturated. These results are with Color Tone set to 'Warm 1,' and you can see the results with it set to 'Standard' below:

DCI-P3

• DCI-P3 Coverage: 85.6%
• Tone-Mapped DCI-P3 Coverage: 85.2%

Rec. 2020

• Rec. 2020 Coverage: 64.6%

This monitor has a very good HDR color volume. It displays bright and dark colors well, but its incomplete color gamut limits it. These results are with Color Tone set to 'Warm 1,' and the color volume is slightly worse with it set to 'Standard.'

The text clarity is incredible, thanks to its high pixel density. Enabling Windows ClearType (top photo) helps improve the clarity of letters, but it isn't necessary. These photos are in Windows 10, and you can see it in Windows 11 with ClearType on here, and with ClearType off here.

The reflection handling is remarkable. It has an aggressive matte coating that easily reduces glare from bright light sources. Combined with its high peak brightness, you won't have any issues using it in a bright room.

The gradient handling is remarkable, and you won't notice any banding in scenes with shades of a similar color.

You can reach this monitor's max refresh rate over DisplayPort only if you have a DisplayPort 2.1 graphics card, as we used an AMD RADEON RX 7800 XT, and you need to either use the included DisplayPort cable or any DP 2.1-certified cable that's shorter than 1.5 m (5 ft).

However, connecting over HDMI isn't so straightforward. You need an HDMI 2.1 graphics card and need to connect to HDMI 2 or 3 as they support the full 48 Gbps bandwidth of HDMI 2.1, and HDMI 1 is limited to a max refresh rate of 120Hz at its native resolution. Although there aren't issues reaching the max refresh rate and resolution with 8-bit signals, not all sources support the 240Hz refresh rate with 10-bit signals. The max with an NVIDIA RTX 4080 graphics card is 120Hz, and that's only when setting the Refresh Rate in the monitor's OSD to '120Hz.' Setting it to '240Hz' strangely limits the 10-bit refresh rate to 60Hz, as you can see here. While using the RX 7800 XT graphics card, the max refresh rate with 10-bit was 240Hz though, as it uses Display Stream Compression.

The refresh rate range is limited on NVIDIA graphics cards that don't support DisplayPort 2.1, and you need to set the Refresh Rate to '120Hz' to get the max possible refresh rate with its native resolution.

The motion handling is excellent across the VRR range. Using VRR disables any of the overdrive settings, and motion is consistently fast across the refresh rate range, without much blur, but there's still some smearing.

The refresh rate compliance is excellent. It's better than most LED-backlit monitors, as its response time is fast enough to make near-full color transitions with 120Hz and 60Hz signals.

The CAD at the max refresh rate of 240Hz is fantastic. Motion looks sharp, but it doesn't eliminate all smearing either. Using VRR disables the overdrive settings, but if you aren't going to use VRR, then the 'Standard' setting results in similar motion handling.

The CAD at 120Hz is impressive. There's a bit of smearing, but for the most part, motion looks sharp with VRR enabled. Without VRR, the 'Standard' overdrive setting results in similar motion handling.

The CAD at 60Hz impressive. There's more blur than at higher refresh rates, and once again the 'Standard' overdrive with VRR disabled performs similarly to enabling VRR.

The Samsung Neo G9 has an option in the Response Time setting called 'Extreme (MBR),' but it doesn't change the backlight flicker and doesn't seem to be working properly. This could get fixed with a firmware update, so we'll retest it if it does.

Unfortunately, this monitor has noticeable VRR flicker with changing frame rates that's most noticeable in dark scenes. Unlike other Samsung monitors, there's no setting for VRR Control, but changing the resolution to 3840x2160 triggers a feature similar to VRR Control as there's no flickering. That said, even with this signal, there's still no option in the OSD to enable or disable VRR Control.

The Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 Monitor has a backlight that remains flicker-free at all brightness levels, which helps reduce eye strain if you're sensitive to flicker.

The Samsung G95NC has low input lag for a responsive feel, and it doesn't increase with a lower refresh rate or even if you change the resolution.

This monitor works well with the PS5 if you have it connected to HDMI 1. However, because the console doesn't support ultrawide gaming, you'll get black bars on the screen, and the 16:9 image only takes up half the screen. Using HDMI 2 or 3 limits the refresh rate to 60Hz, and you can't use VRR.

The Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 Monitor works properly with the Xbox Series X|S, as long as you have it connected to HDMI 1, because HDMI 2 and 3 only support a max refresh rate of 60Hz with the console and without VRR. Besides that, there aren't any compatibility issues on HDMI 1, but because the console doesn't support ultrawide signals, you'll see black bars on the screen. Keep in mind that the console doesn't support HDR with 1440p or 1080p signals, so this isn't a limitation of the monitor.

Unlike HDMI 2 or 3, which support 48 Gbps of bandwidth, HDMI 1 is limited to 32 Gbps bandwidth, as you can see here.

The Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 has two USB-B ports, which you need for the KVM switch.

This monitor works well with macOS, but you must use an HDMI 2.1 device for the highest resolution. You can get the max resolution using a 2023 MacBook Pro, which uses HDMI 2.1, but the refresh rate is limited to 60Hz. That said, on older devices, the max resolution is 3840x1080. Using a USB-C to DisplayPort cable, this monitor supports the entire refresh rate range with VRR, but HDR looks bad as the color temperature is on the warm side, and we don't suggest using it. Over HDMI with an HDMI 2.0 device, it only supports a fixed 60Hz refresh rate with a 4k resolution.

The Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 has a few neat features, including a KVM switch that makes it easy to switch devices and use the same keyboard and mouse connected to the computer. To use it, you need to connect each USB-B port to your two computers and connect your keyboard and mouse to the monitor over USB-A. From there, you need to configure the USB Source Setup in the OSD to match the video input with the USB input. Once you change the video input, the KVM switch changes quickly, and there aren't any issues with it.

It also has a Picture-in-Picture and Picture-by-Picture mode that you can use to view images from two sources at once. You can customize the position of the two images.

Other than these productivity features, it has a few extra features, like:

• Black Equalizer: Adjusts gamma so that it's easier to see opponents in dark-scene games.
• Crosshair: Displays virtual crosshairs to give you a competitive advantage while gaming.
• HDR Tone Mapping: Optimizes the tone mapping in HDR based on the content.
• Infinity Core Lighting: This is the setting for the RGB lighting on the back.

Unlike the Samsung Odyssey OLED G9/G95SC S49CG95, this monitor doesn't support Tizen OS.