Samsung Odyssey G5 34" 165Hz FreeSync Curved Gaming Monitor

At the price of this monitor, you're paying for a Samsung panel. Out of the box, the picture quality is great.I've switched from two 2560x1440 monitors. While this is an overall decrease in pixel count, the utility of being able to have two applications display reasonably side-by-side or take the whole screen.This is definitely a barebones product though - Samsung have skimped on many features, This is especially true with the stand, which is light, plastic, and what I'd expect to see on a $200 budget monitor - it can't even hold the monitor at an upwards angle and eventually sags back to the -2 degree limit. Be prepared to spend extra on a third party stand.While the advertising material mentions gaming-related functions, there's no headset hook or USB hub ... MoreAt the price of this monitor, you're paying for a Samsung panel. Out of the box, the picture quality is great.I've switched from two 2560x1440 monitors. While this is an overall decrease in pixel count, the utility of being able to have two applications display reasonably side-by-side or take the whole screen.This is definitely a barebones product though - Samsung have skimped on many features, This is especially true with the stand, which is light, plastic, and what I'd expect to see on a $200 budget monitor - it can't even hold the monitor at an upwards angle and eventually sags back to the -2 degree limit. Be prepared to spend extra on a third party stand.While the advertising material mentions gaming-related functions, there's no headset hook or USB hub included.

Curved Immersive Gaming

First ever curved gaming monitor and honestly, prior to purchase, I was skeptical about curved gaming—I play a lot of fast paced competitive FPS so I didn’t know how the lower Hz rate and curve would dampen my performance. Luckily, it hasn’t and I fell in love with the curve. Crazy how great it feels vs traditional flat screens. Even for simple tasks. On top of that the immersion from storyline singe-player games like Cyberpunk2077, Witcher, Metro Exodus, is amazing.

Good 1440p Monitor

Bought this on sale for 300AUD (an absolute steal imo) to use as a secondary and backup monitor for my main ultrawide. Bit overkill for a secondary but it was tied for the cheapest 1440p monitor at the time so it was an easy choice.Normally I wouldn't review it as a gaming monitor given how I'm using it, but I couldn't find reviews for it anywhere I looked on the internet, so I figured I should do it anyway.Before setting it up as the secondary I ran it as the primary for a bit in a few games (Apex Legends, Doom: Eternal, R6:S) and coming from my 100hz Acer Predator X34 I was very impressed with the input lag and image clarity in motion. It's not "can read text on a wall while spinning at 3000rpm" sharp but it's a big step up, with noticeably less motion blur. ... MoreBought this on sale for 300AUD (an absolute steal imo) to use as a secondary and backup monitor for my main ultrawide. Bit overkill for a secondary but it was tied for the cheapest 1440p monitor at the time so it was an easy choice.Normally I wouldn't review it as a gaming monitor given how I'm using it, but I couldn't find reviews for it anywhere I looked on the internet, so I figured I should do it anyway.Before setting it up as the secondary I ran it as the primary for a bit in a few games (Apex Legends, Doom: Eternal, R6:S) and coming from my 100hz Acer Predator X34 I was very impressed with the input lag and image clarity in motion. It's not "can read text on a wall while spinning at 3000rpm" sharp but it's a big step up, with noticeably less motion blur. Colour reproduction seems good but I have no benchmark for that, really.Settings in the OSD menu are quite robust, with adjustable colour channels, saturation, contrast, brightness, black equaliser, sharpness, auto-dim, pixel overdrive, crosshair overlay, and a couple of other miscellaneous ones. Pixel overdrive is not adjustable when adaptive sync is turned on.I haven't had a chance to try the HDR and local array dimming but I expect for the price and given the peak brightness, it is likely underwhelming. This is the only reason I've given it 4/5 instead of 5/5 so if it actually does have good HDR (in general or even just for the price) then consider this review a 5/5.

Good monitor, expensive in cables

The screen itself is good on paper with it being 1440p and 144Hz, it is also relatively cheap, so what's the problem with it? the space on the back for cables is so small that it may cause cables such as a displayport cable to break due to it being bent too much.I personally experienced this a couple of times already with the original cable just not working after a week and since then having to buy 2 new cables, going on a third now. All the cables have either been unable to bend enough so the cable would bend the port itself, or the cable has bent too much causing it to break the cable itself, which was what happened with the original cable. This is a huge design flaw and I'm honestly surprised they didn't notice or think of this in the design process.

Horrible Product

I bought this a few months ago, and there is so many issues. The very bottom pixel on the display is cut off, it's like the panel is just 1 pixel too short vertically. The monitor stand is horrible and the tilt functionality cannot even support its own weight, it just droops forward after a few seconds when tilted back. The power cable is not just a standard kettle lead and more like a laptop power supply so it is very hard to cable manage behind a desk. It was my own fault for not doing enough research on the monitor, but the fact that a $600 screen has a VA panel is ridiculous and it looks awful. I do not recommend buying this product, Samsung has really dropped the ball on this one.

Huge upgrade!

Seriously. Blown away.I was coming from an older LG 1080p 60hz ultrawide. At the time, ultrawide seemed like the way to go to get a little more picture without considerably more pixels or a higher cost. 60hz was because my hardware couldn't really push much higher anyway, so anything else would be lost on me. Since getting a newer, more powerful card I was looking for something else.. WOW.First of all, 144hz is excellent! I've heard good things about it, but it's something you have to see to believe. Everything just feels so much smoother! It's honestly unbelievable. If you know somebody with a 144hz, or even a 120hz display, definitely check it out if you're on the fence about a higher refresh monitor. What more can I say? I can't go back to 60hz anymore... I ... MoreSeriously. Blown away.I was coming from an older LG 1080p 60hz ultrawide. At the time, ultrawide seemed like the way to go to get a little more picture without considerably more pixels or a higher cost. 60hz was because my hardware couldn't really push much higher anyway, so anything else would be lost on me. Since getting a newer, more powerful card I was looking for something else.. WOW.First of all, 144hz is excellent! I've heard good things about it, but it's something you have to see to believe. Everything just feels so much smoother! It's honestly unbelievable. If you know somebody with a 144hz, or even a 120hz display, definitely check it out if you're on the fence about a higher refresh monitor. What more can I say? I can't go back to 60hz anymore... I fear even 90hz in my oculus might not be enough for me now to get truly immersed.Also, double check the refresh rate in Windows display settings. I went there immediately after booting it up and saw it was stuck at 60hz. I looked through my graphics control panel and it said the same thing. You actually have to go into the monitors settings to enable 144hz and freesync. Odd it wasn't enabled by default for a higher end monitor, boasting about this stuff on the box... but a minor inconvenience, and something I would've double checked regardless.Speaking of immersion; I initially thought curved monitors were a gimmick. It wasn't until a salesperson told me it's not actually to increase viewing angles. But to help with immersion. Immediately after telling me that, I looked at a demo for another curved monitor and saw it instantly. It made sense. Taking it home and actually using it while playing games only solidified that! The only downside is that if you're not head on, or in a dim room with a dark game and a lamp behind you or something, glare can be a little strong, But nothing you can really fault the monitor for. Just something to keep in mind.1440p is also really nice. It's not exactly something I looked for as a way of getting a sharper image, more so as a PPI thing for a larger display. At 27", 1080p starts to look very pixelated. Anything above 24", you really need to be looking for 1440p or 4K if you want to keep the picture looking sharp.HDR... exists. In my testing it looks pretty good. However, HDR support in Windows is still somewhat finnicky in all honesty. Again, nothing to fault the monitor for. Whether it works great for you and your games is something of a toss up. At the very least, when Windows supports HDR a little better, this monitor will be ready for it!Honestly, the only real thing I can fault this monitor for is the fact that it ships with an HDMI cable. If you plan to use freesync, a Displayport cable is much much better. I just so happened to have a DP 1.2 cable laying around that worked without any issues.Another thing is that it does ship with an older firmware version. It happens though. You can't expect them to go through older stock and update them. The process is very simple to do if you're looking to be on the bleeding edge of updates for the best experience. With that in mind, I didn't think to look until after some testing. It was only a version behind anyways. Nothing serious. Works just fine out of the box.Lastly, as with any display; always mess around in the settings during a variety of situations (games, videos, browsing the net, etc.) to tune the display colours and settings to taste. Just be careful to not oversaturate anything and blow the colours out of whack. Out of the box it seemed a little dark. I set it to game mode and it seemed to look just as good as my older LG monitor I had set up to the side for comparison.

Issues with freesync but a great monitor

Keep in mind if I found a fatal flaw in this monitor that can often be overlooked so I hope this can help someone having a similar issue. If you are using a AMD Radeon card like I am (6700 XT) Make sure that before you enable Freesync on the monitor that you go into the monitor menu and change the refresh rate to 144hz, If you do not do this the monitor for some reason locks at 60hz internally (please note windows will still show 144hz) This can cause green pixelated textures in games etc very annoying and you might think your video card is artifacting or going bad where it is just a error with freesync. Now onto the review. Pros: Great colors for a VA panel once calibrated. No dead pixels at all unlike many other panels in the same price range (luck of draw tbh) ... MoreKeep in mind if I found a fatal flaw in this monitor that can often be overlooked so I hope this can help someone having a similar issue. If you are using a AMD Radeon card like I am (6700 XT) Make sure that before you enable Freesync on the monitor that you go into the monitor menu and change the refresh rate to 144hz, If you do not do this the monitor for some reason locks at 60hz internally (please note windows will still show 144hz) This can cause green pixelated textures in games etc very annoying and you might think your video card is artifacting or going bad where it is just a error with freesync. Now onto the review. Pros: Great colors for a VA panel once calibrated. No dead pixels at all unlike many other panels in the same price range (luck of draw tbh) Fast response time for games like Diablo 3 and COD MOD Warzone. Great stand if you plan to use it ( Mine is wall mounted) Usb port to upgrade firmware if needed (mine shipped with latest firmware) Amazing price for what you get. Cons: Freesync issues that I listed above that samsung has no notes on. Please note I built systems for a living for the last 10 years and have vast experience when it comes to issues. I hope this review helps someone.

Perfect QHD curve monitor

This is a fantastic monitor for QHD gaming. Most of us are leaning toward QHD for the very favourable price tag and FPS. The mounting points are in the centre of the back chassis, rather than high or low, making it great for mounting to an arm. Simple one button menu navigation. I would really recommend QHD monitors in general, 4K just means more $$ for no real difference unless you on a great rig. I have a 4K monitor for my Xbox series X It’s very heavy, expensive, and has VERY high mounting points. I find this much better for my PC and it’s curve isn’t too aggressive and restricting. Ah PC case gear, you’ve done it again 👍🏻

Pretty good for the price

PLEASE READ TO THE END FOR A COMPLETE REVIEWI couldn't find a monitor that supported 144hz, 1440p, and freesync for a comparable price so this was an easy choice. It was easy to change from 60 to 120 or 144hz and you can even play around with the response time settings, but there was a reason this monitor is cheaper than others with the same features.The panel is terrible. The colors look so dull and washed out even compared to the 10 year old TV I was using before However I figured out that I could adjust each color channel from the menu on the monitor as well as adjust the digital vibrance through my Nvidia card in the Nvidia control panel. After the adjustments the picture looked just about the same as my old monitor if not slightly better. Another problem I ... MorePLEASE READ TO THE END FOR A COMPLETE REVIEWI couldn't find a monitor that supported 144hz, 1440p, and freesync for a comparable price so this was an easy choice. It was easy to change from 60 to 120 or 144hz and you can even play around with the response time settings, but there was a reason this monitor is cheaper than others with the same features.The panel is terrible. The colors look so dull and washed out even compared to the 10 year old TV I was using before However I figured out that I could adjust each color channel from the menu on the monitor as well as adjust the digital vibrance through my Nvidia card in the Nvidia control panel. After the adjustments the picture looked just about the same as my old monitor if not slightly better. Another problem I had was the red and orange colors becoming extremely pixelated when alt-tabbing while playing a game. The problem stopped when I figured out how to set up freesync with g-sync compatibility through the Nvidia control panel. It also could have been that specific display port I had the monitor plugged into, but I switched display ports around the same time as enabling freesync and I'd rather not tempt fate to find out which was the real fix.In the end these problems were pretty minor with easy fixes. If you're willing to spend a bit of time messing around with the color settings to get a better picture then this monitor is a fantastic way to save $100+ for higher end features.

The display is nice, the quality of Samsung products less so

TL;DR: The display makes pretty pictures, but for the money, I would prefer a much more solid product overall.As I am sitting here using the product, I can rightly say that the output from the display is quite nice. The upgrade I made from 60hz to 144hz is very appreciated and the color and brightness are very positive as well. I've seen people complain about light bleed and brightness levels, but I can't attest to their claims myself, both my screens are very nice and I'm not seeing color distortion or brightness hotspots.For the downsides however, I really don't appreciate Samsung requiring me to product test their offerings.- I ordered two monitors, one of which would not power on or react to signal three times out of five, requiring me to RMA the display. ... MoreTL;DR: The display makes pretty pictures, but for the money, I would prefer a much more solid product overall.As I am sitting here using the product, I can rightly say that the output from the display is quite nice. The upgrade I made from 60hz to 144hz is very appreciated and the color and brightness are very positive as well. I've seen people complain about light bleed and brightness levels, but I can't attest to their claims myself, both my screens are very nice and I'm not seeing color distortion or brightness hotspots.For the downsides however, I really don't appreciate Samsung requiring me to product test their offerings.- I ordered two monitors, one of which would not power on or react to signal three times out of five, requiring me to RMA the display. My thanks to B&H for the more than timely resolution and diligence on that front.- All three monitors now have displayed a worrying tendency to only power on half the backlight. It appears that the screens emit the necessary backlight from the left and right side of the screen, pulling 50/50 duty. When the screens comes on from low-power/sleep/standby, they will occasionally only power on one side of the screen, causing the viewable image to gradient to black on the affected side. This speaks to me of a lack of error checking, faulty design on the power or control portion of the display or some other commonalty, but the fact that its happened with all three displays says it is inherent to the design as it stands.- Lastly, on occasion, the monitor just won't respond to user input via the menu controls: be it to power off, come awake to access the menu etc. The most sure fire way to make the monitor do what I ask of it, is to pull power and restart, which is never the best option for any product.All of these issues combined leads me to believe that while the screen is very nice, the guts of the product is sub-par in some respects. For the price of this monitor, I find that unbelievable and can only imagine what it would be like for users of their larger flagship displays if they showed the same behavior.It is very likely that this will be the last Samsung product I purchase for a very long time. It appears, that while divisions of Samsung can make fine components, I can't trust them to make a whole end-product.