New Samsung Odyssey G9 with MiniLED announced

Max brightness sucks on OLED, but point brightness and absolute contrast destroys any LCD tech. Max brightness is important, but for HDR, point brightness is king.

A someone who has owned almost every OLED display; the absolute contrast of OLED isn't as significant as a modern FALD LCD display that can reach 30,000:1+ contrast ratio. The differences are small, besides FALD blooming of course. Point brightness is king in a dark room, much less important with ambient light. No one would argue OLED isn't the best in a pitch black room, or displaying a star field. But for real scene HDR gaming, especially with some ambient light, my PG32UQX is more enjoyable than my 48CX.
 
But how is the pixel response? Does it not bother or effect you?

Most motion blur is from eye movement/tracking of sample-and-hold, so OLED doesn't help there at all. But yes, OLED has less trailing. I'm a "flick" gamer, the ghosting doesn't hurt me as much. Of course I wish the PG32UQX didn't have such slow pixels.
 
I mean the difference even between this VA and the Asus is massive. When smear is noticable in the least demanding scenario (viewing webpages), it's a problem. Yes it's a unfair comparison given 144hz vs 240 persistence but the Samsung is actually a bit cleaner at 144hz compared to 240. It's the Asus' opposite behavior of white taking forever to transition that was the deal breaker for me which is visible in the white pillar.

G9 Neo:

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PG32UQX:

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Most motion blur is from eye movement/tracking of sample-and-hold, so OLED doesn't help there at all. But yes, OLED has less trailing. I'm a "flick" gamer, the ghosting doesn't hurt me as much. Of course I wish the PG32UQX didn't have such slow pixels.

But when I use CX48 for gaming, I absolutely love the near instant pixel response. I am unsure what you mean by sample and hold, i tried to google it, something about blur?

But I do not see any blur what so ever when i use my OLED. However, I notice blur on any other slow non-OLED panel.

Same with this Neo G9, so far no blur/ghosting, it feels silky responsive.
 
But when I use CX48 for gaming, I absolutely love the near instant pixel response. I am unsure what you mean by sample and hold, i tried to google it, something about blur?

But I do not see any blur what so ever when i use my OLED. However, I notice blur on any other slow non-OLED panel.

Same with this Neo G9, so far no blur/ghosting, it feels silky responsive.

"Sample & hold blur" is the blur that comes from the fact that current display techs don't flash the screen on and off like CRTs did (by default, there are some technologies to force them to or emulate that behaviour that I am sure you have heard of - but it's difficult to make them work well with VRR for the time being), they display a new frame on top of the old one.

So even with OLED there is still some trailing from the previously displayed frame. LCDs have the same, in addition to pixel response time. The blur becomes less and less as you increase the refresh rate. At 1000hz nobody would care about it anymore, probably.
 
But when I use CX48 for gaming, I absolutely love the near instant pixel response. I am unsure what you mean by sample and hold, i tried to google it, something about blur?

But I do not see any blur what so ever when i use my OLED. However, I notice blur on any other slow non-OLED panel.

Same with this Neo G9, so far no blur/ghosting, it feels silky responsive.
The motion quality of OLED is actually quite poor compared to say a CRT or Plasma TV (but still better than non-strobe backlit LCD); not because it has slow pixels, but because of sample-and-hold:

https://blurbusters.com/faq/oled-motion-blur/

Now if you were to run OLED sample-and-hold at 480+ Hz, you'd see some great motion clarity.
 
Tested my Neo G9 out a bit more today.
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Above shots in HDR Dynamic, Dimming High, Brightness 100, Contrast 75, color 60 as per default.

So far:

PROS:
- my unit does not suffer any of the washed out HDR + dimming issue lots of other users are experiencing. My units is very vibrant and full of color with HDR and FALD enabled.
- my unit does not suffer from any popping noise other people have.
-HDR is surprisingly phenomenal on this display. I hate to say this because I am a huge Oled lover, but when I was trying out Horizon Zero Dawn, I was blown away by how good it looks on this monitor compared to my CX48. All this time, I thought nothing could beat the image quality of my Oled CX48 HDR. I have just been proven wrong today.
-Brightness, yuss, it is blinding bright!!!!
-super fast, and super responsive monitor. It feels quicker than my CX48, maybe because I am getting slightly more fps due to the lower pixel count. Very smooth, very fast display!

CONS:
- Vertical Height is tiny! It makes feel like I am playing a game in letterbox mode. Maybe I am to use to my CX48 and need to adjust myself to a super ultra wide. I really wish there was a bigger display with these specs/performance. I am sure I will be able to get use to it though, it's not that bad.
- HDR seems to be playing up sometimes, it feels like it deactivates on it's own or the screen just dimms down for no reason after 3 hrs of use today. And then it went back to blistering bright when I was switching into another game. So it feels like it is acting up somehow.
- blacks are still not as good as OLED.
- the back of the display is getting scorching hot after use today.
- my unit maybe faulty, as it started playing up after 4 hrs of use today, the screen is very briefly blinking every 10 seconds or so now. Not sure why this has occured, maybe overheated? Will check tommorow morning if it still does it.

Will update with more thoughts.

EDIT:
Forgot to mention another PRO:
- contrast is extremly good, very punchy thanks to the dimming zones, almost feels like an Oled type display.
- colours look very good, especially reds. There was one parts in Cyberpunk 2077 that had a lone line of red paint on a road near the gutter, it actually looked like it was a high quality photo! Very impressive.
 
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What do you think of the games in terms of quality running at 1440p vs 4K on the CX. Is the resolution drop noticeable to you.
 
Keep us posted. Curious if this display is truly worth the 2x asking price compared to LG CX/C1.
 
Wow, if it gets that hot when using HDR its sure to break, I couldnt trust it long term,
Its no wonder many people experience clicks/cracks as it warms up.
The plastic surrounding my CRG9 goes crack about an hour or 2 after it has fully warmed up. It only happens once so I'm ok with it. My cat thinks different!

I've been watching this intently because if it were to work well as described and without trouble I would very much like one.
My CRG9 has another home waiting for it.
So far I'm sadly disappointed. It looks very capable but I cant trust what I get will be, nor that it will last.
imo they launched too early, more QA should have been done before finalising the product.
 
Temps under load are pretty similar to the previous model. You will definitely feel heat blasting your face if you sit close enough consider it draws 240w or so in HDR Dynamic mode:

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What do you think of the games in terms of quality running at 1440p vs 4K on the CX. Is the resolution drop noticeable to you.
Bro, the resolution is more of an increase then a drop, and @ ~20ppi more it is quite noticeable.

49" 5120x1440 = 108ppi
48" 3840x2160 = 92ppi

So the Neo G9 looks sharper and better becuase it has higher ppi. But the CX48 still looks very sharp even though it has a lower PPi.

Keep us posted. Curious if this display is truly worth the 2x asking price compared to LG CX/C1.

I did a bit of a comparison in my post.
I'll kid you not, like I said I am a massive Oled lover, but Horizon Zero Dawn actually looked 10x better to me on the Neo G9 then it does on my CX48. I actually can't believe I am saying that! And it felt much faster to run, probably because of the higher frequency and frames due to lower pixel count, GPU is slightly less under pressure. But Cyberpunk 2077, was more or less of a tie, because playing a fps with a much smaller vertical height felt weird to me, and the blacks are better on the CX, so CP2077 was a tie for me between the two.

In all honesty, I don't think you will be dissapointed in either of the two displays there. I really need to test out the Neo G9 a bit more though.
 
And I am unsure what I should have the dimming setting to? Auto, low or high?

There is a slight change to the image in each of them but I can't tell which one looks better.
 
am so starting to run into some issues.

HDR toggle button in Windows Setting is being pain to enable/disable.

I seem to get stuck in HDR mode and cannot toggle back to SDR via Windows. I have to power monitor down, then restart PC to be able to switch between SDR/HDR.

Ontop of that, in games blacks are looking grey.
And the whole screen has dimmed when I enabled HDR, last night this was not the case but today it is.

SDR is starting to look better than HDR on this unit. Not sure wtf is happening now?
 
Bro, the resolution is more of an increase then a drop, and @ ~20ppi more it is quite noticeable.

49" 5120x1440 = 108ppi
48" 3840x2160 = 92ppi

So the Neo G9 looks sharper and better becuase it has higher ppi. But the CX48 still looks very sharp even though it has a lower PPi.

This is why viewing distance matters. At 1m viewing distance the CX looks perfectly nice to me and I've put my CRG9 next to it but less viewing distance (due to space constraints) and they did not look all that different in SDR, mainly evaluating how they look on the desktop.

While I feel that 1440 vertical pixels is enough space for desktop use (especially if you hide the taskbar), I would still love just a little bit more. That's why I feel the 38" 3840x1600 displays are perhaps a better compromise where the aspect ratio has less issues in gaming while you still get plenty of desktop space and don't need scaling. I just wish someone made a mini-LED version of those because paying more for the current available models than my CX 48" is just a bad value proposition all things considered.

am so starting to run into some issues.

HDR toggle button in Windows Setting is being pain to enable/disable.

I seem to get stuck in HDR mode and cannot toggle back to SDR via Windows. I have to power monitor down, then restart PC to be able to switch between SDR/HDR.

Ontop of that, in games blacks are looking grey.
And the whole screen has dimmed when I enabled HDR, last night this was not the case but today it is.

SDR is starting to look better than HDR on this unit. Not sure wtf is happening now?

The latest Nvidia drivers still have G9 related issues: "Unable to detect supported display modes for the Samsung Odyssey G9 display [3332327]" so maybe that applies to yours as well. If you have recently updated drivers try installing an older version.

HDR toggle not changing can sometimes be weird shit like you accidentally being on a disabled display/port settings or an issue with port bandwidth. I had a difficult time getting my CX and CRG9 working together in HDR when certain DP ports on my 2080 Ti were used.
 
Ok, the hdr not toggling was because i had to go into hd color setting and then select the specific display from the drop down box and then toggle the HDR button.

Works properly now.

An strange HDR seems to be working well again unless my eyes were playing tricks on me last night.

Horizon Zero Dawn and Cyberpunk 2077 look incredible, but only with HDR Dynamic, standard is too dimm.
 
But resident evil village is being a pain in the arse to load into with this monitor.

It asks if i want to run hdr at the beginning after installing the game, then the screen just keeps going blank. Fml
 
Shadow where are you located? Just wondering why it's taking so long for people in the US to get these.
 
Is it true that you can see the backlight array?

Quoting from somebody on reddit:

"worst problem so far (which unfortunately isnt firmware related). When you have a blue background (noticed it on the restart screen) you can clearly see all the individual lighting zones. Doesnt matter if you have FALD on or off. Looks like a cluster of small circles. You can actually see it on all colors a bit but blue its like crazy obvious."
 
Is it true that you can see the backlight array?

Quoting from somebody on reddit:

"worst problem so far (which unfortunately isnt firmware related). When you have a blue background (noticed it on the restart screen) you can clearly see all the individual lighting zones. Doesnt matter if you have FALD on or off. Looks like a cluster of small circles. You can actually see it on all colors a bit but blue its like crazy obvious."

Ya it's weird, reviewers raving about the display yet owners have so far reported:

1. FALD+HDR on NVIDIA GPU's being washed out/unusable.
2. Popping/cracking noises like old G9.
3. At 240 Hz, scanlines.
4. Horizontal color banding viewing solid colors.
5. Seeing individual FALD zones.
6. VRR being automatically turned off when switching between SDR and HDR.

Seems quite a mess at the moment.
 
Ya it's weird, reviewers raving about the display yet owners have so far reported:

1. FALD+HDR on NVIDIA GPU's being washed out/unusable.
2. Popping/cracking noises like old G9.
3. At 240 Hz, scanlines.
4. Horizontal color banding viewing solid colors.
5. Seeing individual FALD zones.
6. VRR being automatically turned off when switching between SDR and HDR.

Seems quite a mess at the moment.
I have not had any of those above issues. And 4, 5 and 6 I have not tried to notice them yet.

But one problem that I have is that the other night activating HDR dimmed the whole screen without me realising it for a while. I thought it may have been normal, but then out of nowhere or in between changing games, it went more bright for a period of time.

Then the next day the same thing happens, activating HDR dimmed the whole screen for a few hrs of use, then I signed out of windows, logged back in, HDR was much brighter across the screen than before. So I am unsure wtf is going on there.

But when HDR mode is properly working on this unit, it is actually jaw dropping. I mean Cyberpunk 2077 and Horizon ZD, both looked like nothing i have ever seen in computer graphics before, not even my OLED CX looks as good. You truly have to see it to believe it. But like I said only when it is working properly, for some reason activating HDR is playing up as described above.

Shadow where are you located? Just wondering why it's taking so long for people in the US to get these.

Australia, I don't know why we get ours so much sooner, normally we are one of the last to get latest tech.

And our prices are absurdly better than US pricing for this monitor.
 
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Yeah my Samsung delivery ETA just moved to the end of the month. Pretty lame.
 
Yeah my Samsung delivery ETA just moved to the end of the month. Pretty lame.

If you really wanted you could probably order it from Australia, still plenty instock everywhere here. It would only cost you $2999AU ($~2299 USD) +delivery lol

But I am unsure if Samsung offer international warranty.
 
If you really wanted you could probably order it from Australia, still plenty instock everywhere here. It would only cost you $2999AU ($~2299 USD) +delivery lol

But I am unsure if Samsung offer international warranty.
I wish but the idea of buying a Samsung monitor with no outlet for return/RMA is crazy. I'll just have to patiently wait.
 
Guys I have ran into another concern.

First is pretty much what I mentioned before, getting HDR to work brightly without being dimmed out requires some mucking around. It seems I have to run a game with HDR activated for some time and then restart the game, or I have to keep entering/exiting a HDR game to get it to properly activate HDR+FALD without being dimm, so it is clearly bright. Sounds odd, but that's what I have had to do so far on my unit.

Secondly, i have spotted some strange local dimming zones glitching clearly visible on a black background HDR test video on youtube. I have posted the pic here (look carefully) :
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You can clearly see the dimming zones if thats what those squares are? Its brighter and more pronounced in HDR dynamic, but it only appears briefly in that video. Don't mind the blooming around the bottle, that's just my phone camera adding that in, there is actually no blooming around the bottle at all, but those dimming squares if that's what they are, is definitely there in that video.

Is this poor FALD algorithm or is my unit faulty, or both?

I forgot to test that scene with dimming off to see if these squares dissapear, but its not there on my CX Oled in the same scene.
 
Think mine is going to have to go back this week. HDR being a washed out mess in games is just not good enough for a monitor like this.
 
Guys I have ran into another concern.

First is pretty much what I mentioned before, getting HDR to work brightly without being dimmed out requires some mucking around. It seems I have to run a game with HDR activated for some time and then restart the game, or I have to keep entering/exiting a HDR game to get it to properly activate HDR+FALD without being dimm, so it is clearly bright. Sounds odd, but that's what I have had to do so far on my unit.

Secondly, i have spotted some strange local dimming zones glitching clearly visible on a black background HDR test video on youtube. I have posted the pic here (look carefully) :
View attachment 384883

View attachment 384884

You can clearly see the dimming zones if thats what those squares are? Its brighter and more pronounced in HDR dynamic, but it only appears briefly in that video. Don't mind the blooming around the bottle, that's just my phone camera adding that in, there is actually no blooming around the bottle at all, but those dimming squares if that's what they are, is definitely there in that video.

Is this poor FALD algorithm or is my unit faulty, or both?

I forgot to test that scene with dimming off to see if these squares dissapear, but its not there on my CX Oled in the same scene.
What are you using to test this?
 
Think mine is going to have to go back this week. HDR being a washed out mess in games is just not good enough for a monitor like this.
That's unfortunate, mine is not washed out at all. But it is annoying that HDR is a pain to activate properly.
Looks more like a issue with the video. FALD grid would be uniform.
Fair enough. I just thought it might be the monitor, because it doesn't appear on the CX Oled at all.
 
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Yeah my Samsung delivery ETA just moved to the end of the month. Pretty lame.
Where did you order from? Judging by your screen name, you're located in Southern Cali, as am I. I pre-ordered from Amazon on Aug 2nd, and still don't have an ETA yet.
 
Where did you order from? Judging by your screen name, you're located in Southern Cali, as am I. I pre-ordered from Amazon on Aug 2nd, and still don't have an ETA yet.
I have both a Samsung order and Amazon order. Plan is to keep whichever ships first but I might just wait for Samsung since it comes out $500 less expensive after EPP/Edu discount.

The ETA I mentioned is from Samsung store. Amazon probably won't give any delivery estimates until the 23rd.
 
Fair enough. I just thought it might be the monitor, because it does appear on the CX Oled at all.
Link the video? OLED crushes blacks pretty bad sometimes so might make it invisible. We can test it on LCD's to see if it's there or not.
 
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