The Samsung Odyssey G7 looks like it could be a dream monitor for gamers looking to avoid FOMO. For most people looking for the best inexpensive gaming monitor, the market is split into two distinct areas, mainly depending on what genres you play and how you want to optimize your experience. If you want a high refresh rate for buttery smooth graphics or an edge in competitive titles like Apex Legends and Call of Duty: Warzone, then you are usually limited to a FHD 1080p monitors resolution. On the other hand, anyone who wants to enjoy insane 4K graphics in games like Red Dead Redemption 2 will need to lower the refresh rate to about 60 Hz,
A comfortable middle ground has been found with some screens that use a 1440p resolution with a slightly faster refresh rate between 144 and 160 Hz, but the Samsung Odyssey G7 manages to crank that up to a stunning 240 Hz. You can choose between a 27-inch model for $676 (£499, AU$999) or a 32-inch version for $799 (£599, AU$1,099), with benefits and features included in both screen sizes.
Design
Samsung has done a good job on the design front. The build quality is excellent, as befits a high-end flagship. Although most of the exterior is plastic, including the wide stand, the plastic is high quality with a solid matte finish. The back of the display features a unique pattern that draws attention to the center circle where the display is attached to the stand. This is where Samsung’s “Infinity Core” lighting is located, which is just a fancy name for RGB LEDs that illuminate this area. There are also two small lighting zones on the front – again, individual RGB zones – frankly we could give or take the RGB elements, but at least they are well integrated into the design.
The stand is fairly stable and has a good range of motion, including height, tilt, swivel and pivot adjustments. The height adjustment is decent for a large 32-inch panel, and you can also use this monitor in portrait mode if you want to use a curved monitor like this one. It also supports VESA mounting. The big elephant in the room is the curve: 1000R. That is almost, but not quite, twice as curved as the standard 1800R curve used by most other curved monitors. Even when compared to some of the newer 1500R options, the 1000R curve is much more noticeable and distinct.
Display
The monitor has a backlight with edge lighting and 8 dimming zones that can be used to further improve contrast ratio by dimming parts of the screen depending on the content being displayed. However, since there are only 8 zones on the monitor’s large 32-inch screen, local dimming is not particularly effective. For a true HDR (monitors) viewing experience, a 32-inch monitor with LED backlighting would preferably need more than 1,000 dimming zones, but this would also significantly increase the price of the monitor.
Either way, thanks to its wide color gamut, high contrast ratio and strong peak brightness, the monitor delivers good overall HDR image quality with a notable improvement over SDR. To get the best HDR image quality, you need to increase the monitor’s brightness, as it is only set to 30% when delivered from the factory. Keep in mind that with non-HDR content, the monitor’s wide color gamut can make colors appear slightly oversaturated, especially reds and greens.
The pixel responsiveness is also impressive. In fact, the Odyssey G7 monitors are the fastest VA displays available at the time of writing. Although some dark trialing is still visible behind fast-moving objects, it is not as noticeable or distracting as with older VA panel gaming displays. There are three levels of response time override: Standard, Faster and Fastest, as well as the “Fastest (MBR)” mode, which activates backlighting for even better motion sharpness at the expense of image clarity.
Feature
The Samsung Odyssey G7 LC32G75T is a gaming monitor with a high refresh rate. It is part of Samsung’s 2020 Odyssey gaming lineup and is one of the few monitors available in two sizes: 27 and 32 inches that we tested. It features a fast 240Hz refresh rate with native FreeSync support for variable refresh rates (VRR) to reduce tearing. It’s also G-SYNC compatible if you want to use it with an NVIDIA graphics card. The resolution of the 1440p monitor provides clear images without overloading your graphics card. It’s a well-built monitor with an aggressively curved 1000R screen that may not be everyone’s taste, but it helps bring the entire screen into your field of vision. The VA panel makes this an excellent choice for gaming in dark rooms, but although the monitor features local dimming with edge lighting, performance is appalling.
Connectivity
The G7 suffers from some minor motion issues that the most competitive gamers will notice, and the G7 could have better connectivity. There’s also no denying the high price – you could save money if you don’t necessarily need a 240Hz display. But if you want a 21:9 screen with top speed, great quality and a fat curve, the G7 delivers in most areas. It’s not perfect, but it’s very good.
Performance
The degree of smearing of the dark levels is also impressive. VAs usually have very slow transitions in the range up to about 102 or 128 shades of gray, especially when transitioning from all-black. But that is not the case here. We should also mention that this performance was measured after the monitor had warmed up for several hours and reached a steady state. VAs can be much slower when first turned on and running “cold,” so you may notice some increased lag and ghosting in the first 30 to 60 minutes of use. However, once the monitor is set to 240 Hz, there is virtually no ghosting, even with a lot of dark content.
The best thing about the Odyssey G7 is that this kind of performance is maintained across the refresh range. At refresh rates up to 200 Hz, we saw the most overshoot of all the refresh rates tested, but given the response time of 2.5 ms, this is not a big deal, and in practice you will hardly see inverse ghosting. At 165 Hz, dark-level smearing is almost completely eliminated on the G7, while the response time of 3 ms is maintained without overshoot. This continues at 144 Hz and 120 Hz. At 100 Hz there is slightly more overshoot in the dark levels, but again the Odyssey G7 maintains the 3 ms response time. At 85 Hz and 60 Hz we achieve a response time of 4 ms with a slight smearing of the dark area.
Price
The Samsung Odyssey G7 is currently in a class of its own. It is the only gaming monitor that combines a high refresh rate with an equally high resolution on such a large screen. Add to that an amazingly well-calibrated VA panel, HDR, adaptive sync and the most immersive curve we’ve seen yet, and it’s hard to argue with the list price of $700 ($499) for the 27-inch version and $800 ($599) for the 32-inch model – both are up to $50 cheaper if you look around.
Until these combinations catch on, the only screen that comes close is the Alienware 27 AW2721D. It’s beautifully colorful with an IPS panel, but forgoes the curve, offers only a 27-inch option and costs $825 after a discount from its original $1,100 price. Samsung, on the other hand, makes very few concessions to match the MSRP of the Odyssey G7 and offers an unmatched value.
Conclusion
While the jump from 144Hz to 240Hz may not be worth the extra cost alone, especially when you consider how many games you can play at such high frame rates, the Samsung C32G75T offers much more than that. First and foremost, you get an improvement in pixel response, which has been a necessity for VA panels for some time. You also get a pretty future-proof monitor that will allow you to make at least some GPU upgrades. Finally, the monitor offers a stunning viewing experience with decent HDR image quality. Unless you’re looking for a monitor for competitive gaming – or a display for professional color-critical work – the Samsung Odyssey is the perfect monitor for gaming, movies/videos, and other everyday applications.
