For the past few years I’ve been using a dual monitor setup for gaming and work. Not only is it pretty to look at, but the dual screen real estate has doubled my productivity, especially during work hours. While I’ve been told for years to switch to an ultrawide like the Samsung Odyssey Neo G9, I’ve always held back, mostly because of the weird 32:9 aspect ratio. But for the past year I’ve been looking to upgrade my monitors to a 4K display to take advantage of my RTX 3080 Ti graphics card.
Fast-forward to January 2022 at CES: Samsung shows off a massive and curved 55-inch monitor known as the Odyssey Ark. It’s large and rather intimidating, but I was in awe when I saw the attendees easily flip the monitor and the screen adjust from landscape to portrait instantly. Not only that, but it does the job of three monitors in one. And now we know the monitor will launch early next month for a hefty price tag of $3,499.99.
Prior to its release, I had the chance to go hands-on with the Odyssey Ark, and I was not disappointed. It was big, impressive and has lots of bells and whistles with all the streaming features of Samsung’s newer smart TVs, while incorporating the latest gaming hardware technology.
Is it a great monitor? So far it certainly looks like that. Is it also a splurge? A ridiculous $3,500 outlay? Absolute. Still, the Odyssey Ark has quickly become a monitor I would strongly consider buying, ticking many boxes as I research which monitor(s) to buy for my setup.
Made for PC, but with specs that allow you to take full advantage of the PS5 and Xbox Series X, the Odyssey Ark is a flagship product in Samsung’s line of gaming monitors. It’s a 55-inch 4K Quantum Mini LED screen that you could easily mistake for a TV.
The Odyssey Ark has four speakers: one on each corner and two woofers behind the center of the screen, which sounded full and rich when watching videos on YouTube. Samsung has even confirmed that the Odyssey Ark is compatible with a VESA mount, so you could mount it on the wall if you’d like. It has a 165Hz refresh rate, 1ms response time, variable refresh rate, and four HDMI 2.1 ports. It also has a LAN port.
In addition to a stand and the necessary cables to make the display work, the Odyssey Ark also includes a control knob, allowing you to quickly switch between different settings or monitor windows. The dial was great and offered a tactile feel with all settings easily accessible. I was able to easily access and change the monitor’s settings, such as adjusting the screen size from 55 to 27-inches or more general adjustments such as adjusting the volume.
Outside of the 55-inch and 1000R curve, the Odyssey Ark’s signature selling point is the ability to rotate the monitor from landscape to portrait (or, as Samsung notes, “Cockpit mode”). The ability to flip the screen in an instant without having to worry about changing monitor settings every time. This freedom is quite liberating and encourages experimentation whether you use the Odyssey Ark for gaming, work, everyday use or all of the above. The cockpit mode is the most interesting to me, but how it will perform with games, especially simulation titles like Microsoft Flight Simulator, remains to be seen.
While I didn’t have a chance to try games in cockpit mode, I played several games on the Odyssey Ark in the landscape. Most notably, Forza Horizon 5 looks breathtaking. Cruising through the open world of a fictionalized version of Mexico. The Mini LED backlighting helped the TV display darker blacks, but also brightened it enough to show off the lush and vibrant environments to be discovered in Forza Horizon 5. Even games like Microsoft Flight Simulator look extremely detailed and photo-realistic, immersing me in what I was watching on the screen that it was hard to take my eyes off it.
What was most interesting to me was the 16:9 aspect ratio; while it’s not the same as an ultra-wide monitor like the Odyssey Neo G9, which has a 32:9 aspect ratio. The traditional widescreen ratio is one of the first strengths of the Odyssey Ark in my opinion. Not only do I not have to worry about games being stretched or warped because they aren’t designed for ultra-wide screens, but the 16:9 aspect ratio offers plenty of opportunities for multitasking, as the Ark does the work of three monitors. For example, I could have one window playing a game, a second window with a live stream from twitch, and a third open to Discord.
The Samsung Odyssey Ark will cost $3,499.99 and will launch in early September, with pre-orders starting today on Samsung’s official website.
Taylor is the Associate Tech Editor at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
0 Comments