Updated Review - received this item almost 2 months later than promised.
Updated Review - Product DisplayPort failed working and Samsung support is unwilling to resolve the issue as they have the item miscategorized in their system and they told me to contact Amazon for replacement. Amazon refusing to replace.
DESIGN - 3/5
The monitor is super curved and I like that. It's not like those gimmicky "curved" ones where it's not really curved. It's definitely more curved than it looks in the photos. That's part of the reason it looks so thick in the stock photos, however, this monitor is still extremely bulky. The bezel is pretty large, and the stand is large for no reason. I have a heavier TV that has a smaller stand than this - there's absolutely no reason they needed to make the stand take up this much space. It's almost impossible to really put the monitor "back" that much and make sure you have a pretty large desk. Right now I have this on a dining table (pretty large) and it takes up a large portion of it, not just the length but depth. The back of the stand is pretty cool with the lightning, the stand is pretty solid, and the anti-glare works as well as other monitors. But I honestly feel like this should have been able to make this a little less bulky.
PICTURE QUALITY - 3/5
This is where I started getting disappointed. The picture quality doesn't really look like "QLED." I have an LG OLED TV and I've also seen the Samsung QLED TVs on display. It's not really as bright as they say, or at least it doesn't feel like 600 nits. Maybe I misread that figure somewhere - Samsung has finally updated their site to show 350 nits. It's important to note that their QLED TVs have over 1000 nits of brightness so I'm not sure why they're calling this QLED. They're obviously not as good as OLED, but this one is a lot closer to a TN monitor than their "QLED" Televisions. Everything looks washed out. I mean it's not bad when you compare it to other "regular" monitors, but it's pretty bad compared to anything in this price range: OLED, QLED TVs, and OLED TVs. The viewing angle is also pretty bad. If you get too close to the monitor (which you'll have to since the stand is so big) the viewing angle may bother you to a degree, especially with the anti-glare. I had a curved IPS LG monitor before this that I returned because of backlight bleeding. There doesn't seem to be much on this monitor, but the picture quality on the LG, I would say, was better. In addition, you can really notice the lower pixels per inch when you're forced to get closer to this monitor, due to the stand as mentioned previously. There's a wall mount bracket that comes with this so you could give that a try.
PICTURE AFTER TUNING - 4.5/5
Once you can mess with the settings, there's more you can achieve out of this monitor. You can put it on a high brightness mode where it definitely looks like the 350 nits now advertised on their site. However, once you tune it, it's not really a "gaming" monitor anymore. So again, it's nice to use the multiple-mode buttons to switch between them based on what you're viewing. However, it's still misleading when Samsung shows the HDR and high brightness on a game. Realistically you wouldn't lower the settings on a game to get a better picture quality. Still not as good as my OLED TV, but maybe a little bit brighter on average, since OLED TVs automatically lower brightness based on what you're watching.
QUALITY CONTROL - 2/5
Noticed a dead pixel on the screen. Really a shame when what you're really paying for is the panel. There was also a screw missing when this was shipped because of the way they ship this, which I will cover later. There was also scuffing all over the back of the screen because of the way it was shipped. Some back-light bleeding on the corner, not too bad. None of this is acceptable when they're charging $1500 for the panel.
DISPLAY CONFIGURATIONS - 4/5
This monitor does pretty good with 144Hz and the response time seems fine. With a GTX 1080 on this resolution I can get 144fps or higher on CSGO. Other games, not so much. There's different response time modes, and for "fastest" which I assume is 1ms, the brightness goes down, which kind of sucks. There's an "eye saver" mode which is cool to have on displays, as I have on my other newer displays, but this one is extreme. It'll definitely save your eyes but it washes out everything to an extreme degree and the brightness is turned down a lot as well. I definitely cannot use that mode, so I'll have to stick to f.lux to solve the problem. There's also a mode to turn the LED backlight on and off, but it doesn't do anything - it might be important to note this was "off" by default. So for gaming you obviously want the fastest response and best "gaming" settings but when you're not gaming you probably want the higher brightness. The thing I really like about this monitor is that they have 3 dedicated physical buttons to different "modes" so you can switch between different settings quickly. I wish all displays would do this.
FORM FACTOR - 4/5
This is the perfect resolution for multi-tasking. It's easy to arrange everything, and it's in the same line of sight. I've used 4K televisions before (and still do) to have multiple windows open. I would say it's not as nice having windows floating up higher on a 4K resolution, so this is basically 4K cut in half where you need it. You can comfortably fit 3 windows on the screen. Ever had two monitors and you had awkwardly small resolutions for 2 windows on both screens? Well this is the perfect resolution for 3, instead of 4 windows with scrollbars at the bottom. However, since this is a GAMING monitor, it's important to note that a lot of games don't really support this resolution so it's useless. For example, CSGO will just stretch the edges so you don't really get any extra real estate and it just looks bad in the corners when you look at it. Overwatch doesn't support it at all. Then when you game borderless, you can't really use the corners. If you game in windowed mode, since it's 1080 pixels high, but you lose space at the task bar and the top of the window, so you can't really play at 1080p. What would have been really cool is if they made this a little "taller" and bumped up the resolution while maintaining the same pixels per inch. So something like 1200 pixels high and have it be like 50" or so diagonally instead.
SHIPPING, SPECS & PRICING - 1/5
I purchased this immediately after it was released for a pre-order on Amazon. It looks like Amazon sold more than it actually had ordered with Samsung, and Samsung delayed the launch. Then it went from July to August delivery. I should have ordered directly from Samsung.
With that set aside, this is an extremely high pricing got what you're getting. This is basically a 55" curved QLED cut in half. Samsung is definitely price gouging on this one, even though the response time is better than a TV. Now I'm not complaining specifically about the price, but lack of features for the price. Samsung has opted for the cheaper FreeSync over G-Sync and anyone who can afford this probably has an Nvidia GTX 1080 or higher. Otherwise you won't even be able to utilize the 144Hz on most games that come out today. So why go with AMD when their new graphics cards aren't even out? There's also a lack of a lot of specifications on Amazon and Samsung's website. When I received the item, it was single shipped and there were some scuffs already on the back of the monitor. They also leave the screws dangling inside the monitor stand, so I was missing a screw when I received the monitor. Finally, it's extremely hard to get this out of the packaging if you're just one person although it's manageable, but I do like how they organized the box from top to bottom.
DEFECTS - 0/5
This monitor came with a bright dead pixel. Samsung's policy is only to replace these if you contact them within 7 days, but this isn't sufficient time to notice it and it's also not sufficient time to contact their support for RMA since the product isn't even listed properly on their RMA portal since it's a new product. This effectively means they won't be able to assist you. In addition to this problem, DisplayPort stopped working after about a week. So it's not possible to use 144Hz with my monitor anymore.
SUPPORT - 0/5
I have been trying to contact Samsung for weeks. Using the live chat, email, and calling them. Originally this monitor did not even exist on their site. The Consumer support says it's a Business product, which doesn't make sure, but they ensured me any monitor above 34" is business. The Business support says it's a consumer product. If you call them you'll get transferred in an endless loop because Samsung didn't put this in their system properly, and this is months after the product is out. You cannot request a service/RMA because you cannot select the model # that doesn't exist, and the serial number lookup does not work either.
TOTAL - 2/5
Overall this is an okay monitor if you factor in everything, and pretend like you didn't pay $1500 for it. I have a lot of money to blow, desk space, as well as a separate OLED TV to watch movies on and do everything else, so its fine for me and I'll most likely keep it since it's the only monitor right now with this type of ultra wide screen.
| Standing screen display size | 49 Inches |
|---|---|
| Screen Resolution | 3840 x 1080 |
| Max Screen Resolution | 3840 X 1080 Pixels |
