SAMSUNG 49" Class 1000R Curved (5120 x 1440) Gaming Monitor - LC49G97TSSNXDC

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] Wow, just wow, that is most probably going to be your first reaction when you see it for the first time. For gaming the 120hz 5120*1440 is like no other available on the market, the super ultrawide ratio is immersive increasing dramatically your horizontal field of view and the 120hz refresh rate gives an amazing connected feel. The monitor is using a VA panel that gives a good contrast ratio but usually at the expense of the response time of the pixel. The good news here is that the panel is responsive at all frequencies and the smearing and shadow effect. The monitor also supports FreeSync 2 HDR for owner of a Radeon graphic card over the 48-120hz range. It also supports LFC in case you get out of the range without flickering. The HDR implementation is pretty good with great colour reproduction and a good contrast ratio and an impressive 1000nits peak brightness. The monitor has 10 vertical dimming zones which is a bit on the low side, I wish Samsung had used an array local dimming solution instead but this is on the best HDR implementation I have seen on a monitor and at this price range it doesn't have any competition. In order to use HDR you will need to make a small sacrifice though as the display port 1.4 interface can't support this resolution at 120hz with a 10-bit colour depth. I personally restrict the refresh rate at 100hz, but you can also lower the resolution of use Chroma subsampling. I also use this monitor for work and the real estate that this monitor provides is a real luxury. As a software engineer, I always have a lot of windows open going from my main code editor to documentation, emails, slack, and the application I am working on. The CRG9 gives you a lot of flexibility. My favourite set up is to have a 16:9 windows right in the centre which host Visual Studio or my main work item and two half screens on each side of it for the rest of the info I need. But you can experiment and create a many configuration as you want. And finally you can use the monitor with two sources at the same time, like 2 PCs or a game console and a laptop. Just keep in mind that HDR, FreeSync, and a few other features are disabled in this mode, your refresh rate will also be capped at 100HZ. Overall, I love this monitor, it is a delight to work and play with. Samsung has fixed the issues if the previous generation, the HDR performance is enjoyable and within this price range you would be hard pressed to find a more impressive monitor.

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] I give this monitor 5 stars because it accomplishes what it set out to do perfectly. But beware, you need to know what you're getting with this beast. I can now comfortably put three windows side by side to do my work and that alone is worth the price of admission. Gaming wise this thing is fantastic. I have paired it with a RTX 2080 Ti and all games run beautifully. Everything looks nice and crisp on the high resolution 5120×1440 screen and HDR1000 makes the colours and brightness pop. Freesync works from 48hz up to 120hz and you can also simultaneously use FreeSync/G-SYNC and HDR. The view is so immersive, it's just fantastic. This monitor has a DPI of about 80. This monitor has no speakers at all. I have it mounted on my monitor arm with no problems. The monitor weighs 33lbs which many will find heavy. Getting it mounted was quite the chore and nearly led to my wife divorcing me, but we did it. I have to say overall I love it. I can fit everything I need comfortably onto the screen. No more switching desktops. It's been a great productivity and "staying in the zone" boost. My only complaint is how it changes sources, it's a bit tedious. My productivity, focus and happiness while working has increased so much with this monitor, and gaming is fantastic. I use Linux with a tiling window manager. To be honest when I'm in Windows or OSX then this monitor isn't quite as godly. The automatic tiling really helps squeeze out the full worth of this giant beast. I've had zero issues with it. No matter what machine, OS or whatever, it has worked 100% perfectly, it's simply stellar.