When it comes to particularly off-target premium PC displays, Samsung has form. With the new Samsung Odyssey G8 OLED G80SD, a 4K 240Hz OLED panel, the company remains true to that dubious tradition. This thing is mind-boggling.
If you’ll pardon a digression and just a quick reminder: perhaps the most egregious offender in Samsung’s back catalog of missed monitors is the Neo G9, a 49-inch mini-LED monster that shipped with some seriously bad firmware, which has been updated since then. many times, but remains fundamentally broken. It’s hard to imagine what you would think of anything if you spent $2,000 on it.
At the same time, Samsung has also produced some downright glorious displays, including the G9 OLED and the other Neo G9, the 57-inch dual 4K thing. And yes, that’s a lot of G9s. Samsung’s monitor branding is abysmal.
More generally, it’s hard to know what to make of Samsung as a whole. On the one hand, it is a technological behemoth, spanning multiple segments, from cutting-edge chip manufacturing to OLED display panels and high-performance SSDs. It is also one of the world’s leading manufacturers of smartphones, laptops and TVs.
Odyssey G8 OLED G80SD specs
Screen size: 32-in
Solution: 3,840 x 2,160
Brightness: 250 nits full screen, 1000 nits max HDR
Color Coverage: 99% DCI-P3
Response time: 0.03ms
Refresh rate: 240Hz
HDR: HDR10
Functions: Samsung QD-OLED 3rd generation panel, Adaptive Sync, 1x DisplayPort 1.4, 2x HDMI 2.1, SmartTV, phase change cooling
Price: $1,299 | £1,099
It is unique in that respect and capable of magical things. Meanwhile, it can’t handle something as basic as monitor firmware on a very expensive display. It’s all quite strange. And with that in mind, where does the new Samsung Odyssey G8 OLED G80SD fit on the tech triumph-or-tragedy spectrum?
You’ve probably already guessed that it’s somewhere on the wrong side of the scale. But hold that thought as we discuss some basic speeds and feeds. The Odyssey G8 OLED G80SD is Samsung’s take on the fast-growing 32-inch 4K OLED sector.
We’ve already reviewed several such examples, including the Alienware 32 AW3225QF, Asus ROG Swift OLED PG32UCDM and MSI MPG321URX. They all actually used Samsung QD-OLED panels. Alternatives based on LG’s competing WOLED panels are emerging, but it will take a little longer before they actually go on sale. Regardless, so far the 4K OLED monitors we’ve reviewed share very similar features. And we’ve loved pretty much all of them.
After all, what’s not to like about super-fast, ultra-fast QD-OLED panel technology combined with crisp 4K pixel density? The first sign that Samsung’s own take on this class of monitors will be a little different is the anti-reflective coating. Every other newcomer to this market has opted for a glossy coating for maximum contrast. But Samsung has opted for matte.
That’s surprising, because this monitor is packed to the brim with SmartTV features and is aimed at gamers, both of which tend towards a glossy coating. Of course, you can argue about the benefits of glossy versus matte. A matte one choice would be welcome. But offering this screen exclusively with a matte coating is difficult to achieve.
However, it’s that aforementioned SmartTV functionality where things really fall apart. The SmartTV functionality and interface absolutely dominate this screen. And it spoils it quite extensively from a PC user’s perspective.
The first set-up foreshadows the horrors to come.
It all starts from the first time you boot up the Samsung Odyssey G8 OLED G80SD. You can’t just turn it on and connect a PC. No, you’ll need to go through part of the SmartTV setup first, including some rather silly prompts asking you to confirm that you’re connecting a PC to that Displayport interface.
Of course, that’s a one-time deal, and if that were the only problem, it would hardly matter. Instead, it is a harbinger of the horrors to come. The fundamental problem here is that Samsung set this thing up to be friendly to the general consumer, to work like a TV. Consequently, the monitor functionality is hidden very deeply in various submenus and does not meet PC standards.
I’m not exaggerating at all when I say it took over an hour before I could reliably select HDMI or Displayport without having to restart the screen when connecting a PC. Once your PC’s desktop appears on this panel, it appears as if there are numerous settings menus, each accessed in separate, counter-intuitive ways.
Actually, there are three main settings menus. There’s something designed as an idiot-friendly menu, then there’s a more advanced menu, and finally the “Game Bar” menu which has several gaming-focused options and which in turn has its own “More Settings” submenu. As far as I know, the only way to reliably access the Game Bar is to hold down the play/pause button on the included IR remote. Well, obviously.
The SmartTV gubbins will make you terrified of touching absolutely everything.
The only reason I know the Game Bar menu even exists is because it accidentally lit up, how I don’t know, before disappearing almost immediately. I was then down a rabbit hole of research to get it back. It also took me a good 20 minutes to figure out if this monitor has OLED care features (it does).
Anyway, as I write these words I am seriously considering therapy for the PTSD and anxiety I felt every time I went near the OSD controls or the remote. Because they’re both determined to kick you back to the SmartTV interface, and if you’re still struggling to understand how to get from those SmartTV gubbins back to the PC desktop, you’re terrified of touching absolutely anything .
Now you might dismiss all this as a steep learning curve, after which you’re just left with fantastic 4K OLED 240Hz beauty. But here’s the thing. The color calibration in both SDR and HDR differs slightly. At least it is in the various picture modes in all the numerous menus and submenus I could find.
The thing is, I’m not 100% sure I didn’t miss anything. As I said, the menus are not up to the PC monitor standard and the result is a confusing mix of simplified pseudo-simplicity and entrenched complexity. Strangely enough, the SDR colors are correct when you connect a Mac, implying a specific profile for Apple computers. But PCs in SDR mode are clearly oversaturated and I simply couldn’t fix that.
HDR content, meanwhile, usually looks great, but again the color balance is off and again I couldn’t fix that. It’s a shame, because I think this might be the most powerful example of a 4K QD-OLED monitor yet, perhaps thanks to what Samsung calls its Dynamic Cooling System, which includes ‘pulsating heat pipes’.
It is actually a phase change heat pipe system built into the back of the panel. Samsung says it is five times better than the graphite plates used by competing brands.
Oh, and then there’s the matte instead of glossy coating. Honestly, it’s okay. It does detract a bit from that deep, inky OLED contrast experience. But it also helps reduce the grayness associated with quantum dots that these panels can suffer from in strong ambient light. If this were the only problem, it would be far from a deal breaker.
Buy as…
✅ You want 4K OLED awesomeness from the source: This is Samsung’s own take on the 4K QD-OLED thing and it might be the most powerful.
Don’t buy if…
❌ You value your common sense: The terrible and almost inescapable SmartTV interface is simply wrong for a PC monitor.
That’s exactly it. Buried somewhere in that crappy, pointless SmartTV interface is a fantastic monitor. But Samsung has completely lost sight of the customer with this monitor. No one wants to pay $1,300 for a 32-inch TV. This is a monitor and at that price it only makes sense as a monitor. Heck, even as a monitor it struggles with price, as MSI’s offering costs around $900 if you can get your hands on one.
But Samsung has set it up primarily to be used as a TV and has made it wildly difficult, and in some ways perhaps impossible, to get the most out of it with a PC. And so in the end it is absolutely impossible to recommend it.