This 40-inch gaming monitor is big on immersion and compromises

There are some monitors that force you to involuntarily purse your lips and utter a soft “oooh”. This usually happens long after you insert the base and arm into the display and turn it on for the first time. When I unboxed the 40-inch 4K Samsung Odyssey G7, I found myself much more excited by the promise of its subtle black exterior and RGB ring light, not to mention its massive frame and sweeping 1000R curve. But actually looking at it at lights shocked me with a sense of disappointment. Disappointment turns to acceptance, and acceptance inevitably turns to boredom.

I first saw the Odyssey G75F (model number LS40FG75DENXZA) earlier this year. It was a weird middle child between the 27-inch OLED Odyssey G6 with its incredible 360Hz refresh rate and the 27-inch OLED Odyssey G8 with its 4K, 240Hz panel (the 2025 was filled to the brim with this type of monitor). The Odyssey G7 offers something much different: a 40-inch curved screen with a fast 180Hz refresh rate (a rarity for ultrawide monitors). The only thing is that it doesn’t come with an OLED but with a VA panel. Compared to an organic light-emitting diode – a type of screen that uses self-emitting colors to generate better contrast and deeper blacks – VA is closer to traditional LCD. The acronym stands for vertical alignment, which refers to the crystals inside the liquid crystal display. This type of display offers better contrast than other forms of LCD. This monitor is also solid with its 140 ppi (pixels per inch) density, meaning it can offer a relatively crisp image despite its size.

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There are some users who prefer LCD technology over OLED. I’m not here to debate the merits of higher luminance LCDs over typically lower luminance, more power dependent OLEDs. However, it’s better to determine if the contrast is worth the price. The Odyssey G7 retails for $1,200. However, Samsung regularly drops it down to around $750 (and sometimes Amazon has it for even less). Samsung’s Odyssey monitors – and its TVs for that matter – tend to be more expensive than most other brands with the same technology. For any price, there are still many trade-offs.

Big and responsible

You look at this monitor mainly for its size. A 40-inch screen is no laughing matter. On our office gaming desk, which we set up for PC testing, its wingspan manages to nearly engulf the table from port to starboard. Its 1000R curve is much more dramatic than other, smaller 1800R curved monitors. The 34-inch Philips Evnia QD-OLED and the 32-inch Alienware AW3225QF won’t feel as compelling as the Odyssey G7. None of these monitors measure up to the massively massive 57-inch Odyssey Neo G9, but what does?

The curve almost catches your eyes in its embrace. For gamers, it’s a really different experience than if you’re used to flatter displays. A 4K monitor actually reaches a wider resolution of 5120 x 2160 (sometimes called WUHD) than the typical 4K size of 3840 x 2160 (UHD). The Odyssey G7 offers a 21:9 aspect ratio, which is supported by some but not all games. It’s a similar story for streaming content. Some movies and shows on your preferred streaming platform may support ultrawide, but others may not.

As confusing as choosing your content can be, setting up the Odyssey G7 is a simple affair. You glue the flat base into the monitor stand, screw it in, then slide the monitor arm into the waiting slot. And you are ready to play. The monitor only comes with two HDMI 2.1 and one DisplayPort 1.4 input. There are an additional two USB-A 3.2 ports and a headphone jack. Still, I’d hardly call it port-rich for the size of this monitor.

For some strange reason, Samsung doesn’t make managing your cables too easy. There’s a rubber band on the back of the monitor stand that Samsung expects to hold all your various cables. I would prefer some kind of more permanent loop that can hold more cables without tension. If you want to keep a tidy desk, you’ll need to think about some inventive cable management to keep the snakes in their cage.

Despite my hiccups with the Odyssey G7’s port selection and cable management, the monitor itself looks good. This fun, round light bar on the back of the monitor can be programmed with a few preset patterns, but it’s mainly there to offer a little background glow to the wall behind it. This little attention to detail is in line with the Odyssey’s monitors, though I’d still love some speakers on the G7. The sound quality of a monitor probably won’t send shivers down my spine from bass, but I like having speakers as a last resort.

The Odyssey G7 is VESA DisplayHDR 600 certified, although it only claims 90% color gamut with a 3000:1 contrast ratio. The only problem you’ll face with compatibility is that Samsung screens don’t support Dolby Vision. Instead, they use Samsung’s own HDR10+ gaming standard. Some notable games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 will use HDR10+. Everything else will stick to standard HDR10.

I hope you don’t mind the glitter

The VA panel Samsung chose for the Odyssey G7 isn’t the prettiest you can get, nor is it the brightest. Its advertised typical brightness is around 350 nits. With sunlight streaming in from a nearby window, the Samsung monitor’s picture quality took a hit. In a dark, damp gaming basement with the blinds closed and the only light being soft RGB, the Odyssey G7 will hit its stride. In other environments, the monitor can look a little cheap despite its size.

I kept staring at the screen, wondering if what I was seeing was the quality I really wanted from a big, expensive monitor. Like most LCD displays, the Odyssey G7 has a 1ms response time, which dictates how quickly the screen can change a pixel from one color to another. OLED usually has a faster response time, although it will be slightly slower depending on the quality of the display. The G7’s panel offers the worst of both worlds.

What really matters is how the content looks in the end, and it’s a much better experience in that respect. In peak conditions, black levels avoid the problems of other monitors that make dark tones appear gray. Play as Hollow Knight: Silksong it maintains a 21:9 aspect ratio and looks very good since you can see so much of your surroundings. The contrast may not be as strong as some would like, but it certainly doesn’t look bad either.

Depending on your game, you may need to make some adjustments to make it playable. Title as Total War: Warhammer III supports WUHD resolution, but requires manual scaling of UI and text size to be manageable. Cyberpunk 2077 it looks extremely compelling in this 40-inch size. You just need to make sure your computer is powerful enough to play games of this size. Also, you have to remember that consoles like the PlayStation 5 don’t naturally support ultra-wide aspect ratios. They simply stretch a 4K image to fit the screen.

The big problem with the screen is the fact that it is prone to glare. It’s not as reflective as any ambient light tends to scatter across the surface and dull those crisp visuals you were hoping for. With the blinds down and the lights dimmed, the games finally looked their best.

More ways to multitask

Of course, having a 40-inch display will naturally allow you to put as many applications on it as possible at once. That’s the advantage of the large screen, although I think the problem with the excess is how quickly it can fill up. I tend to leave a lot of tabs open, and even when I move them to the background, I suddenly find that I still need another screen, whether it’s a laptop display or another monitor that I can stack vertically next to my device.

The Odyssey G7 allows for panning and tilting to a surprising degree. You can push the monitor up from -5 to 20 degrees and rotate it about another 20 degrees left and right. No, sorry, you won’t be rotating this display vertically unless you create a creative stand for your wall. The screen is fairly versatile, and that’s important, as you really want to sit in the center of any curved display for maximum effect.

If you’re looking for even more multitasking, the Samsung Odyssey G7 also allows for a picture-in-picture mode that allows input from two separate devices. I tested this with a PlayStation 5 and a PC at the same time. You can either have each image squashed together, although I much preferred the option of sticking one screen in the corner and leaving the rest to the other connected device. If for some reason you want to chat in Discord on your PC on the same screen as your game, that’s an option. I’d still prefer to have a laptop or tablet handy, but I don’t mind having options.

What’s left is a monitor that’s sure to work well for some gamers and creatives who prefer to live in the dark. In the right environment, picture quality is good enough that I’m not always longing for more. But as soon as a faint light hit the screen, I could feel a tingling sensation behind my eye. I’ve been spoiled by the number of OLED displays from this year, as the screen technology has become much more common and cheaper in recent years. This is a monitor for people who prefer the shape and look of the screen. If you can get your hands on the Odyssey G7 for less – perhaps half of what a 45-inch LG 5K2K Ultragear would cost you – then you’ll have a great time while being completely engrossed in your monitor.