Samsung - Odyssey OLED G8

[2 main ones are the AW3423DWF and the G85SB.](https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcmonitor/comments/1h2h5uf/dell_alienware_aw3423dwf_vs_samsung_odyssey_oled/) I agree that the Alienware has better software and overall build quality from my experience. There is a newer gen that just got announced, but the AW3423DWF is like $650 now and super worth it.

Both gen 1 and gen 3 versions are amazing monitors. I have the Gen 1 G8 and to me it's no big deal using the micro ports for HDMI 2.1 but I could see why some people complain about it. Gen 1 G8 HDR performance is still bright and good enough for any games. If you're buying new get the Gen 3 no questions asked it's just the better panel and full connectors for HDMI 2.1 and Display Ports. Also the Gen 3 panels have all the improvements for text clarity and the improvements for HDR so it's all win win there. Actually now doing some research not really sure if it has the Gen 3 panel lol. Since those are the 240hz and yeah the panel coating differences. All I can say is the glossy on the gen 1 is damn beautiful for any content way better than LG's nasty matte coating. Haven't tried the new panel on the refresh on the G8 so i cannot really comment on that.

Both gen 1 and gen 3 versions are amazing monitors. I have the Gen 1 G8 and to me it's no big deal using the micro ports for HDMI 2.1 but I could see why some people complain about it. Gen 1 G8 HDR performance is still bright and good enough for any games. If you're buying new get the Gen 3 no questions asked it's just the better panel and full connectors for HDMI 2.1 and Display Ports. Also the Gen 3 panels have all the improvements for text clarity and the improvements for HDR so it's all win win there. Actually now doing some research not really sure if it has the Gen 3 panel lol. Since those are the 240hz and yeah the panel coating differences. All I can say is the glossy on the gen 1 is damn beautiful for any content way better than LG's nasty matte coating. Haven't tried the new panel on the refresh on the G8 so i cannot really comment on that.

UPDATE: I ended up buying the Samsung G8 34inch OLED and I gotta say that it was definitely the right choice! The immersion in games is massively increased with the ultrawide and I don't know how I would go back to normal screens now. Thanks for the comments :)

LG. Don’t waste your time with any of the Samsung qd oleds, they are all junk. Just make sure you get a GS model, like the LG 34gs95qe-b. Over the span of 3 weeks I tried the Samsung g85sb, g60sd, and g80sd. The fringing on the 1st Gen qdoled panels is so bad that using the g85sb for any more than 30 minutes resulted in a migraine that lasted the rest of the day which is something I had never experienced before. Despite what reviews say, the gen 3 panels yielded little to no improvement over the gen 1 as far as fringing goes. 2 more blaring issues that are prominent on all QD OLED displays are 1. Elevated blacks and 2. A very slight purple/pink tint to everything. Both issues play off of eachother and even in a pitch black room with only the screen on, the screen will pick up its own light and boost blacks and glow ever so slightly pinkish as a result. The LG 34GS95QE-B on the other hand looks very close to my 55” C4 and has the perfect blacks that you expect when buying an OLED. Don’t be fooled by the glossy diehards either. On a TV, sure glossy can be much nicer. But on a PC monitor I’ve found the matte to be the way to go.

800r curve is great, Takes 5 mins to get used to. I had a sammy g85sb (1800r) for a week before I returned it. That monitor may as well have been flat with how weak the curve was, and I actually preferred using my flat 55” c4 in 3440x1440 over the Sammy monitor. Different story when comparing my 34gs95qe-b to the c4 though.

Just got myself a 34" g8 oled. While that's a good monitor i feel like it's about perfect size for gaming BUT a bit small for productivity. I think my sweet spot is going to be somewhere between 38" and 49". While resolution is great I need to say that I'm spoiled with the higher pixel density of my macbook pro. Same comes to colors - they are great but until i start to compare side by side with the macbook screen. Doing 2-4 hours of gaming in free time + productivity/coding in work time

Shout out to PP! Great advice. I set it up and now my 34” G8 OLED is doing 5K2K on AC: Shadows at 100FPS using DLDSR with DLSS 4 Quality. I have a 4090 btw. I was planning to grab the new LG eventually but this may do the trick.

It looks really really good. You can certainly see the difference vs its native 1440p. I tested it with AC:Shadows, CP2077, TLOU2, and Horizon:FW, all looked incredible. CP2077 was the most demanding during my testing but still managed a stable 60FPS maxed out, all others were north of 100FPS maxed. I’ll likely grab the LG much later on now and save myself some money as his feature with DLDSR is pretty cool.

I just picked up an odyssey g8 34" OLED. I had a 27" predator and borrowed a 34" dell from my brother just to make sure ultrawide was what I wanted to do, but OLED was necessary for me to upgrade. If you're mostly gaming and don't spend much time with static images, burn in shouldn't be much of a concern. And if you're in an area with Best buy, I cannot recommend searching their open box selection enough.

I’m using a Samsung G8 oled ultrawide and I’m getting 1440p with HDR no issues via HDMI. seems like Apple made these really pick with monitors…I can’t get proper refresh rate on my 4k gaming monitor on it

I’m using my base mini with a Samsung G8 OLED ultrawide 175hz refresh rate and HDR no issues

I was in the same boat, but at the end of the day all of the 34" QD-OLED ultrawides seem to be pretty much identical (probably because they all use the same panel, and the only differences are build quality and the OS used on board) In the end I went for the Samsung G8, purely because I preferred the aesthetics of it over the more "gamery" AW3423DWF and 342C. On top of that it also has some smart TV functionality built in, so you can stream video content directly on the TV without turning your PC on, and it also has Samsung Smart TV+, pseudo live TV, so it can pull double duty. However I got it at the same price as the Alienware, I don't think I would have paid much more for it if there was a price disparity

I have the Samsung G8 OLED, and now I couldn't go back to an LCD panel. In my opinion, the premium is worth it for the additional benefits of proper HDR and true to life colours

Mine is LS34BG850SUXEN apparently. I use mine with emails and spreadsheets while I'm working from home, and the colour fringing that affects QD OLED panels doesn't affect me at all, I only notice it if I get really close and try to see it. Some people are sensitive too it, most want notice it unless they're actively trying to see it

Get the Alienware or Samsung (same panel, just different 'software') 34" OLED, it hits all your requirements. Is usually 699-799 on sale.

I’ve had mine roughly six months using 5+ hours a day doubling as both my work from home monitor and gaming monitor and have 0 burn in. Samsung has some neat anti burn in software, and I make sure to collapse the windows/osx bottom bar so it isn’t static. My only real complaint tbh is it struggles to switch between multiple sources, and the USB-C inputs effectively don’t work (so you only have the mini HDMI And DP).

What a great opportunity. Thank you, LG, for reaching out to the community and for giving us a chance to try out this beast. To begin with, I have been a fan of ultrawide monitors since some of the first flat panels to hit the market - I owned an Acer Predator X34 for about 7 years, for which time it served me very well. About only a year ago I purchased Samsung’s 34" Odyssey OLED G8 (which has the same panel as the Alienware’s widely popular AW3423DW/ AW3423DWF monitors) and it has been my main monitor since then. On the TV side, I also own several OLED TVs (my first one was a LG 65” C6, which still serves me to this day - the last OLED 3D TV generation by LG and the only generation to be OLED 4K while supporting 3D and Dolby Vision). I also have a LG 77” C1, which has insane picture quality (I’m sure the newer ones are even better), though I still miss the 3D features since I still own a rather large 3D movies library. I researched extensively OLED TVs before I got my first one, so I knew their pros and cons very well - and despite loving the infinite contrast and the pure blacks in movies and games, I was very much afraid to get an OLED panel for a PC monitor as there are just so many static images, like the bars on browsers and other applications, the HUDs in games and so on. Since I got Samsung’s G8 monitor, I have changed a lot the way I handle monitors - I have my screensaver set to start after 1 minute of inactivity and be pure black, my wallpapers also change every 1 minute, I have hidden my Windows desktop icons and made my task bar hide automatically as well. This, so far, is working well and I love that panel, although the weird quirks this particular monitor version has, especially with the DisplayPort, can be very frustrating at times. Even after many firmware updates, it still does not recognize, for example, the BIOS screen on startup, which was extremely frustrating when troubleshooting PC issues. I am not a professional reviewer; I’m a tech geek without an endless budget, so I usually research purchases based on a lot of reviews, both written and from YouTube before I get anything, and I usually try to get the best thing for a good price and don’t upgrade too often - I get a new GPU every 2-3 years, a full new PC every 5-6 years, a new monitor every 6-7 years, and so on. This is actually the only reason I am not actively looking to purchase LG’s new 45” 5K2K GX9 monitor, which I love so much on paper - it is finally a meaningful upgrade for the Ultrawide 21:9 community with a larger resolution and display size to stay in **that sweet spot** in terms of PPI while providing a larger screen size and more pixels compared to the heaps of 3440x1440 34” monitors, while having an OLED panel with more Hz than my eyes could (probably) ever notice, but as I got my current monitor just a year ago, splashing out on a new one so soon is not something I usually do. I am reading and watching a lot of reviews though, to make up my mind on whether to have it on my bucket list for the next few years. In addition, I have a Z790 PC with EVGA 3080Ti FTW3 GPU and I am in the process of picking up a new GPU for my build, I also own an old-ish MacBook Pro, an Apple TV 4K, a PlayStation 5 and a lot of games for console and PC - [my Steam library is over 4400 games](https://steamcommunity.com/id/mm3n/), though I wish I had more time for gaming as I am working full time from home as a Software Quality Assurance specialist, and I am also studying for an Undergraduate Advanced Diploma in IT Systems Analysis and Design at the University of Oxford. Movies are my passion, and my love for them made me stick to the 21:9 Ultrawide format that my Acer X34 had, instead of get a wider screen option at 32:9 AR like Samsung’s G9, because it would only be useful for productivity and gaming and would be moot for movies. Many games don’t support that aspect ratio out of the box, and productivity for an OLED monitor is not the main purpose to drive me into getting it – if I was spending the majority of my day on that monitor for work, I’d rather it wasn’t OLED as it would significantly shorten its lifespan for the gorgeous picture those panels otherwise have. On the other hand, movies in 2.39:1 format look like they are made to be watched on a monitor in this aspect ratio, and games are still widely immersive – pun intended. I’d be very interested to test out how 4K movies look on the new LG 5K2K monitor, which sports a higher resolution than the 4K discs specs, and also see how many frames I could squeeze on some popular games out of my current 3080 Ti GPU, though I realize for a proper gaming experience on over 11 million pixels, I’d probably have to upgrade to a 5080 or 5090 to run everything well. Last but not least, I love taking photos and I own a decent, albeit old Canon 7D Mark II along with an iPhone 15 Pro and tripods, so I can take some good pictures of the monitor if I am lucky enough to be able to try it out. :)

I had a 49” and now I’m down to 34”. In my personal opinion, 34” ultra wide is more than enough and the image does get as stretched out. I have the 34” odyssey G8 OLED. Curve isn’t super aggressive, 175hz, .03ms. Great monitor. Would recommend however, if you go this route, make sure you get the glossy screen for maximum color pop. Have fun with your search.

Why not an OLED UltraWide? Get the Samsung Odyssey G8. Just a little above $700.

Yeah, make sure you get a compatible thunderbolt 3 or 4 cable though. What I like about it is that it comes with a remote and can also be used as a TV.

See my other comment, but this monitor only has a 1 year warranty with explicit language that it does not cover burn in.

This is a different monitor than what OP is referencing. The G85sb only has a 1 year warranty and does not cover burn in. I can take a picture of the warranty card I got with mine if there's any confusion. Edit: Not sure why I'm being downvoted but here's the warranty info: [G85SB Warranty ](https://imgur.com/a/NW7BiH7)

Chances are slim but who knows!  I currently own an OLED G8 34” and would love to put my hands on an LG to try first hand the difference between QD and W OLED. What better monitor to do it than this beast? 45 inches, 5K2K resolution… what I’m not so sold on is 800R curvature, a bit too steep for my likings but never owned one so would be nice to spend some time with it and, maybe, change my mind 👍

There’s no Gen3 ultrawide G8, the newer 240hz version has the same gen1 panel (subpixel structure is the same). Same text clarity and HDR performance (maybe better EOTF but same brightness level)

I went back and forth between this and the samsung G8. Go with this. The OS software on the Samsung monitor is dumb af. I regret not sticking with this AW instead.

Mini ports don't matter to me. Set it up once and never touched it again. When I bought them they were within 50 bucks of each other. Mine was 698 new from best buy.

It comes with a mini DP cable, so you're good there. My main gripe is that it shows the "standby" screen constantly when starting up, or changing monitors or anything. I have to restart my pc after I start it up to get into bios. If I ever need to get into my bios immediately cause windows isnt working, I'll have to go grab another monitor.

I tried the oled g8. it was an amazing picture, and I felt the build quality was better than either of the alienware options. The g8 had weird issues over hdmi for me which was a deal breaker. It seemed to default to a setting that was way to bright. Dp didn't have this issue but I'm running a laptop now and only have hdmi. I just ordered the lg 34gs as I like the 800r curve and 240hz.

Go with Oled G8 bro, great build quality, color performance is top notch

Negative ? I find it a superior device compars to the Aw, fantastic image quality, nothing wrongs with it bro

You make a valid point. Most monitors seem pretty good but I don't honestly know the difference between a productivity monitor and gaming. I've got a Samsung G8 34" Ultrawide OLED, but that thing is terrible to read text on. I would absolutely not recommend it for your use case. I'd prob recommend reading reviews. I tend to think most monitors are pretty good these days. There's a sub "buildapcsales" that lists deals and all sorts of things. slickdeals is also a great website just for the comment section on items.

You sure? Is it connected via HDMI or DP? My G8 goes 165Hz via DP but only 100 via HDMI

I really didn’t like the 1440p ultra wide 34” samsung oled monitor because of the pixel density. Stuff like that really bugs me.

I got a as good as new Samsung G8 Oled under warranty for under 500 dollars. The catch is that I bought it from Amazon Return deals so there are minor cosmetic defects, but the price was great and I do not care about a scratch on the top.

Hey, I just got the G8 OLED, but saw this post. I’m using a MacBook Pro, but it looks like I can’t use HiDPI and retain the original resolution? Every time I’m on 3440x1440 and I try to turn on HiDPI the resolution changes down to something lower. I haven’t been able to figure it out. Would you happen to know? https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay/wiki/Fully-scalable-HiDPI-desktop I saw this on the GitHub. I have an M3 Pro, so the horizontal pixel resolution limit shouldn’t be an issue for me. I’m not too familiar with BetterDisplay and honestly unsure of how to fully use it, so any help is appreciated!

I love my Samsung G8. It’s been flawless so far

The US version was on sale for the Thanksgiving holiday. Priced at $500 USD. Should have OTG style (mini) display in puts and running an OLED at 144hrz. Should have Samsung Tizen o/s. Samsung either has issues with the input board or this will be discontinued in place of another variant. I'd guess a flex version. I bought the G8. This would have been great, but the size was just too much for me.

Get the G8, the panel is absolutely stunning (QD-OLED) and I'm using it a lot every day and have no sign of burn in. If your gunna buy a QD-OLED just buy it from Samsung since they make all the panels for everyone else

It depends how much little things can annoy you. G8 has some turn on, turn off issues. Weird mini HDMI ports and that is super limiting when it comes to cable options. Most brands do not make those. Also if you get SmartTV variant (I heard there is a variant without it but not sure) expect UI to lag compared to the competition. And this is not even touching on Samsung’s production quality issues and worst possible warranty. Your best bet is the new MSI or good old DWF imo.

I just bought a Samsung Odessy G8 34inch and I can't fault it. It's also like a smart TV with apps etc

I have g8 which i plug both my mac and pc and on both operating systems they look crisp so I don’t agree with you about macos.

I’ve got a 3070, personally using a AW34 and it’s perfect for it. If you don’t mind black bars when watching content i’d say go for that or Samsung G8

*"3840x1600 is massively underrated"* No it's not, you constantly see people asking for it. I owned the LG38GN950-B and switched to Samsung OLED G8 when the LG monitor got a green line JUST after the warranty was out. Yeah i had to alter my Powertoys FancyZones and it took me a week to get used to less desktop space, but now i don't notice, it's fine. But if i had the option in the future, i would consider if i had the GPU budget to support it! I was PISSED at LG, but the Samsung True Black HDR 400 OLED was such a great experience, i forgot i was mad...

I switched to ultrawide more than 5 years ago, never going back to 16:9. Gaming feels way more immersive, and it's also really nice for movies too. Currently using the G8 OLED with a 3080. Performance is fine, even in never games, tho it's mostly thanks to DLSS, but I think you'll have a pretty great experience with the 7900 GRE.

Been an avid 21:9 user for like 4yrs and can't go back, only drawback is that I'm still in the OG 3440x1440 group and want a bit more crispiness to the text (OLED) and a smidge more screen real-estate. So far I've had the LG UltraGear, the Alienware one, then the Samsung G8 (current). Been eyeing a 5k 2k for a long time and curious to hear other reviews (if I get sent one LG, I will deep dive so hard into the things that I look for in a panel so be warned lol). OLED brightness, HDR, VRR, color banding are things that are very important to nail so praying ya'll nailed it. I used a Dell 32:9 (forget the model) and returned it within a week. Tried to make it work, but didn't like that it's a huge performance hit for the added peripheral you technically never use and for normal day to day, hurts my neck moving windows around. And thats before I get into getting games to do 32:9 was a nightmare vs 21:9. So sweet spot if you're a gamer imho is 21:9 -- perfect FOV to performance for modern mid-high end+ GPU's.

Great review! I currently run a G8 glossy and love it also contemplating on the LG but the fight for me is going from colorful glossy to matte not sure how much of a change it would be from the G8 ultra wide but for sure increase in Hz would be nice. Still indecisive if I should try it or if it's not worth it even in comparison to the G8 as far as gaming goes.

I had this one. During 1 year it spend 3 months at service center. The most fuck up monitor in history if you ask me. Yeah. Picture was great when it worked. But it usually took a lot of time to start to actually see something . And support from Samsung was the worst i ever experienced. I stay away from all their products after such experience. Hate till end of my life

I have a G8 and feel like some of the issues might be user and some are down to Samsung including a shit micro display port cable. Switched from micro diisplay port to micro HDMI and the losing image / connection issues disappeared immediately. With micro display port you only need to look at it funny and it would drop. The other I saw people talking about, turning on off, volume up down etc. I suspect is because people have Samsung TV's. The remote for the TV's and the G8 monitor will work on one another, so if someone does something on the TV, good chance the monitor does it also.

Specifically for curved monitors, it doesn't have the option to filter by curvature. I have a Samsung G8 and I'm trying to find another 34" ultrawide with the same 1800R curve without dropping another grand on a 2nd G8.

I've seen 34" monitors with 800R, 1000R, 1500R, 1800R, 1900R and 2500R...unless the specs are listed with errors. OLED G8 is listed at $1200, but it goes on sale down to $800-900 pretty often.

I love my G8, but all are seemingly great choices

Ive heard the color (out of the box) is best on the G8, and i also think it has the most attractive design. I also enjoy that it has the TV functionality, but i admit that is a nonfactor for me. I also have some odd issues with it, but nothing a simple unplug and plug-back-in cant fix. As i mentioned, i love my unit. I think the DWF is easily the best all-around MVP here but i bought my G8 and 3rd party warranty at a relatively deep discount so i preferred it over the DWF

Samsung G8 Oled Ultrawide. I've been using it since launch, and it's amazing.

Usage: 8am to 7pm work (turn off for 15 mins every 4 hrs when I take breaks) 8pm to 2am Gaming, no breaks or screen off. So far, no burn in or any other issue

I also stumbled on this one by accident, and returned a Samsung G8 for this. The kvm and osd are so much better. I don't use Mac so no issues with scaling here.

For racing, it's nice because you have a wider fov. For standard games I don't enjoy it as much. I have a 34" OLED Samsung G8, and while it's beautiful, I don't like it for standard gaming, but it wouldn't be a bad option to race on if I wasn't already using a 65 inch tv. Now it's just sitting since I've replaced it with a 32 4k for more vertical viewing.

AOC ag344uxm is the only IPS mini led 34 inch 21:9 ultrawide on the market I believe, I was gonna buy it but it's unavailable in my region so I went OLED with the Samsung G8.

I had a Neo g9 before and currently use G8 oled 21:9. Ultrawide is good fun for a while but I always ended up playing with the standard 16:9 ratio in the end. The image is stretched on UW, which makes it difficult to read the player's movement sideways. If that makes any sense. Good usage of the right stick beats ultrawide any day

We have sweet Samsung curved monitors. They’re huge and display multiple things at once. I can get the NSN tomorrow if you’re interested.

Ah ok. I know they are 34” but not sure if they bought them on GSA or not. I’ll do some digging tomorrow and get back to you.

I use a 34" curved Samsung monitor 3440x1440 plugged into my mac mini m4 with no issues whatsoever. I have a thunderbolt to displayport cable. I actually have it going to 2 monitors. The second monitor is just a 1080p monitor (I don't always have it on, just when I need some extra space), and again a thunderbolt to displayport cable. No issues whatsoever.

I’ve got a Samsung 34” unltrawide and I run both an intlem Mac Pro 2019 and an M1 MBP on it and they both look fantastic, nice and sharp & no issues.

You will not regret an UW. Get it.

I have two monitors; lower is a Dell Canvas 27 at 2560x1440 (16:9) and top is 3440x1440 Samsung (21:9 UWQHD). It allows for tons of Adobe side-menu space, which is actually more useful than timeline work.

Any Samsung panel will be a good one TBH. Mine is from a few years ago, so I am sure a newer better model exists at this time.

Yep! Similar to mine; may even BE mine.

I just set up my M4 mini with an ultra wide Samsung 34” with the same resolution you are considering. I love it. It’s great for spreadsheets and for Logic and for what I need it for. However, it doesn’t save much desk space. I actually had more desk space with dual monitors mounted on arms that I could swing away if needed.

Was that the Samsung one? It was only 3440 x 1440 resolution.

Windows + alt + B. If you have an RTX gpu and you have no other monitors plugged into the GPU, just leave HDR on and enable RTX HDR. I also have the Odyssey ultrawide oled. This combo is good.