I recently bought a monitor for the corner of my office/living room and to be as complete as possible in my research, I explored the option of buying a curved monitor. I didn’t sense why on earth anyone would want a curved monitor for anything. They are wider and narrower in height. The curvature looked awkward, a useless contraption. I got a flat screen monitor and didn’t look back.
Until I found the Samsung Odyssey Ark UHD gaming monitor.
At 55 inches, it’s tall, bright and beautiful, capable of occupying the maximum, if not all, area of your viewing frame. Everywhere you look, there is a screen, a screen, and another screen. It goes on forever. I felt like I was sitting in front of the altar of some kind of deity wrapping his folded arms around me. The amount of real estate is at maximum free. It’s like no one has that much screen area. Still, it’s incredibly easy to get used to and, as I eventually learned, even a little addictive.
The biggest charm is the gaming experience.
I played Far Cry 6, a first-person shooter with a lot of unnecessary profanity and terrifying dialogue. The 1000R curvature of the screen expanded the world around me, creating a dazzling immersive experience. I didn’t have to turn my head once, feeling every movement of my character’s head and body. The enemies made me nervous. The beatings I won were palpable almost alarmingly. The display is absolutely perfect (the monitor features the Quantum Matrix generation with Quantum Mini LED, as well as a 165Hz refresh rate, a 1ms reaction time and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro). There is no glare or reflection, even with sunlight entering the room.
It wasn’t the controller’s fault, but the Xbox controller I was using turned the view back and forth too temporarily and was very shocking. With a monitor of this size, this can become a challenge and you may simply position yourself by adjusting the way you play a game. Or you might be immune to that kind of whiplash.
For maximum comfort, I reclined in the included Secretlab TITAN Evo 2022 Series gaming chair, rested my head on the limited edition Odyssey magnetic pillow, and lost myself in a world of guns and intrigue.
(The chair, pillow, and a Samsung 980 PRO NVMe SSD1TB are a bonus with every pre-order purchase on Samsung’s online page before October 23, 2022. )
When it comes to sound quality, Samsung’s 60W 2. 2. 2-channel speaker formula with AI Sound Booster and Dolby Atmos provides sound smart enough that you don’t need to use external speakers.
While the high-end gaming experience is, for me, the main reason to buy this monitor, it also makes for an excellent overall workspace display. The amount of area on the screen is impressive. During a given workday, I will have six to ten programs open, infrequently several windows of each, all of which can be visual on the Ark with minimal head movement. And the curve gave me simple access to the hidden systems in the corners. of the monitor
From a productivity perspective, Ark’s Multi View feature is useful as it creates the effect of monitors. You can stick with one running your PC, another running Samsung Smart TV (Samsung’s Smart TV entertainment app), another running YouTube, and a few others running a gaming app or streaming a movie (I watched a bit of Jaws and it was amazing). That’s a lot of moves to perform at the same time and I’m not sure you need to do it unless you’re a TV executive or something, but it’s there if you need it.
One of the maximum curiosities of the monitor is its vertical “Cabin Mode”. Rotating the monitor was simple and I didn’t have the possibility to check it personally, I can see how fantastic it would be to bet on a flight simulator. When you’re tilted and tilting the screen completely, it’s maxed out above you. Otherwise, I didn’t find the upright position that is useful. In Multi View, I had to crane my neck to look at the higher screens, which wasn’t very comfortable.
The Ark offers many features, and is available and can be customized thanks to two remote controls, one of which is the solar-powered Ark Dial. In the most productive case, setting up a monitor can be a complicated and frustrating proposition, especially when you’re not used to controls. But while buttons on other monitors tend to get lost in a no man’s land under the screen frame or in some other God-deserted position, Ark Dial places them on a device that sits comfortably next to your keyboard and mouse.
It took me a while to get used to, but that would be the case with almost any monitor, especially with those with so many features. With Ark Dial, you can replace the length and position of the screen (Flex Move Screen). ), adjusts the symbol (Quick Settings) and the game (Game Bar).
At $4500, the Odyssey Ark is rarely very reasonable (although those pre-order offers do indeed melt the deal). But I didn’t think it was just a monitor. It looked much more like a television and almost fostered an existential audiovisual crisis. Just go back to the sofa to play a game or watch a movie?
Of course, I discovered a way to live without the fully transporting immersion of the Ark. But I couldn’t help but think about it. 9/10
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