- Samsung's marketing is geared toward
the kinds of people
whose eyes glaze over,
the second they hear terms
like QD-OLED panel, FreeSync Premium Pro,
or USB power delivery,
all of which are included on this monitor,
and, yet, all of which
are absent from its product page.
For many gamers this process is enough,
but this is Linus Tech Tips.
You all need to know every little detail
when you're shopping for a gaming monitor,
and Samsung, yes, sponsored this video,
packed this display to the gills
with features that I get to tell you about,
including their incredible QD-OLED panel
that we have already seen in action
a couple of times, and absolutely fallen in love with.
It's not cheap,
but it did say Odyssey G8 in the title,
so you already knew it was gonna be
among the best gaming displays on the planet.
Let's crack her open.
Inside the box, we find some things we expect
like a monitor stand and a Vasa adapter.
It's a curved monitor,
so you'll need one of these,
if you want to use it with a Vasa mount.
It's nice that that's included,
and some things we don't expect like a remote.
That's right, the OLED G8 packs in
a bunch of the same features
that you would find in Samsung's smart TVs
like built-in streaming apps
and even some free TV channels
through Samsung TV plus, which is great
if you want a display that can pull double duty
as a more TV-like experience,
say, if you're living
in a dorm room or something,
and it's got a couple of five watt speakers,
which sound surprisingly usable,
actually, maybe even good.
(upbeat music)
the stand assembly is a straightforward affair.
We've got a nice hefty base
for the bottom that screws on
with two number two Phillips head screws, lttstore.com,
but as much as I love stands,
this is the centerpiece.
It blew my mind when Adam,
who worked on this video,
pointed out that Samsung mentions QD-OLED
a grand total of zero times
on their product page for the OLED G8.
Seriously, go look, go check.
I'll wait, but they should,
because this panel
is based on the exact same technology
as Samsung's S95B TV,
and is as close as you can get to zero compromises.
Every pixel on it turns off completely
for incredibly deep blacks,
and, because you don't need to wait
for the crystals to slowly change positions
like on an LCD,
this is the fastest display in Samsung's lineup,
with pixels boasting response times
of just 0.1 milliseconds grey-to-grey.
In practice, this results in virtually no blur
to all 3,440 by 14,40 pixels,
especially, if you're running at
the maximum 175 hertz refresh rate.
None of that is what makes this so special though.
Any OLED is gonna be fast with deep blacks.
QD-OLED uses a quantum dot layer
to overcome traditional OLED's biggest shortcomings though,
like subpar brightness,
and the potential for burning.
It also significantly pumps up the color gamut
for the best looking gaming that we've ever seen.
We should probably have a game open.
Let's get a game going here.
What do you think?
Should we mix it up, and go with do material?
- I don't know how to install it on here.
- You bastard, how dare you!
- No, it is installed.
- Oh, yes, got 'em!
We have a much more detailed explanation
in this video here,
but the short version
is that quantum dots are particles
that get excited by one wavelength of light,
then with incredibly efficiency,
turn that into a different wavelength of light,
so, instead of RGBW sub-pixels
that shine out in their respective colors,
W is white, to boost brightness
at the expense of saturation.
You get a single color of OLED panel
that excites an RGB quantum dot layer in front of it.
This allows that single color OLED panel behind it
to wear out much more gracefully over time.
Plouffe from our writing team, for example,
has been gaming on his QD-OLED
for six months already
with no sign of burning whatsoever,
and it does all of this
while boosting brightness
and improving color saturation,
thanks to the absence of that white sub-pixel.
Of course, there's a lot more
to a monitor than just the stand.
Samsung included their Neo Quantum processor
to help with a number of things,
starting, of course, with, "Hey, cool, look at that.
That's their upgraded correlating module
with CoreSync, and it helps
with image optimization
and powers the Tizen based smart entertainment media
and gaming hub that helps improve gaming scaling
through the use of machine learning.
A media and gaming center on a monitor?
That's right.
Built right into the monitor
is access to all your favorite streaming apps
including game streaming apps
like GeForce Now and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate,
so you can play a ton of amazing games
without worrying about
your power hungry PC heating up your room.
It also enables the OLED G8
to support AMD FreeSync Premium Pro,
which gives you the benefits
of variable refresh rate with HDR,
so you get a great picture
with strong resistance
to tearing or to stuttering,
even if your system
is struggling to hold a steady 60 FPSs frame rate.
I know this is the older "Horizon,"
but, man, does this ever look so good?
It's worth noting, by the way,
that "DOOM Eternal"
can only run high refresh rate or HDR,
because the game doesn't support FreeSync Premium Pro.
"Horizon Zero Dawn," on the other hand,
butter smooth with HDR,
man, is that ever gorgeous?
Not the most ergonomic setup
that I've created for myself here.
This stand, by the way,
supports height adjust, as well as tilt.
This also gives us a better look at the IO,
which is a little unusual on this monitor.
It's got a mini display port 1.4,
a micro-HDMI 2.11, one USB-C port,
and a USB-C port with power delivery.
This last one is great,
because it can do up to 65 watts,
meaning that you can use the monitor
as an additional display with your laptop,
and charge your laptop
while you're doing that for a one cable solution.
This is great for students
or, really, anyone who wants to minimize cable clutter.
Also, perfect for watching movies in the dorm.
The OLED G8's gonna be joining Samsung's monitor lineup
alongside the Neo G8,
which uses a mini-LED backlight
with a traditional LCD panel,
which probably raises the question,
why would you go with one over the other?
Well, let me tell you, if you find
that you're particularly sensitive
to color fringing
like you would find on a QD-OLED today,
or, if you're in a room
where you have no light control
and it's super bright,
the brighter picture of the Neo G8
could make it a better choice,
but, if you're pretty much anyone else,
I would recommend sticking with the OLED G8,
but, in the future, the Neo might, actually,
lose one of its only two advantages.
Let's talk about color fringing.
Because of the unique triangle sub-pixels layout
of QD-OLED, sharp lines can render
with distracting green and pink outlines.
This is something that affects all QD-OLED panels,
no matter which company is making the display.
Now, for me, and, actually,
almost everyone else we pulled in the office,
it's the kind of thing
that I would forget within a week or two.
Besides, my home PC is almost exclusively used
for gaming, where you won't notice it at all,
but, for Adam, who worked on this video,
it's a deal breaker,
so, what's the solution?
Well, to understand the solution,
we need to also understand the problem,
and the current situation
is partly thanks to Microsoft.
To improve text rendering in Windows,
Microsoft uses ClearType,
which is kind of this color trickery
that takes the sub-pixels
around black text,
and slightly colors them to soften edges,
giving fonts a smoother, less aliased appearance,
but this is a super new panel
with an unusual triangular sub-pixel layout, remember?
It's currently unsupported by ClearType.
That means that the wrong values
are getting sent to those sub-pixels,
causing green tops and pink bottoms.
Now, this effect can be mitigated
by changing the scaling windows
or sitting a little bit farther away from your display,
but those just make the fringing less noticeable,
rather than eliminating it completely.
Another option is to use Better ClearType Tuner,
which is a program
that lets you adjust the same settings
that Windows ClearType does,
but in a useful manner,
and it helps, but it doesn't quite resolve the issue,
so, realizing that we were committed to this rabbit hole,
we kept going, and sought out
the more granular Mac type,
which allows for low level access
to Windows text rendering.
With MacType, you can, actually,
configure the exact coordinates of each sub-pixel
to force Windows ClearType to properly smooth the text,
and when it works, it looks amazing,
which is great news,
because it means it's not a hardware problem,
like, you haven't seen text
until you've seen the kind of contrast
that you get with deep blacks like this,
but thanks to Windows 10's wonky approach to text rendering,
MacType requires such deep access to our system
that our corporate anti-virus,
actually, alerted our sysadmin,
while he was on vacation,
and wiped out the program on its own,
like we're talking registry edits and more.
It also ended up breaking a bunch of software.
Now it's possible that with more time,
we could have made it run a bit smoother,
but there's a catch.
It doesn't even fix all the text on your system.
Lots of apps like Chrome, and, hilariously,
even Microsoft Office don't use Windows to render text.
Rather, they'll use an alternative like FreeType,
which also doesn't support this new sub-pixel layout,
meaning that, even if the text in Windows looks crisp,
it'll still be wonky pretty much everywhere else,
so, please, Microsoft, FreeType Project,
everyone, I'm begging you,
support this new pixel layout.
You'll find a link
to the Odyssey OLED G8 in the video description.
It's already amazing, and if I get my way,
it's only gonna get better.
If you guys like this video,
why don't you check out the one where we sent James
to a quantum dot factory to learn
just what the heck they are, and how they're made.