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I left unfinished business on November 27th of last year. I wondered out loud if a similar sized television might actually be better than the most advanced PC monitor ever made, the 49-inch Odyssey G9. I have been asking that question for a long time, but I finally have an answer.
I took delivery of both the new 48-inch C1 OLED television and the new 49-inch Odyssey Neo G9 from both the Korean companies in September. I have used them back to back between the latest and greatest gigantic gaming monitors and between work and play ever since. I used them all day, every day, writing down notes about my experience with the screens and the joy I experienced.
I am not sure if I am ready to go back to the small screen I own. My answer is neither. My PC monitor is not the focus of either of these screens. I was not sad to see one of them leave.
The basics are first. Why is a monitor better than a TV? The $2,499 Odyssey Neo G9 is arguably the most feature-packed gaming monitor ever made, and yet the $1,299 48-inch TV beats it in most ways.
The resolution of the panel on theSamsung is 5120 x 1440-pixel, which is a lot of resolution for a single panel. The 48 inch 3840 x 2160 panel of the company is larger than the 7.4M pixels of the previous model. The corners of the screen are a bit farther away from your face because it is not curved. I have more to say about that later.
The Odyssey G9 has a footprint of 45.3 inches wide, while the 48 inch LG has a footprint of 42.2 inches wide. We have long made fun of small laptop screens for being too short for productivity, but the 24 inch screen from LG is far, far past that point. I had to ask myself why I would pay twice as much for a screen with the top and bottom chopped off when both fit perfectly on my Ikea Bekant desk, when I could just buy the Neo G9 for less.
I had to set it slightly further back because it was larger than the other one.
I had to set it slightly further back because it was larger than the other one.
The difference between the refresh rate of the two monitors is that the one from the South Korean company is twice as fast at 120Hz, while the one from the South Korean company is only twice as fast at 120Hz. Both support variable refresh rate, and the PS5 will eventually support the latest HDMI 2.1 with the Virtual Reality feature.
Is a TV more energy efficient than a monitor? You might be surprised by the question. I averaged less than 90Wh per hour with the 48-inchLG, compared to the 89Wh per hour with the Neo. When I added desktop apps, it was closer to the average consumption of the two companies. If you turn off the power saving settings on the LG, it will be dim out of the box.
It is not easy to swap your traditional monitor for either of these panels. We will talk about gaming, productivity, and your desk.
Noupscale is a file onchorusasset.com.
You have never played a game like Genshin Impact because you have never seen the gorgeous colors of the OLED.
There is gaming.
I don't want to repeat my entire review of the Odyssey G9 but I will give you a version that shows you what gaming is like on a 32:9 screen. Playing on the Odyssey G9 and Neo G9 is incredibly immersive, but it is also warped in a way that I don't always find pleasant. In the year since the review, nothing has changed.
I played through the entire Back 4 Blood campaign between the Odyssey Neo G9 and the Lg C1 48, as well as playing a new bunch of Halo Infinite. All of the games have adequate 32:9 support, but they all have a look on the left and right sides of the screen that is not good.
I don't always dislike it. I wouldn't play them on the Odyssey Neo G9 because they look great on the 48-inch gaming television, which is designed for a 16:9 screen. It is just as good, if not better, because you have more screen and less distraction in view. It doesn't help that its monitor has some strange results.
I said that the set already punches harder than its Hz would suggest, but the Neo G9 also has weird problems with its mode, most prominently that it will display horizontal lines across portions of the display. A big, splashy, story-critical explosion in Deathloop was ruined for me when horizontal lines cut through what would otherwise have been an impressive burst of flame, the kind of thing that the Neo's peak brightness of 2000 nits makes so bright you might swear you can feel it
When the screen gets dim, the horizontal lines look like this in a video.
I am not the only one who has seen this issue with the Neo G9 and has only reached partial acceptability after months of updates.
The colors of your entire Windows desktop were washed out when you turned on the HDR mode. The dark shadowy regions of Deathloop look green and Back 4 Blood looks like it, even after the latest firmware update, which you have to download on a PC, then apply directly to the monitor with a thumb drive. The best result I could muster was still far shy of the fantastic results that the company gave me, even though I was able to change the color and luminance.
Techtesters testified they went through three different review units as well asHardware Unboxed deserves a lot of credit for pushingSamsung on these problems.
The Odyssey G9 had some quality control issues, which didn't work with some graphics cards out of the gate, and we figured a Neo G9 would solve that. While the new Mini-LED full array local dimming provides those fantastic deep blacks around, we aren't seeing that in games where we should.
The Odyssey Neo G9 was satisfactory at 120 or 144Hz, not unlike the Odyssey G9 I tested last year. The original G9 is over $1,000 less expensive than the set from LG.
You can fit a lot on the screen if you set the scaling to 100 percent. I found it uncomfortable until 125 percent.
You can fit a lot on the screen if you set the scaling to 100 percent. I found it uncomfortable until 125 percent.
Productivity.
If you plan to use your new big screen to do work, I can't recommend an Lg TV.
People ask me if I am worried about burn-in. Don't you get headaches sitting two feet away from the TV?
The answer is that I can either get a headaches because the screen is so dim it can lead to serious eyestrain, or I can spend my time worrying about that burn-in by turning some of the protections off.
I am not worried about burn-in, the phenomenon where organic chemical compounds that emit their own light can wear unevenly over time, creating ghostly images that stick around. It can take thousands of hours to see permanent retention even if you leave static content up on the screen. The screen can be dimming if it doesn't move enough or gets too bright, and the logo and icons can be shifted around every so often.
If you expand a bright white web browser page from a window to fullscreen, you can see the entire screen in a paper white state. I learned to live with that quickly and I like it when Windows is set to the mode of high Dynamic Range.
:noupscale is a file on thechorusasset.com.
Here is how much I can fit on a screen.
The Temporal Peak luminance control is also known as the Automatic static limiter and sets my eyeballs on fire. I might be typing in a document or scrolling down a webpage, but the majority of the windows on my vast desktop aren't moving, so the LG TV will ever so slowly dip the entire brightness of the screen, so slowly I don't even notice until the eyestrain creeps up Even if I am using it in a bright room, it is about as dim as my laptop is. I have tried everything to stop it, including various picture modes, reducing the TV's brightness, and even the individualOLED brightness, but the only thing that stopped it was buying a special remote control designed for troubleshooting and turning off "TPC" in the service menu. You can type in the beginning in the "In Start" section.
No more headaches, but what cost? I might have voided the TV's warranty, and I've started to see some image retention after each day of use. I can sometimes see where the windows used to be if I check a neutral gray image. I am still worried that I may be aging the TV too early because they are always gone the next morning.
I might still prefer the 32:9 monitor for multitasking, even if it weren't for the brightness issues. In my original Odyssey G9 review, I said that you can fit an astonishing amount on screen with the equivalent of two 27-inch monitors at your command, and the monitor's unique 1000R curve puts it all at the same distance from your face. The text on the 48-inch TV was small and not as bright as it could have been, unless I pushed the TV back to two feet from my face and ran Windows at 125 percent scaling. I have been comfortable working that way for weeks, but it isn't as much screen real estate as SAMSUNG gives you.
:noupscale is a file on thechorusasset.com.
My PC is barely able to fit on the stand.
The photo was taken by Sean Hollister.
Noupscale is a file onchorusasset.com.
You can fit things beneath the wings of the G9.
The photo was taken by Sean Hollister.
A TV and a monitor are not the same.
I hope that by the time this is over, it will be clear that the screens are an investment. I only use the Mini-ITX tower for gaming because it is so small that it can piggyback on the TV stand, and I am lucky to have one. I had to awkwardly loop my keyboard cable around the left or right of that stand, because there was no cable management or even a grooves. My Ikea desk is small enough that I have to place my speakers behind the TV to avoid blocking my view.
Every smart device requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it. It is not possible for us to read and analyze all of these agreements. We started counting how many times you have to agree to use devices when we review them since these are agreements most people don't read and can't negotiate.
You can use both the 48-inch TV and the Neo G9 monitor without clicking through any agreements, and you can also download new software for the Neo G9 on a PC without agreements. If you want to update the TV, you will need to agree to allow the collection of the TV's MAC address, model, country, language settings and software version.
You need to agree to use the smart TV features of the company.
The terms of use of the company.
The Privacy Policy of the company.
There is a viewing information agreement.
There is a voice information agreement.
There is an internet based and cross device advertising agreement.
There is an automatic content recognition user agreement.
An agreement between the user of the channels.
A question like, "Who.Where.What?" User agreement
There are no agreements for either of the companies.
I am getting used to it, but a simpler four-legged stand like the one that the company ships with its cheaper A1 would make things a lot simpler. Maybe not buy that one for PC gaming. I could put my PC on the floor and clean it often, but that is not an option for every buyer. The C1 48 is 300x200 and the Neo G9 is 100x100, both of which work with VESA monitor arms.
There is no nub to navigate an on-screen display with the LG, just a single button under the manufacturer logo to turn it on and off and cycle through inputs. The Samsung has cable management, easy OSD navigation, and a built-in hub that lets you connect two computers or a computer and a modern game console at the same time. They can run at 120Hz on their own screens, and it comes with three buttons to swap between settings.
The title of the ultimate PC monitor is still up for grabs, but neither the LG nor the SAMSUNG are ready to claim it. Quality control and partnerships are needed for multi-projection game development, while a burn-in protection system is needed by LG. I want both companies to do a lot more focused testing with gaming to perfect their products for us, because having these gigantic screens on my desk feels like the future.
I have high hopes for the upcoming 42-inchOLED TV fromLG, but I wonder if it is time for the company to build a trueOLED PC gaming monitor as well. I hear great things about the 38 inch 3840 x 1600 curved ultrawide screen from LG, but it is pricey and not organic. I used an RTX 3080 to drive these screens, and that kind of card will likely be in short supply throughout the year, so there is time for these companies to figure it out.
