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The Odyssey G7 S28 is one of several new generation 4K 144Hz IPS displays for gaming, mirroring the specs of popular monitors such as the Gigabyte M28U, and the panel used here appears to be the same model from Innolux. The Samsung Odyssey G7 28's SDR peak brightness is good. It gets bright enough to fight glare in most settings, but it's a bit inconsistent across different scenes. Still, it won't be an issue for most people. We measured it in the 'Custom' Picture Mode after calibration with Brightness at '100' and Local Dimming at its max. The Samsung Odyssey G70B is a cutting-edge gaming monitor that combines immersive visuals with high-speed performance. Boasting a 28-inch IPS UHD 4K display, it delivers stunning clarity and vibrant colors, enhancing the gaming experience. With a swift 144Hz refresh rate and a rapid 1ms response time, this monitor ensures smooth and blur-free gameplay. The inclusion of FreeSync technology further eliminates screen tearing, providing a seamless and responsive gaming environment. Its smart features add convenience, making the Odyssey G70B a top choice for gamers seeking a visually striking and technologically advanced display. We tested it with the Local Dimming setting at 'On'. There's also an 'Auto' option that turns on the local dimming when you enable HDR, and it disables it with SDR. Enabling the Local Dimming adjusts the brightness to the max, even if you set the Brightness setting lower, it doesn't do anything.
Intel Wireless Display, Microsoft 365, SmartThings, Samsung TV Plus, Google Duo, Bixby Voice Assistant Find more with extended view. Discover hidden gems or flank enemies in full stealth with the ultrawide 21:9 aspect ratio. Extra context in every match brings you closer to the top of the leaderboard. The Odyssey G7 S28 includes one DisplayPort 1.4 with DSC as well as two real HDMI 2.1 ports. The HDMI 2.1 ports are 40 Gbps ports, not the full 48 Gbps, but this makes no real world difference, as these HDMI 2.1 ports have more than enough bandwidth at 40 Gbps for full 4K 144Hz at 10-bit RGB. This means support for the full panel capabilities with inputs like game consoles. In contrast, the original G7 is a 1440p 240Hz 27" curved VA display, otherwise known as the LC27G75T, so clearly these are two very different products and you don't want to be confusing the C27G7 with the S28AG7 model. The Samsung Odyssey G7 28 has a terrible edge-lit local dimming feature. It only has 8 dimming zones, which are large, and the entire zone turns on when there's a small bright highlight. It results in distracting blooming, and it's obvious when highlights transition between the zones. Even subtitles look terrible because it lights up everything around them. In scenes like a star field, it won't turn on the zones if there are only a handful of small highlights, but all the zones light up if there are more bright objects, at which point the contrast looks bad.As we move down the refresh rate range, as gamers playing with variable refresh enabled might do, response performance is consistent. The response time average only increases from 4.90 to 5.08ms at 60Hz which is a very small difference. However, overshoot does increase, and there are no real signs of variable overdrive being used here. Input latency is good, especially for processing delay which is negligible and a mere fraction of a millisecond at 144Hz. The main limiting factor here is the refresh rate, you'll only achieve a smoother and more responsive experience with a higher refresh rate display, like some of the 240Hz options in this chart. Also I should note that input latency is much higher when using the G7 S28 at a fixed 60Hz, I'd recommend setting the display to a higher refresh rate if possible. It's a little disappointing how Samsung has ruined the naming scheme for the Odyssey G7, but with that cleared and out of the way, we don't want to get caught up in that too much.
Samsung does advertise "factory tuning" for this display, and a calibration report is included. The most accurate mode I could find is the sRGB mode, and this is how I'd recommend most people use the monitor for SDR content. The new Odyssey G7 brings to the table a 28-inch 4K 144Hz IPS panel aimed at gamers. It's called the LS28AG700 (usually with even more letters and numbers after that depending on your region), but for this review we'll be shortening it to the S28 model. Samsung also advertises it as the "Odyssey G70A 28-inch" or the "Odyssey G7 UHD 28-inch" in various countries. Updated to Test Bench 1.2, resulting in changes to the results and scores with the Response Time and Input Lag. Added tests for Console Compatibility and macOS compatibility and made minor changes to other tests, which you can see in our Changelog. Power consumption was similar to other IPS monitors of today, and I tested with the RGB lighting disabled. No causes for concerns here and if anything the S28 is a bit better than average. We tested the monitor with the PS5's new variable refresh rate feature and confirmed that it's working properly. The monitor no longer has to be in 'PC' mode for 4k @ 120Hz gaming from the PS5.The design for the Odyssey G7 S28 model is similar to the original Odyssey G7, except refined in several ways. Obviously this monitor isn't curved, unlike the 1440p 240Hz variants, and that's a huge improvement in our book since we weren't huge fans of the 1000R curve for this format of display. We also measured the brightness in the 'High Bright' Picture Mode before calibration, which has a slightly brighter image at the cost of image accuracy, and the gamma is terrible. You can see the results below: The contrast ratio I recorded with my Odyssey G7 S28 unit was very good for an IPS monitor, at 1160:1, better than the Gigabyte M28U and especially Asus VG28UQL1A. This panel clearly has some variance to it, so perhaps don't expect every model to come with this contrast ratio. I do like the design on the rear, Samsung have gone with the same type of "gamer" influenced style but the patterning is pleasing and the RGB LED core lighting element in the center looks pretty cool, certainly a better-than-average implementation of RGB.
Viewing angles are good as expected from an IPS panel, and the fact that it's flat versus the original G7 makes it much easier to view at off angles. Uniformity was very solid as well, only a few small deviations across the entire panel, not enough to really be noticeable in practice. This is great from a 4K monitor that you might want to use for a bit of productivity work. HDR PerformancePersonalize the center of your setup. Bold designs recreate real-time game lighting to surround you in the scenery on and off screen with CoreSync.
Other areas like the front-facing RGB LED elements have also been refined. The chin on this monitor is a little too large, but at least the rest of the bezels are normal in size. Samsung's factory calibration is average using the default, out of the box mode. The color temperature was very accurate with no discernible tint, however there's poor adherence to sRGB gamma, which leads to some deltaE issues. The panel and overall experience is nicely optimized for gaming and there's no area I can point to that significantly harms this experience. Adaptive sync works, the resolution is great and this sort of display is highly specced, so it should last for a while. SDR brightness is mediocre, topping out at just 313 nits. This should still be fine for most use cases, but those in really bright environments may not find that to be enough. Minimum brightness is good though, sufficient for use in dark environments.We added text to the Xbox Series S|X section of the review to clarify a few issues using this monitor with those consoles. Samsung advertises the Odyssey G7 S28 as an HDR monitor, and it has received DisplayHDR 400 certification. This is a downgrade from the 1440p 240Hz G7, which features DisplayHDR 600. As a result, the S28 ends up as a fake HDR monitor. It doesn't get bright enough in the HDR mode, topping out at just 440 nits. It does have local dimming, but only a pathetic eight edge-lit zones, which creates a terrible HDR experience with massive blooming and an insufficient contrast ratio. It also falls just short of the wide gamut requirements I'd ideally like to see from an HDR display. Down at 60Hz, the inverse ghosting rate is at 32% which is around the level you will notice some inverse ghosting artifacts in practice. However based on my observations any inverse ghost trails are faint and hard to notice while gaming, which is reflected in a cumulative deviation value that isn't too high compared to what some high-overshoot monitors may have.
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