SAMSUNG 55-inch Odyssey Ark 4K UHD 165Hz Curved Quantum Mini LED Gaming Monitor

Odyssey Arc from Samsung, 55”This is a big unit. Very heavy. Follow directions for setting it up to be on easy street. I am strong enough that I set it up myself, but help would have been preferred.While I surface mounted mine it comes with the wall mount. The stand is stout and heavy. It adjusts vertically to clear the swing if you want to use the screen tall instead of wide.It’s comes with a ‘relay’ box. All your inputs can go to this for cleaner wiring.I only use this for gaming, but it’s basically a TV. Plenty of connectivity options and ‘smart’ stuff I don’t use currently.It has a clean design front and back, the wiring routes nicely.For gaming I have no issues. Make sure you can get the distance you need from the screen for best viewing. Great picture quality. Playing Eve Online the panoramic view is awesome.First person shooters are wild, for me it’s playable but too large. It’s like watching a tennis game from very close and following the ball. No obvious lag, not a competitive gamer just having fun.Overall I’m happy with it. Very expensive, but it is worth it to me. Odyssey Arc 55”

Unsure why people give this monitor bad reviews. Maybe they are expecting too much it is very nice. The setting are complex when using a pc connected due to over lapping hdr, and color settings on both pc and monitor. This thing is a beast though. Brightness is intense, dark inky blacks, hdr looks great. One thing I noticed is if you try to run hdr and game mode at the same time the color gets washed out when using pc. If you use game mode on monitor set hdr on your pc. With consoles everything works great and is a little easier. When it comes to settings this thing has options to say the least, tons of options. You can fine tune it to look amazing. The vertical mode I don’t use too much but it cool for certain applications. 1000r curve is amazing on a monitor this big. I recommend and disagree with all the bad reviews. Worth the money to me.

TLDR is that the bottom.Context:Technology is my hobby, not my day job. I am not going to pretend to be an expert, however, I am above average when it comes to tech. I build my own gaming PCs, For my busyness I build my own servers when needed, upgrade them, maintain the network, handle our VPN, router, said connected switches to our router. Install new workstations, software, route our VOIP network switches and call directions. So on and so forth. I am an avid gamer. I create music in a digital audio workstation (DAW). Gaming consists of my PC: RTX 4090, I-9 13900K, 32gigs DDR5, ddr5 6000 MHz, XBOX Series X, and PlayStation 5. All of witch are connected to large screens, laser projectors, 7.2.4 Dolby Atmos ETC. The point is, I am the "money isn't part of the equation" when deciding what toys I am going to buy, and I defiantly know my way around troubleshooting tech issues. I love my day job, but it also servers the purpose to feed my expensive hobbies and love for tech.Explanation to my rating:Since day one I have had nothing but issues. I have managed to solve them all one by one. But since I have been using this monitor from November 2022 to current, it has been nothing but a steady stream of issues.The good - I am a niche gamer and this really fits that niche. I am not in to the highest possible refresh rates (120hz is more then enough for me) I don't care about productive form factor (the bigger the better). What I care about is a large, high quality picture. I don't care about color accuracy. I love oversaturated HDR images. I might sound like I am being sarcastic, but I am not. I like what I like. This monitor gives me the best of what I am here for. Over the years for a computer monitor I have used 120 inch laser projectors, 85-95 inch led TVs, both Ultrawide monitor form factors in screen sizes as large as they come, so on and so forth to scratch that itch. This monitor gives me the best of all of those worlds. I do enjoy being able to switch my form factor from 16:9 to 21:9 to 32:9. And truly switch, as in my 4090 believes that the monitor connected to it is now a ultrawide and not a standard wide screen that's been stretched. Awesome for over the shoulder third person games and the like. The Screen curve is aggressive enough to sit 2-3 feet away (further then 4 feet back I would not recommend as it becomes more of a fish eye lens then a monitor) There are moments where it feels as if I am looking through a head visor and not staring at a screen. The HDR is amazing on it. Sound is.... as good as a top end TV would have. However, I use my two ADAM a77x for gaming and sound creation, so not really a needed feature for me. This monitor has moved my gaming PC habits to a well suited ergonomic task chair and desk set up which has been much better then using an entire room strung with wires to achieve the same effect of "gaming in a movie theater."The Bad - So what's the problems then? The software is absolute garbage. And I hate saying that when talking about Samsung. First day the monitor hung on updates. I had to reset to factory settings on day one to get past it. Then it stopped recognizing my RTX 3090. I had to go through and roll back drivers and turn off the monitors gaming mode to get it to display again. When I upgraded to a RTX 4090 the monitor started displaying a transparent looking white line down the center of the screen. I reset to factory again, updated it and back to normal. Than I needed to move the monitor to a new large desk for it (things 100 pounds and takes up a whole conference desk by its self) which after plugging everything back in and spending a good 5 hours on cable management for the new set up, the screen started having random black outs. Turns out it was a damaged HDMI cable this time, not the monitors fault. HOWEVER, after buying a new 2.1 HDMI cable the monitor did not want to recognize the 4090. It would power on the monitor when booting. It would display the bios during POST. But when windows booted it would say the "the device is turned off and the monitor will go into hibernation in XX seconds" even as I am staring at my troubleshooting monitor which is displaying windows no problem. After messing around with settings with no help from Samsung, as they just kept asking "is your device turned on? Try unplugging all the cables and try again" I managed to find out that for whatever reason if the HDMI cable is switched you need to reactivate the input signal plus again because the monitor will auto switch game mode on when connected to a pc which disallows the signal plus setting. It seems that every month is a new problem with this monitor. And it always comes down to the updates or the software.Conclusion: TLDR:If your like me, and money isn't part of your purchasing equation, then its worth a gamble. When I solve each issue I am back to being absolutely in love with the picture, the form factor, all of it!!But if your looking for a monitor for all your consoles, this does a poor job and may require hours of trouble shooting. If you want a Monitor/TV deal, this is not that at all. If your looking for a straight plug and play behemoth monitor, this is not very plug and play friendly, and the added bells and whistles tend to cause more issues then provide any value. If you are in to pushing refresh rates and highest possible frames, or want something better then VRR, this is not a good monitor for you.Ill keep using mine for now. Maybe another firmware update will fix some issues instead of take away another afternoon of trouble shooting. But if I could get a do over, I would have got something different. And I may end up doing just that if the issues keep coming.

So I ordered one on Amazon and it showed up with a busted screen, I returned it and got my money back but they wouldn't let me get another because it was limit 1 per customer... I tried customer service but their solution was for me to use a family members account... Yeah, hey bro, can I buy a $3,400 monitor on your amazon account... like that would go well lol. I did end up getting one from the Best Buy across the street lol.On to the Monitor. This is one great BIG beautiful bastard! I love the 1000r curve and it works great as a monitor. I have seen people complain about it not letting them set 165 Hz or even 120 Hz, that will happen if your video card sucks, have a 3080 Ti or better. I am disappointed in the multiple inputs not working but I hope a software update may fix that in the future, I knew about this before I bought it though so obviously it wasn't a deal breaker for me. I have had no issues using it with my PC, no flicker, no ghosting, nothing but awesome images and great gaming. I honestly don't use the dial much, its neat but I just leave this as a monitor since the multi inputs dont work. Obviously this sucker takes a lot of space but you can put the connect box on the stand, you just have to move it if you rotate the monitor. Speaking of, the portrait mode is neat too, not really any reason for me to do it though, just something coo you can do.