Samsung Odyssey OLED G6

We've finally reached a point where you can actually get OLED at a reasonable price. The LS27DG602SUXEN, as the monitor is so aptly named, is priced at £799 RRP, but it can easily be found for under £600. That was quick.

Otherwise, it's a classic 27" in 16:9 format with QHD resolution of 2560x1440p, 99% DCI-P3 and HDR10+. The brightness is listed at 250 nits, but seems like a lot more due to the OLED technology. It's a bit on the heavy side at 7kg.

The light output needs a few words, because while 250 nits doesn't sound like a lot, it may not be entirely accurate when many display manufacturers say that you get XX nits with their particular display. The Samsung Odyssey G6 OLED doesn't feel like it lacks light, perhaps for this reason. The HDR effect is tremendous. Samsung doesn't give any figures themselves, but a solid guess is that we're looking at +500 nits when it's only very small areas that need maximum illumination.

Samsung isn't completely lost behind a wagon, so one of the first things you notice is actually their efforts to combat the heat that an OLED gives off. This includes a complete cooling system, thermal modulation system, reduced light screen saver that prevents burn-in, logo detection, and it's all collectively called "Samsung OLED Safeguard+". The logo technology basically just analyses the image and reduces the brightness in areas with static images. Simple, but probably also effective. I haven't tested the screen for years for good reason, but this seems to work visually.

To their credit, however, it's a relatively opaque evaporation chamber system instead of just using a big slab of graphite.

More relevant things, like nice metal design, 360 Hz refresh rate or 0.03 ms response time, are obviously less important, and then there's AMD FreeSync Premium Pro. It can also be flipped upside down if you're that type of person. If you're the type who needs 360 Hz, it's great that you can get it in OLED, but I thought the screen behaved a bit funky with VRR turned on - let your graphics card handle it. I don't need 360 Hz myself, so if I had unlimited money, I'd probably go for the G8 model, which has 4K and 240 Hz.

Design-wise, we've stuck to the usual industrial design that Samsung does so well. Unfortunately, they've chosen to go with a very large and massive base for the screen instead of the traditional three-legged one to maximise table space. On the other hand, the connections are on the back instead of underneath, making them easier to access and easier to hide - thank you for that.

There's DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.1 and two USB ports. Hey, there are headphone jacks, and no, you don't need them. However, I'm missing a hole or something in the support arm to run the cables through from the back.

OLED gaming monitors are a huge jump in quality, no doubt about it. Things are far more fluid here, with much sharper contrast, black levels and much better greyscale nuance than traditional gaming monitors. It's one of those times when you send a product back and when you return to your usual monitor, you realise you've made a noticeable drop in quality.

The colour reproduction is also hard to beat - OLED is just on a different level. Likewise, the build quality is a level above what you normally see in gaming monitors.
One of the things OLED has been criticised for is glare, and of course you can afford to have the screen treated with an anti-reflective coating. It works. It works really well - but even better, it makes it easier to see that there's no bleeding in the light - which is pretty impressive.

All in all, it's a hugely impressive display, and if you have too much money, you can buy a G8 that offers 4K rendering. On the other hand, the design of the stand is a drawback. It simply takes up too much space on my desk and the price could be pushed down a little more - we're not made of money.