- Table of Contents
- Intro
- Our Verdict
- Video
- Test Results
- Differences
- Compared To Others
- Deals
- Discussions
The Samsung CRG9 is a good super ultrawide monitor. Its 32:9 aspect ratio provides plenty of space for an immersive gaming experience and allows you to work comfortably with multiple windows opened side-by-side. It has good reflection handling and gets very bright, enough to overcome glare with ease. Fast-moving scenes look clear and smooth, as it has a high refresh rate and quick response time, and it supports variable refresh rate technology to reduce screen tearing. Unfortunately, despite having a VA panel, its contrast ratio is only decent, and its edge-lit local dimming doesn't improve black level by much. Also, black uniformity is bad on our unit, although your experience may vary. Viewing angles are sub-par; however, the screen's curvature helps with visibility on the sides. Lastly, it can deliver a pretty good HDR experience thanks to its wide color gamut and high peak brightness.
Our Verdict
Overall, the Samsung CRG9 is a good monitor for most uses. It delivers a great gaming experience, as it has excellent low input lag and impressive motion handling. Its large, high-resolution screen is excellent for office use or media creation, allowing you to have multiple windows opened side-by-side. Unfortunately, the image degrades at an angle, and due to the large size of the display, it has limited ergonomics.
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Excellent SDR and HDR peak brightness.
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Large screen size.
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Good reflection handling.
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Sub-par viewing angles.
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Limited ergonomics due to the monitor's size.
The Samsung CRG9 is a good office monitor. The wide, high-resolution screen is great for multitasking, and it supports Picture-by-Picture, allowing to display images from two sources at once. It also has excellent peak brightness and great reflection handling, so glare shouldn't be an issue even in the brightest settings. Unfortunately, the image degrades when viewed at an angle, and due to the large display, it has limited ergonomics.
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Excellent SDR and HDR peak brightness.
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Large screen size.
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Good reflection handling.
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Sub-par viewing angles.
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Limited ergonomics due to the monitor's size.
The Samsung CRG9 is great for gaming. It has impressive motion handling due to its fast response time, resulting in very clear motion. It also has excellent low input lag at its native refresh rate, and it supports FreeSync to reduce screen tearing, though only over DisplayPort. Unfortunately, the image degrades at an angle, so it isn't ideal for co-op gaming.
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Large screen size.
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High refresh rate.
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Great response time.
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VRR support.
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Limited ergonomics due to the monitor's size.
The Samsung CRG9 is good for media consumption. The huge screen delivers an impressive movie experience, but it has only a decent contrast ratio and bad black uniformity, so it isn't great in a dark room. It has great reflection handling, though, and it gets extremely bright, making it a good choice for well-lit rooms. Unfortunately, the image degrades at an angle, so it isn't as well-suited for sharing content with others.
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Excellent SDR and HDR peak brightness.
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Large screen size.
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Good reflection handling.
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Sub-par viewing angles.
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Limited ergonomics due to the monitor's size.
The Samsung CRG9 is good for media creation. It has a huge amount of screen real estate, so you can spend more time creating, and less time scrolling and zooming. Unfortunately, it has narrow viewing angles and limited ergonomics, so it isn't a good choice for sharing the screen with clients or coworkers.
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Excellent SDR and HDR peak brightness.
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Large screen size.
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Good reflection handling.
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Sub-par viewing angles.
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Limited ergonomics due to the monitor's size.
The Samsung CRG9 is decent for gaming in HDR. It has excellent low input lag, great peak brightness in HDR, and the impressive resolution and size deliver a more immersive gaming experience. Unfortunately, it has only decent contrast, an ineffective local dimming feature, and bad black uniformity, so it doesn't look great in a dark room.
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Excellent SDR and HDR peak brightness.
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Large screen size.
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High refresh rate.
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Great response time.
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Limited ergonomics due to the monitor's size.
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Edge-lit local dimming.
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Bad black uniformity.
- 7.7 Mixed Usage
- 7.5 Office
- 8.0 Gaming
- 7.7 Multimedia
- 7.8 Media Creation
- 7.2 HDR Gaming
- Updated Nov 05, 2020: Updated review for accuracy and clarity.
- Updated May 15, 2020: Converted to Test Bench 1.1.
- Updated Jul 29, 2019: Review published.
- Updated Jul 27, 2019: Early access published.
Video
Test Results
The Samsung CRG9 has a sleek but simple design. The borders are thin on three sides while the bottom bezel is just slightly thicker. The stand is wide, but it's quite small considering the size of the screen. There's a small ring of LEDs where the stand connects to the screen.
The stand is quite a bit smaller than the Samsung C49HG90/CHG90's. It supports the monitor well but doesn't completely prevent it from wobbling.
Update 08/09/2019: There was a mistake in our swivel range scoring. The ergonomics score has increased slightly.
The stand has a decent height adjustment range, but a very limited swivel range and disappointing tilt range. Given the size of this monitor, it obviously can't rotate to portrait orientation.
The back of the monitor is quite plain but looks good. There's a ring around the back of the stand mount that can light up, as shown here. There's a small hole at the bottom of the stand for Cable management, and there's a headphone hook near the top.
It can be VESA-mounted, but there's no quick release feature. VESA-mounting requires a special adapter (included).
Due to the curvature of the screen and the extreme width of this monitor, it's quite thick, even when VESA-mounted.
The overall build quality is great. Not much has changed from the Samsung C49HG90/CHG90; it's still a solid, well-built monitor, and you shouldn't have any issues with it.
The Samsung CRG9 has a decent contrast ratio. The local dimming feature improves the contrast a bit, but not enough to make a noticeable difference. Note that the contrast ratio can vary between units.
The local dimming feature is very similar to the Samsung Samsung C49HG90/CHG90 and Samsung CHG70. It's edge-lit and has only 10 dimming zones, so it doesn't have very tight control over the dimming areas. In some HDR scenes, though, it does help to boost the peak brightness of the display. There's an automatic mode for the local dimming, which turns local dimming on automatically in HDR content.
The Samsung CRG90 has excellent peak brightness in SDR and is one of the brightest monitors we've tested. There's some variation in brightness with different content, which may be distracting in some cases. The brightness seems to decrease a little bit over time. After displaying our test pattern for 10 minutes, the brightness dropped from 620 cd/m² to 590 cd/m² in the 100% sustained window.
We measured the SDR peak brightness in the 'RTS' Picture Mode, with Local Dimming enabled and Backlight set to max.
Great HDR peak brightness. Again, it's one of the brightest on the market and significantly brighter than the Samsung C49HG90/CHG90. It's enough to deliver a great HDR experience. With local dimming disabled, the Samsung C49HG90/CHG90 isn't able to boost the backlight as high, and the peak brightness is 640 cd/m² with any content.
We measured the HDR peak brightness in the 'RTS' Picture Mode, with Local Dimming enabled and Backlight set to max.
Like most displays with VA panels, the Samsung CRG9 has bad horizontal viewing angles, almost identical to the Samsung C49HG90/CHG90. Viewing off-axis, the black levels raise and the brightness decreases, causing the image to appear washed out, and colors lose accuracy.
The Samsung CRG9's vertical viewing angle is disappointing, but this is expected from a VA panel. When viewing from either above or below, the black levels increase rapidly and brightness drops off, causing the image to wash out. At wider angles, colors lose accuracy and shift.
Gray uniformity is excellent; however, this can vary between units. There's some minor vignetting, but this isn't very noticeable with most content. Uniformity is better in dark scenes.
The Samsung CRG9 has bad black uniformity, but this can vary between individual units. There's noticeable clouding across the entire image. With local dimming enabled, the areas far from the test cross are dimmed and look good, but due to the limited number of dimming zones, the area around the cross remains lit.
Out of the box, the Samsung CRG9 has decent accuracy. Gamma doesn't follow the sRGB target curve at all. The strange dip at the top of the curve is unusual, but isn't unheard of, as we saw something similar with the Acer XF251Q. The color temperature is a bit warm, and there are noticeable inaccuracies in almost all colors. Note that color accuracy can vary between units.
These results were obtained with the default settings of the 'RTS' Picture Mode, but with the gamma set to 'Mode 3', which was the most accurate setting out of the box.
After calibration, the Samsung CRG90 has excellent accuracy. Gamma follows the target curve almost perfectly, and most color and white balance errors are corrected. The only remaining inaccuracy that some people might notice is with bright blues.
You can download our ICC profile calibration here. This is provided for reference only and should not be used, as the calibration values vary per individual unit even for the same model due to manufacturing tolerances.
sRGB Picture Mode: RTS (calibrated)
Adobe RGB Picture Mode: RTS
The Samsung CRG9 has an outstanding SDR color gamut. It has essentially perfect coverage of the sRGB color space used in most content, and great coverage of the wider Adobe RGB color space, which is mostly used for photo editing.
sRGB Picture Mode: RTS
Adobe RGB Picture Mode: RTS
Exceptional SDR color volume. It can't produce dark, saturated colors as well as the Samsung C49HG90/CHG90, due to the lower contrast ratio.
DCI P3 Picture Mode: RTS
Rec. 2020 Picture Mode: RTS
Decent HDR color gamut. It has great coverage of the DCI P3 color space, which is used by most HDR movies, but its coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space is mediocre.
DCI P3 Picture Mode: RTS
Rec. 2020 Picture Mode: RTS
Okay HDR color volume. It's mostly limited by the monitor's color gamut, but it also can't produce dark saturated colors as well due to the lower contrast ratio.
The Samsung CRG9 doesn't exhibit any signs of temporary image retention, even immediately after displaying our high-contrast static test image for 10 minutes. Note that image retention can vary between units.
Outstanding gradient handling. There's very little banding in areas of similar color, but some banding is still noticeable in darker shades of gray and green.
There are no noticeable signs of color bleed on this monitor.
This monitor has good reflection handling, slightly better than the Samsung C49HG90/CHG90, but not quite as good as the Dell U4919DW. You shouldn't have any issues using it in a bright room.
Text clarity is good. Turning on Windows ClearType improves diagonal lines (top photo), such as on the R and N. The photo of the pixels look blurry due to the monitor's matte anti-reflective coating.
| Overdrive Setting | Response Time Chart | Response Time Tables | Motion Blur Photo |
| Standard | Chart | Table | Photo |
| Fast | Chart | Table | Photo |
| Fastest | Chart | Table | Photo |
The Samsung C49RG9 has great response time, much better than the Dell U4919DW and the Samsung C49HG90/CHG90. With the recommended 'Faster' overdrive setting, there's almost no noticeable overshoot in any transition. The 'Fastest' setting has a slightly faster 80% transition time, but there's more overshoot, resulting in a slower overall transition time.
The backlight is completely flicker-free, which is great. The flicker seen in the 0% measurement is noise and is not actually visible. This is a welcome change over the Samsung C49HG90/CHG90, which had noticeable flicker at all brightness levels.
The Samsung CRG9 doesn't have an optional Black Frame Insertion feature.
The Samsung CRG90 has an excellent 120Hz refresh rate, and it supports FreeSync 2. There are two FreeSync modes, and we recommend the 'Ultimate Engine' mode, which has the widest FreeSync range and supports low framerate compensation (LFC). This might not work with all games, though, in which case the 'Standard Engine' should work, but it has a worse FreeSync range of 70 to 120Hz. Unfortunately, this monitor only supports FreeSync over DisplayPort. If you want a similar monitor with an even higher refresh rate, check out the Samsung Odyssey G9.
The Samsung CRG90 has excellent low input lag at the native refresh rate, or in FreeSync mode. Unfortunately, the input lag is noticeably higher when playing at 60Hz. It's also higher when playing in HDR, which was tested at 100Hz, as we can only send an HDR signal at 100Hz. Due to the bandwidth limitations of DisplayPort 1.4, it isn't possible to send 10-bit colors at 120Hz at the native resolution, so HDR is only supported at 100Hz or a lower resolution.
The ultrawide 32:9 aspect ratio and 5120x1440 resolution deliver an outstanding amount of screen real estate to work with. This is an outstanding monitor for multitasking or a more immersive gaming experience. The higher resolution of the CRG9 makes a noticeable difference compared to the Samsung C49HG90/CHG90.
Unlike the Samsung C49HG90/CHG90, there's no Mini DisplayPort connection. Instead, there's an additional DisplayPort 1.4 port. There's a 3.5mm Microphone In port, which acts as a passthrough, and the Microphone Out port must be connected to a PC for it to work. There's also a headphone jack, and you can control the volume through the monitor's OSD.
There are very few additional features on this monitor. It doesn't have internal speakers, but it does support HDR10. It supports Picture-by-Picture (PBP), allowing you to work with two sources on the screen at once, but unlike the Dell U4919DW, there's only one upstream USB connection, so you have to either buy a separate keyboard and mouse switch or have two sets. For gaming, there's an option to add a virtual crosshair to any game.
The controls are identical to those found on the Samsung C49HG90/CHG90. There's a joystick to navigate the OSD, and it works very well. There are also three buttons that allow you to switch between different settings presets.
Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We tested the 49" CRG9, model code LC49RG90SSNXZA, which is the only size available. There's also a Costco variant of this monitor, known as the LC49RG92SSNXZA. It appears to have the same specs, and we expect it to perform the same.
| Model | Size | Resolution | Refresh Rate |
| C49RG9 | 49" | 5120x1440 | 120Hz |
If someone comes across a different type of panel or if their CRG9 doesn't correspond to our review, let us know and we will update the review. Note that some tests, such as the gray uniformity, may vary between individual units.
The C49RG9 we tested was manufactured in May 2019.
Compared To Other Monitors
The Samsung CRG9 is a good ultrawide monitor, but unless you're specifically looking for a monitor with this aspect ratio, there are better options out there. See our recommendations for the best ultrawide gaming monitors, the best gaming monitor size, the best curved gaming monitors, and the best large monitors.
Overall, the Samsung Odyssey G9 is a bit better than the Samsung C49RG9/CRG9, mainly due to its higher refresh rate and lower input lag. However, the CRG9 has significantly less overshoot when running at its maximum refresh rate even though its response time is slightly slower, and it gets much brighter in SDR.
The Samsung CRG9 is a bit better than the Samsung C49HG90/CHG90. The CRG9 has a higher resolution screen, flicker-free backlight, and a faster response time. The CHG90 has a slightly higher refresh rate, but this doesn't add much.
The Samsung CRG9 is a bit better than the Dell U4919DW, depending on your needs. The CRG9 has much better gaming performance, with a faster refresh rate, better response time, and support for FreeSync variable refresh rate, and the CRG9 supports HDR. The U4919DW has better viewing angles and might be a bit better for office use for some people, as it can connect to two displays at once with a single keyboard and mouse.
Although they use different panel technologies, the Samsung C49RG9/CRG9 is slightly better than the LG 49WL95C-W for most uses, and is much better for gaming. The LG has better viewing angles, which might be better in some cases, but the Samsung is significantly brighter, especially in HDR, and it has a better contrast ratio. The CRG9 is also much better than the LG for gaming, as it has a faster refresh rate, much faster response time, lower input lag, and it supports FreeSync.
The Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 is an overall improvement from the Samsung C49RG9/CRG9, which came out two years before the Neo G9. The Neo G9 has HDMI 2.1 inputs, meaning you can achieve a much higher refresh rate over HDMI, and it has a 240Hz max refresh rate compared to 120Hz on the CRG9. The Neo G9 also has better motion handling because it has a much quicker response time on the 'Standard' overdrive setting. The Neo G9 uses Mini LED backlighting, allowing it to get a bit brighter and have a much better local dimming feature, so there's less blooming.
The Samsung C49RG9/CRG9 and the ASUS TUF VG27AQ are very different monitors. The Samsung has a 32:9 aspect ratio, which is twice the size of the ASUS. The ASUS performs better overall, as it has an IPS panel with wider viewing angles, and it has better ergonomics as well as a faster response time. Also, the ASUS has a 165Hz refresh rate compared to Samsung's 120Hz, but the Samsung's VA panel has a higher native contrast ratio and better reflection handling.
The Samsung C49RG9/CRG9 is much better overall than the AOC CQ32G1. The Samsung has a 5120x1440 resolution, it has better ergonomics, it gets much brighter, supports HDR, and has a quicker response time. On the other hand, the AOC has a 144Hz refresh rate, a better contrast ratio, wider viewing angles, and much better out-of-the-box color accuracy.
The Dell U3818DW and the Samsung CRG9 are similar, but due to the differences in panel technology, they each have their advantages and disadvantages. The U3818DW uses an IPS panel, which delivers wider viewing angles, and the Dell has better ergonomics. The CRG9 has a much larger, higher resolution screen, and is a much better gaming monitor. The CRG9 supports HDR, has a faster refresh rate, and much better motion handling.
The Samsung CRG9 is better than the Philips Momentum 436M6VBPAB. The CRG9 has better ergonomics, better gray uniformity, and better reflection handling. The CRG9 is also much better for gaming, as it has a faster refresh rate, lower input lag, and slightly better motion handling. Although both monitors use VA panels, the Philips Momentum 436M6VBPAB looks better in a dark room, as it has much better contrast and better black uniformity.
