Samsung C49RG9/CRG9 Monitor Review

The Samsung CRG90 has a great design. It looks almost identical to the previous model, the Samsung CHG90, but it has a smaller stand. There are a few neat design features, including an LED ring on the back and a headphone hook on the back of the stand, which is rare. The wide, curved screen is very thick, and even though the stand is small, it requires a large table to work on.

The stand is quite a bit smaller than the CHG90. 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 is a ring around the back of the stand mount that can light up, as shown here. Cable management is handled by a hole in the stand, and there's a headphone hook that can fold down from the back of the stand, which is a nice touch that is fairly uncommon.

There is no quick release on the stand, but it can be VESA mounted. VESA mounting requires a special adapter (included).

The borders are thin on three sides, and look good.

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 CHG90; it's still a solid, well-built monitor that should last for years.

The Samsung CRG9 has a decent contrast ratio. It's quite a bit lower than last year's model, which is a bit disappointing. The local dimming feature improves the contrast a bit, but not enough to make a noticeable difference.

The local dimming feature is very similar to the CHG90 and CHG70. It's edge-lit, with 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 is an automatic mode for the local dimming, and it automatically engages local dimming with HDR content and disengages in it SDR.

The Samsung CRG90 has excellent peak brightness and is one of the brightest monitors we've tested. It's significantly brighter than the CHG90 and the Dell U4919DW. There is some variation in brightness with different content, which may be distracting in some cases. With local dimming disabled, the peak brightness in SDR is limited to about 620 cd/m².

Great HDR peak brightness; again, one of the brightest on the market, and significantly brighter than the CHG90. Small specular highlights in some scenes are extremely bright. With local dimming disabled, the CRG90 isn't able to boost the backlight as high, and the peak brightness is 640 cd/m² with any content.

Like most displays with VA panels, the CRG9 has bad horizontal viewing angles. The CRG9 performs almost identically to the C49HG90. Viewing off-axis, the black levels raise and the brightness decreases, causing the image to appear washed out, and colors lose accuracy.

The vertical viewing angle of the CRG9 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.

Outstanding gray uniformity. There is some minor vignetting, but this isn't very noticeable with most content.

The CRG9 has bad black uniformity. There is 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 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.

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

Excellent SDR color gamut, with essentially perfect coverage of the sRGB color space and great coverage of the wider Adobe RGB color space.

sRGB Picture Mode: RTS
Adobe RGB Picture Mode: RTS

Excellent SDR color volume. It can't produce dark, saturated colors as well as the 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 it's slightly worse than the CHG90.

DCI P3 Picture Mode: RTS
Rec. 2020 Picture Mode: RTS

Decent 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.

There are no signs of temporary image retention on this monitor, even immediately after displaying our high-contrast static test image for 10 minutes.

Excellent gradient handling. There is 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 the CRG9, which is great.

This monitor has great reflection handling, slightly better than the CHG90, but not quite as good as the Dell U4919DW. There shouldn't be any issues using it in a bright room.

The Samsung C49RG9 has an outstanding response time, much better than the Dell U4919DW and the CHG90. With the recommended 'Faster' overdrive setting, there is almost no noticeable overshoot in any transition. The 'Fastest' setting has a slightly faster 80% transition time, but there is 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 CHG90, which had noticeable flicker at all brightness levels. Unfortunately, there is no 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 120 fps. Unfortunately, this monitor only supports FreeSync over DisplayPort.

The Samsung CRG90 has excellent low input lag at the native refresh rate, or in FreeSync mode. Unfortunately, when it isn't at 120Hz the input lag is noticeably higher, including in HDR, which was tested at 100Hz, as we were only able to send HDR at 100Hz. Due to the bandwidth limitations of DisplayPort 1.4, with the high native resolution it isn't possible to send 10-bit colors at 120Hz, 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 CHG90.

Unlike the CHG90, there is no Mini DisplayPort connection. Instead, there is an additional DisplayPort 1.4 port. There is 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 is also a headphone jack, and the volume can be controlled 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 is only one upstream USB connection, so you'll have to either buy a separate keyboard and mouse switch or have two sets (see our recommendations for the best gaming mice and the best wireless mice). For gaming, there is an option to add a virtual crosshair to any game.

The controls are identical to those found on the CHG90. There is a joystick control that is used to navigate the OSD, and it works very well. There are also three buttons that allow you to switch between different settings presets.

• Quick Setup Guide
• Power Cable
• USB-B Cable
• HDMI Cable
• DisplayPort Cable
• VESA Mount Adapter