Samsung Odyssey G5 Monitor Review

From the front, the Samsung Odyssey G5 looks similar to its bigger sibling, the Samsung Odyssey G7, with thin borders on three sides and a wide V-shaped stand. However, the back is very different, as it looks noticeably cheaper due to its small basic stand. It also lacks the RGB lighting that's present on the G7.

The stand's feet are wide-set, but they're relatively thin, which leaves you a good amount of usable desk space. It's made out of cheap plastic and wobbles quite a bit.

The ergonomics are terrible. It only allows for a narrow tilt adjustment.

The back of the monitor is made out of textured plastic. All the inputs are bottom-facing, and there's a passthrough at the top of the stand for cable management. You don't need any tools to set up the stand; it just clicks into place.

The Samsung Odyssey G5 has thin borders on three sides and a thicker bottom bezel. They aren't distracting.

The monitor is very thick due to the screen's curvature, and the stand sticks out a bit at the back.

The Samsung G5 Odyssey's build quality is decent. It's entirely plastic, but it feels relatively sturdy overall. However, the VESA mounting holes don't line up with the display's center of gravity, causing the display to tilt downwards when VESA-mounted. The tilting hinge doesn't feel like it's strong enough to hold the display up, as it also causes the screen to tilt downwards to the minimum tilt angle. The stand feels cheap, and although it's easy to install, it's hard to remove.

The Samsung Odyssey G5 has a good contrast ratio. It's slightly higher than the advertised 2500:1; however, contrast can vary between individual units.

The Samsung Odyssey G5 doesn't have a local dimming feature. The video above is provided for reference only.

The Samsung G5 Odyssey has decent SDR peak brightness. Except for the dimmer 2% window caused by frame dimming, brightness is very consistent across different content. However, it isn't bright enough to overcome intense glare, so it's better suited for a dark to moderately-lit room.

We measured the SDR peak brightness after calibration in the 'Custom' Picture Mode, with Brightness set to max.

Disappointing HDR peak brightness. It isn't bright enough to make highlights stand out in HDR content, and just like in SDR, the 2% window is dimmer. Samsung's website has an icon indicating VESA HDR600 certification, although it could just be a mistake, as the brightness doesn't get anywhere near 600 cd/m².

We measured the HDR peak brightness after calibration in the 'Custom' Picture Mode, with Brightness set to max.

Like most VA panels, the Samsung Odyssey G5 has sub-par horizontal viewing angles. The image looks inaccurate when viewed from the side, which isn't ideal for co-op gaming or sharing content.

Poor vertical viewing angles. This makes the image look washed out if you have the monitor mounted above or below eye level.

Gray uniformity is outstanding; however, this can vary between individual units. It's a little darker on the right edge of the screen, but thankfully, it isn't that noticeable, and there's almost no dirty screen effect. Uniformity is better in near-dark scenes.

Black uniformity is bad on our Samsung Odyssey G5; however, this varies between individual units. There's a lot of backlight bleed along the top and bottom edges of the screen, making the entire screen look gray.

Out of the box, the Samsung Odyssey G5 has decent accuracy; however, this can vary between individual units. There are visible inaccuracies with a few colors and shades of gray. Gamma doesn't follow the sRGB curve at all, causing most scenes to appear darker than intended. The color temperature is just a bit cooler than our 6500K target, which results in a slight blueish tint.

Accuracy is exceptional after calibration. White balance is nearly perfect, and the color temperature is almost right on target. There are still some color inaccuracies, but they're very hard to spot. Gamma is much improved; however, very dark and very bright scenes are over-brightened.

You can download our ICC profile calibration here. This is provided for reference only and shouldn't be used, as the calibration values vary per individual unit even for the same model due to manufacturing tolerances.

The Samsung G5 Odyssey has a great SDR color gamut. It has excellent coverage of the sRGB color space used in most content and decent coverage of the Adobe RGB color space, which is used for photo editing.

Decent SDR color volume. It can display dark colors relatively well, but it has trouble producing bright colors.

Although the Samsung Odyssey G5 supports HDR, it can't display a wide color gamut. It has mediocre coverage of the commonly-used DCI P3 color space and poor coverage of the wider Rec. 2020.

Samsung hasn't indicated what percentage of the HDR color gamut the monitor is supposed to cover. Due to the way we measure the DCI P3 coverage, our measurement is likely lower than most other reviewers. We measure it by sending a Rec. 2020 signal, but unlike most reviewers, we limit the colors to the DCI P3 primaries. This results in a lower but arguably more accurate measurement.

The HDR color volume is bad, mainly due to its limited color gamut and low brightness. It has difficulty displaying bright colors as well as very dark and saturated colors.

The Samsung Odyssey G5 doesn't exhibit any signs of image retention, even after displaying a high-contrast image for ten minutes. However, this can vary between units.

Gradient handling is superb. There's a tiny amount of banding in the darker shades of gray, red, and green, but it shouldn't be noticeable in most content.

There are no signs of color bleed on this monitor.

The Samsung Odyssey G5's reflection handling is good. Its matte anti-reflective coating does a good job of diffusing bright reflections; however, visibility can still be an issue in well-lit environments due to the monitor's low brightness.

Text clarity is decent. Windows ClearType (top photo) helps with diagonal lines, such as on the R and N, but it can make vertical lines look slightly thinner.

The Samsung Odyssey G5 has a good response time when running at its max refresh rate, resulting in only a short blur trail behind fast-moving objects. The recommended overdrive setting is 'Faster', as it provides the best performance with almost no overshoot.

The response time at 60Hz is decent. It's a bit slow in the darker transitions, causing slightly more motion blur in dark scenes. The recommended overdrive setting is again 'Faster' because 'Fastest' causes much more overshoot.

The Samsung G5 Odyssey is advertised to have a flicker-free backlight. It's flicker-free when the backlight is set above 0%; however, there's a 144Hz flickering when the backlight is at 0%, which matches the monitor's refresh rate.

The Samsung G5 Odyssey has an optional Black Frame Insertion feature to improve motion clarity, but like most monitors, it can't be used at the same time as VRR. When enabled, the screen becomes noticeably darker due to the lack of brightness compensation, and it remains active as long as you don't adjust the screen's brightness. It sometimes causes the screen to dim so much that we can barely navigate the on-screen menu, and we could only get the brightness to return to normal after unplugging the monitor. Additionally, it causes noticeable dark smearing behind fast-moving objects. To use BFI, set the monitor's overdrive setting to 'Fastest (MBR)'.

The Samsung G5 Odyssey supports FreeSync natively to reduce screen tearing. It's compatible with NVIDIA's G-SYNC as well, but it only works over a DisplayPort connection.