The Samsung Odyssey G5/G55A S27AG55 is a mid-level 1440p gaming monitor. It's part of Samsung's 2021 Odyssey gaming lineup, and it replaces the Samsung Odyssey G5 C27G55T and sits alongside the Samsung Odyssey G5 S27AG50. It also sits above the Samsung Odyssey G4/G40B S27BG40, which has a higher refresh rate, but lower resolution. It's available in both a 27 and 32-inch model, and both sizes have a curved 1440p VA panel and a fast 165Hz refresh rate. It's FreeSync Premium certified and supports HDR, but there are very few additional gaming features. It also lacks advanced productivity features, like USB 3.0 or USB-C inputs.
The Samsung G55A is an okay monitor for mixed usage. It's marketed mainly for gaming, but due to its slow response time, it's just okay for casual gamers. It's an okay choice for office use, but only if you're in a moderately-lit room. It's decent for media consumption or creation, with a large screen and an excellent SDR color gamut. Sadly, like most monitors at this price point, although it supports HDR, this adds almost nothing, as it doesn't deliver a very impactful HDR experience.
The Samsung G55A is just okay for office use. The relatively large, high-resolution screen delivers good text clarity. Unfortunately, it has just okay peak brightness, so it can't overcome glare in a bright room. It also has terrible ergonomics and a poor horizontal viewing angle, so it's hard to adjust the screen to an ideal viewing position.
The Samsung Odyssey G55A is okay for casual gaming. It has excellent low input lag for a responsive gaming experience and supports FreeSync Premium to reduce screen tearing. Sadly, despite its high refresh rate it has a bad response time, so motion looks blurry, especially in dark scenes. It also has terrible ergonomics and a bad horizontal viewing angle, so it's not a good choice for co-op gaming.
The Samsung G55A is a decent choice for watching videos in a dark room. It has a large screen, which delivers an immersive video-watching experience, and it has good contrast for deep blacks in a dark room. Sadly, it has a poor horizontal viewing angle, so you can't really share the screen with a group of friends as they'll see a faded image. It has an excellent SDR color gamut but just okay peak brightness in SDR, so although colors in SDR look vivid, they're not bright enough to overcome glare in a bright room.
The Samsung G55A is a decent monitor for media creators. It has great accuracy out of the box, so you don't have to worry about having it calibrated. It has an excellent SDR color gamut, with nearly complete coverage of the sRGB color space. The relatively large screen is great for multitasking, and you can see more of your workflow at once. Unfortunately, it has terrible ergonomics and a poor horizontal viewing angle, so it's hard to share your screen with someone else, like a colleague or client, as they won't see the same thing you see.
The Samsung G55A delivers a mediocre HDR experience overall. It has a good contrast ratio for deep blacks, but it can't get very bright in HDR, so bright highlights don't stand out. It also lacks a local dimming feature and has disappointing black uniformity. It has a mediocre HDR color gamut, so HDR content doesn't look very vivid or lifelike overall. On the other hand, it has superb gradient handling with almost no noticeable banding in areas of similar color.
We tested the 27-inch Samsung Odyssey G55A, and it's also available in a 32-inch size (Odyssey G55A LS32AG55). These results are also valid for the 32-inch model.
Size | Name | Short Model Code | Panel Type | Curved | VESA DisplayHDR Certification |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
27" | Odyssey G55A | S27AG55 | VA | Yes | None |
32" | Odyssey G55A | S32AG55 | VA | Yes | None |
27" | Odyssey G50A | S27AG50 | IPS | No | None |
27" | Odyssey G52A | S27AG52 | IPS | No | VESA 400 |
32" | Odyssey G52A | S32AG52 | IPS | No | VESA 400 |
Our unit of the Samsung Odyssey G55A was manufactured in November 2021; you can see the label here.
The Samsung G55A is a very basic budget gaming monitor, but it doesn't perform very well and has a much slower response time than most of its competitors.
For more options, check out our recommendations for the best 1440p 144Hz monitors, the best curved gaming monitors, and the best gaming monitors.
The Samsung Odyssey G5 S27AG50 is much better than the Samsung Odyssey G5/G55A S27AG55. The S27AG50 has a much better design, with a full range of ergonomic adjustments, so you can better place it in an ideal viewing position. The S27AG50 also has a much faster response time, resulting in clearer motion, and it gets a lot brighter to overcome glare.
The Samsung Odyssey G5/G55A S27AG55 is a bit better than the model it replaces, the Samsung Odyssey G5 C27G55T. The S27AG55 has a nearly completely flicker-free backlight, so it's easier on the eyes and has better text clarity. The S27AG55 also has a much better SDR color gamut, with better coverage of the sRGB color space.
The Samsung Odyssey G7 C32G75T is much better than the Samsung Odyssey G5/G55A S27AG55. The G7 has much better ergonomics, so it's easier to find an ideal viewing position. The G7 also gets significantly brighter and has a significantly better response time, resulting in clearer motion with almost no noticeable blur behind fast-moving objects.
The LG 27GP850-B is significantly better than the Samsung Odyssey G5/G55A S27AG55. The LG has much better ergonomics, so it's easier to place it in an ideal viewing position. The LG also has much better gaming performance, with a significantly faster response time, so motion looks smoother overall, with less blur behind fast-moving objects. The LG also gets brighter and has a wider viewing angle, so the image remains accurate to the sides if you're sitting close to the screen.
The Gigabyte G27QC is much better than the Samsung Odyssey G5/G55A S27AG55. The Gigabyte has better ergonomics, so it's easier to place it in an ideal viewing position. The Gigabyte also has a significantly faster response time, so motion looks clearer with less blur behind fast-moving objects. Finally, the Gigabyte also gets a bit brighter, so it looks better in a bright room.
The Dell S2722DGM is much better than the Samsung Odyssey G5/G55A S27AG55. The Dell has a much faster response time, so motion in games looks much clearer. The Dell also gets a lot brighter, so it can handle more glare and a brighter viewing environment. The Dell also has a slightly better viewing angle, so the image doesn't degrade as much if you're sitting slightly to the side.
The Samsung G55A looks nearly identical to the Samsung Odyssey G5 C27G55T. It has thin bezels on three sides, but there's a bit of dead space between the bezels and the first pixels, which is distracting if you're using it in a multi-monitor setup.
The Samsung G55A has decent build quality. There's very little flex in the back plastic, and the housing feels sturdy overall. The stand supports the monitor well, and although it wobbles a bit, it recovers quickly. None of the materials used feel premium, but there are no significant issues, either.
Sadly, this monitor has terrible ergonomics. It has a fairly standard tilt range, meaning you can adjust the screen a bit, but you'll need to VESA mount it to get an ideal viewing position. The inputs are bottom-facing and somewhat hard to access, and there's a loop on the top of the stand for basic cable management.
This monitor doesn't have a local dimming feature. We still film the local dimming on each monitor, so you can see how the test clip compares to a different display with local dimming.
The Samsung G55A has just okay peak brightness in SDR. There's very little variation in peak brightness with different scenes, which is great. Sadly, it's not bright enough to overcome glare in a really bright room, so it's better suited for a dark to moderately-lit room. These measurements are after calibration in the 'Custom' Picture Mode, with Brightness set to max.
The Samsung G55A has mediocre peak brightness in HDR. It's not bright enough to display the content creator's intent in games or movies, and it doesn't track the PQ EOTF well. Dark scenes are darker than they're supposed to be, and there's a sharp cut-off near the monitor's peak brightness, resulting in a loss of fine details in bright scenes.
Unfortunately, this monitor has a poor horizontal viewing angle. The curved screen helps compensate for this by bringing the sides of the screen closer to your field of view, but if you're sitting close to the screen, the sides appear faded and washed out. It's not ideal for co-op gaming or sharing content, either.
The Samsung G55A has a bad vertical viewing angle. The screen looks washed out if you have the monitor mounted above you or if you're looking down on it.
The Samsung G55A has great accuracy out of the box. There are some issues with the white balance, especially in brighter shades, but most colors are displayed accurately. Pure blues and reds are a bit off, but most colors look good. Gamma follows the sRGB curve well, but dark scenes are a bit too dark. The color temperature is a bit cool, giving everything a slightly bluish tint.
The Samsung G55A has incredible accuracy after calibration. The white balance is nearly perfect, as is the gamma. Most colors are nearly perfect, but pure blues are still off a bit. The color temperature is nearly perfect, and the blue tint is completely gone.
This monitor has an excellent SDR color gamut. It can display almost all of the sRGB color space used by most current desktop and web content. It can't quite display the full range of blues, but this isn't really noticeable.
The Samsung Odyssey G55A has a mediocre HDR color gamut. It can't display much of the DCI-P3 color space used by most current HDR content and has even worse coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space.
The Samsung G55A has good reflection handling. The matte anti-reflective coating significantly reduces the intensity of direct reflections. The curved screen spreads reflections out a bit, further reducing their intensity but increasing their size.
The Samsung G55A has good text clarity. With Windows ClearType disabled, diagonal lines are a bit blurry, and text isn't very clear (bottom photo), but after running the wizard, text is much sharper and easier to read (top photo). The matte coating adds a slight haze to the screen, as you can see in the pixel photo. It reduces the sharpness of text and images a bit.
This monitor has a fast refresh rate for a smooth gaming experience. The maximum refresh rate over HDMI is a bit lower, especially if you want 10-bit colors, so like most monitors, DisplayPort delivers the best experience.
The Samsung G55A supports FreeSync natively to reduce screen tearing over both HDMI and DisplayPort. The advertised minimum refresh rate of 65Hz over DisplayPort and 56Hz over HDMI means that low framerate compensation kicks in at a much higher refresh rate than most displays. Although not officially certified by NVIDIA, it also works with their G-SYNC Compatible feature, but only over DisplayPort.
Overdrive Setting | Response Time Chart | Chart (Extended View) | Response Time Tables | Motion Blur Photo |
Standard | Chart | Chart | Table | Photo |
Faster | Chart | Chart | Table | Photo |
Fastest | Chart | Chart | Table | Photo |
VRR | Chart | Chart | Table | Photo |
Unfortunately, the Samsung Odyssey G55A has a bad response time at the max refresh rate of 165Hz. Enabling FreeSync Premium locks the overdrive setting, and it performs similar to the 'Standard' Response Time setting with a fixed refresh rate. This mode has no overshoot, but most transitions are slow, especially when transitioning from a darker shade to a bright one. It results in a long dark trail behind moving objects, known as black smear. The 'Faster' Response Time setting has less black smear and looks better overall, but you can't use it with FreeSync.
Overdrive Setting | Response Time Chart | Chart (Extended View) | Response Time Tables | Motion Blur Photo |
Standard | Chart | Chart | Table | Photo |
Faster | Chart | Chart | Table | Photo |
Fastest | Chart | Chart | Table | Photo |
VRR | Chart | Chart | Table | Photo |
The response time at 120Hz is bad, and it performs very similar to the max refresh rate. Again, the 'Faster' Response Time setting delivers clearer motion overall, but it can't be used with FreeSync Premium enabled.
Overdrive Setting | Response Time Chart | Chart (Extended View) | Response Time Tables | Motion Blur Photo |
Standard | Chart | Chart | Table | Photo |
Faster | Chart | Chart | Table | Photo |
Fastest | Chart | Chart | Table | Photo |
VRR | Chart | Chart | Table | Photo |
Unfortunately, the Samsung G55A has a terrible response time when gaming at 60Hz. The Response Time setting is locked to 'Standard' when FreeSync Premium is enabled, and it looks terrible. Almost all transitions are too slow to finish transitioning within the refresh rate cycle. Switching to the 'Faster' mode with a fixed refresh rate looks better, but it's still way too slow.
Refresh Rate | Motion Blur Photo |
165Hz | Photo |
120Hz | Photo |
60Hz | Photo |
This monitor has an optional backlight strobing feature, commonly called black frame insertion, to improve motion clarity. It only works when the monitor's refresh rate is set to 165Hz from the monitor's menus. Unfortunately, the pulse timing is off, resulting in distracting image multiplication, and you can't adjust it. You can't enable this feature if FreeSync is on.
The Samsung G55A has excellent low input lag, resulting in a very responsive gaming experience. It's a bit higher than most similar displays, but not significantly so. Unlike previous Samsung monitors like the Samsung Odyssey G5 C27G55T, it doesn't matter if your computer's refresh rate doesn't match the Refresh Rate setting on the monitor; the input lag remains low even if there's a mismatch between them.
The Samsung G55's 1440p resolution makes it great for multitasking and results in sharp images and text.
This monitor has decent compatibility with the PS5. Although the native resolution of this monitor is only 1440p, it accepts and displays a downscaled 4k image from the PS5, but only at 60Hz, and only if FreeSync Premium is disabled. Unlike previous Samsung monitors, the 'PC' and 'AV' modes have no impact on the supported formats.
This monitor is compatible with most of the Xbox Series S|X features, but there are some limitations. It only supports 4k @ 60Hz downscaling if FreeSync Premium is disabled, and the Xbox only supports HDR with a 4k signal. You have to choose between 1440p @ 120Hz gaming with VRR or 4k @ 60Hz with HDR.