Samsung Odyssey G5/G55C S27CG55 Monitor Review

The Samsung G55C has a simple, gamer-oriented aesthetic. It has a black plastic body with a tripod stand.

The build quality is decent. The monitor body is solid, with no flex or plastic creaking. The plastic stand is also stable and solid, with no flexing. However, the tilt mechanism is extremely stiff and difficult to adjust.

The ergonomics are terrible, and it's hard to set the monitor to your preferred position or share your screen with others. Additionally, the tilt mechanism is very stiff and difficult to adjust. The stand features a loop for cable management.

The V-shaped feet provide enough space to put peripherals between them, and the monitor's stand provides quick wobble recovery.

A single joystick is located just below the Samsung branding at the center of the bottom bezel. This controls the on-screen menu and turns the monitor on and off.

• DisplayPort cable
• HDMI cable
• Power brick
• Power cable
• Documentation

The Samsung G55C has very good contrast, resulting in fairly deep blacks in a dark room. Unfortunately, there's no local dimming feature to improve black levels.

This monitor doesn't have a local dimming feature. We still film these videos on the monitor so you can compare the backlight performance with a monitor that has local dimming.

The Samsung G55C has very good SDR brightness. It gets bright enough to fight glare and maintains its brightness well across different content. These results are from after calibration in the 'Original' Picture Mode with the Brightness at its max and Dynamic Brightness 'Off.'

The HDR brightness is mediocre. It doesn't get bright enough to display the content creator's intention in games or movies and doesn't track the PQ EOTF well. Most scenes are slightly brighter than they should be, and there's a slow roll-off near the monitor's peak brightness, so highlights don't get the brightest they could. These results are from the 'Graphics' Picture Mode with Dynamic Brightness 'Off.'

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 if you're sitting in front of the monitor. However, if you're sitting at the side of the monitor, it appears faded and washed out, so it's not ideal for co-op gaming or sharing content. If you want a monitor with a better horizontal viewing angle, check out the LG 27GR75Q-B.

The vertical viewing angle is bad. The screen looks washed out if you stand up and look down at the monitor.

The gray uniformity is impressive, and there are minimal issues throughout the screen.

The monitor has poor black uniformity. There's significant backlight bleed along the top and bottom of the monitor, though there isn't much cloudiness in the center of the screen. Unfortunately, there's no local dimming feature to improve black uniformity.

The Samsung Odyssey G55C has great accuracy before calibration. The colors are fairly accurate, but the temperature is too cold, and the screen has a blue tint. The white balance is also mediocre, and most scenes are too bright.

The 'Original' Picture mode isn't an sRGB mode, so there aren't any locked-out settings.

The Samsung Odyssey G55C has incredible accuracy after calibration. The white balance is nearly perfect, as is the gamma curve, except that very bright scenes are slightly too bright. Most colors and the color temperature are nearly perfect, and the blue tint is completely gone.

The SDR color gamut is fantastic, and the monitor has incredible coverage of the sRGB color space. However, it has more limited coverage of the Adobe RGB color space used in photo editing, and it doesn't display some colors accurately in that color space.

The Samsung Odyssey G55C has a mediocre HDR color gamut. It has passable coverage of the DCI-P3 color space used by most current HDR content and has even worse coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space. It also displays several colors inaccurately in both HDR color spaces.

The HDR color volume is mediocre. It struggles to display a wide range of vivid colors well.

The text clarity is good. With ClearType on (top photo), diagonal lines appear bolder. These photos are in Windows 10, and you can also see it in Windows 11 with ClearType on and with ClearType off.

The reflection handling is decent. While it struggles opposite a bright window, it's fine if you have a few lights around.

The gradient handling is superb. There's almost no noticeable banding in any shade.

Due to bandwidth limitations, you can't reach the monitor's maximum refresh rate with 10-bit signals.

The Samsung Odyssey G55C has bad motion handling across its VRR range. Motion is blurry no matter the refresh rate, and there's noticeable smearing with fast-moving objects. There aren't any overdrive settings available with VRR enabled, and the CAD is so high that it passes the limits of the chart. You can see an alternative chart here.

The refresh rate compliance is poor. It has a slow response time, and it can't make full color transitions between frames, leading to blurry motion.

The CAD at the max refresh rate of 165Hz is poor. You can use any of the Response Time overdrive settings if you disable VRR, in which case 'Extreme' performs the best as it has the fastest total response time. However, motion is still blurry with visible smearing, and it looks worse if you enable VRR.

The CAD at 120Hz is poor. You can use any of the Response Time overdrive settings if you disable VRR, in which case 'Extreme' performs the best as it has the fastest total response time. However, motion is still blurry with visible smearing, and it looks worse if you enable VRR.

The CAD at 60Hz is poor. Like at higher refresh rates, the 'Extreme' Response Time setting has the fastest total response time, but motion still looks blurry. Unfortunately, there's even more smearing and blur if you use VRR.

This monitor has an optional backlight strobing feature to reduce image persistence. It's designed to only function when the monitor's refresh rate is set to 165Hz, and it doesn't work if VRR is enabled. Unfortunately, enabling backlight strobing results in significant image duplication, and you can't adjust it.

The Samsung Odyssey G55C has distracting VRR flicker with changing frame rates. It's most noticeable in dark scenes, but you can still notice it even in dark areas of brighter scenes. This is mainly an issue with changing frame rates, as there's less flicker with stable frame rates.

The backlight remains flicker-free at all brightness levels, helping to reduce eye strain if you're sensitive to flicker.

The input lag is good overall. However, the monitor's lag at its maximum refresh rate and at 60Hz is much higher than at 120Hz. This means that gaming at 120Hz feels more responsive than gaming at the maximum refresh rate, which is very unusual. As a result, we tested input lag for this monitor on a different PC configuration and found nearly identical results.

This monitor works well enough with the PS5, but it can't take full advantage of it. Additionally, the monitor only works with 4k @ 60Hz signals from the PS5 if you turn off VRR in the monitor's settings.

This monitor works well with the Xbox Series X|S. However, the monitor only works with 4k @ 60Hz signals from the Xbox if you turn off VRR in the monitor's settings. As the Xbox only supports HDR in 4k, this means it doesn't support HDR and VRR at the same time with any signal from the console.

This monitor doesn't have any USB-C ports. If you want a gaming monitor with a USB-C port, check out the MSI G274QPF-QD.

This monitor works well with macOS. When using a MacBook, windows return to their original position when reopening the lid or waking the laptop up from sleep.

The monitor has a few gamer-focused features, including:

• Virtual Aim Point: Adds crosshairs to the screen for more accurate aiming.
• Contrast Enhancer: Adjusts the contrast to prevent excessive differences between bright and dark areas.
• Eye Saver Mode: Reduces blue light levels to minimize eye strain.