55" Odyssey Ark 2nd Gen 4K UHD 1000R Curved Gaming Monitor, 165Hz, 1ms, 4 Input Multi View, Quantum Mini-LED, AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, HDR 10+, Height Adjustable Screen, LS55CG970NNXGO

Its gorgeous, and glorious! The picture quality is unreal. I love this thing! And its everything that one would expect with a Samsung digital device. Or at least I have always had fantastic luck with Samsung. I will definitely be buying another one to pair up with this one. Its unbelievable for gaming. The value in its build quality is completely there and on point, they did their homework. And it works flawlessly with my gaming rig. I do mean the 5 stars that I gave this monitor, but there are just a few con's for users who might be interested in buying this. 4.9 stars would be more a more realistic score for me because of the one actual con. (#2) 1) Its weight. It is holy heck heavy. I will tell you now and you will believe me later, this product is not for little girly-man weaklings with flabby spaghetti noodles for arms. If that's you, then you are gonna want to get some help from your nerd friends when getting this item out of the box, especially with its base. I'm fairly fit, and I work out often. This was heavy. 2) Its sold as a television and comes with television instructions. I bought this as a computer monitor, and that side of their support was pretty vague. It took a short while of messing around with the settings, but I got it figured out. 3) If you are buying this as your computer monitor, keep in mind about how hard it is to go from having 2 screens, back to 1. How painful it can be when going from a 32" to those old 21's. This is no different. I look at this 55" and then over at my two dinky little 34" AOC curved... Its going to be really hard to go back to something "standard".

I tried to love this product. I tried to like this product. I just can't. I've suffered with using this monitor as a primary display for almost a year now, and I have to say that there is nothing to like about it. First, the picture quality of the display is great. Nice and clean 4k and ridiculously large. But that's the end of nice things about this thing and where the problems start. To make a long story, the One Connect Box is faulty at a production level. The box, which is supposed to house the I/O and power delivery on high end Samsung displays was constructed with next to no quality control if the number of issues posted online are anything to go about. On my unit, the box had two issues: 1. Some short on the power delivery circuit that caused the unit to boot loop due to SerDes. It would boot, then auto update, then power off, then power back on. 2. The inputs (DP, HDMI, and USBs) did not communicate properly with the display, so either the ports on the One Connect Box did not work or the out port for the One Connect cable did not work. Because this is a massive unit, and not exactly easy to return to Amazon, I filed a claim on the warranty with Samsung. This is where things get worse. After a few days, I received a phone call from a number bank in New Jersey primarily associated with scam calls. I received two or three more calls from various numbers that led back to phone number banks that have a history of being used by foreign based scam call centers. Eventually, I answered one of this calls and it turns out that the calls were from whatever 3rd party company Samsung has hired to operate as Samsung Customer Support in the US. Suspicious for such a large company but fine. The CS rep gets my email and sends me a form to fill out and send back to an email address that is not @samsung.com, and includes things like a demand for the copy of the receipt/bill of sale and the full information for the payment method (card number and cvv). I fill out the form and leave those off, and explain that this is starting to sound a lot like a scam to the CS rep when I get called again. They become apologetic and tell me that aside from the receipt, the form was fine as is. So I send the receipt and wait another day. The CS rep calls again and tells me that I'm good for an authorized service company to inspect the unit and fix it if needed. All good. The next day, I'm told that there are no authorized service companies within 500 miles of me, so they will arrange for a freight company to come pick up the unit and take it to get inspected/serviced. I ask for a timeline and here's the kicker. The freight company will pick up within one to three business days, the shipping will take up to seven business days, and then the service company will have it for up to 6 months, depending on their volume, with most service requests lasting six to eight weeks. I told the CS rep that this was unacceptable as this is my primary display on a computer that I primarily use for work, and that the only thing wrong with it is the One Connect Box. If they could just ship me another one of them, I would be happy to ship the one that I have. The CS rep asks for a little time. Another couple days later, I get another call from them explaining that Samsung technical support told the CS rep that was not possible and more than likely the whole unit needed to be replaced, but that wasn't authorized until the service company had a chance to inspect it. I asked for another time table on how long it would take for them to inspect it, as if it was only a business week or two before I was sent another unit, I'd be able to manage that. The CS rep said the time table was unchanged. At that point, I stopped responding to CS because the amount of time that was wasted. Instead, I spent $150 on ebay for a replacement refurbished One Connect Box for the 2nd Gen Ark. And lo and behold, it worked suddenly. However, this is a refurbished unit that someone cobbled together from non-working One Connect Boxes like mine, so it has serious issues. It will randomly fall into a 10-15 min period where the box loses DP signal, or, when switching resolutions/display mode (HDR on/off, blue light mode) the power will fail a few times before it stabilizes and runs again. And I've been dealing with those problems since October of '24. I might make it a few more months, but I will be replacing this soon with a LG GX9 45". This monitor is not worth the cost, even on sale for 33% off.

The Samsung odyssey ark gen 2 is amazing. It’s BIG. Like REAL BIG. And is HEAVEY. Make sure to have a desk that will support the weight. I game with a MSI 5090 and get great refresh rates. The colors are amazing and it’s super simple to set up. The stand feels really strong and weighing in at 45lbs I would hope it is. It’s pretty expensive for what it is, however if you get it on sale it feels betting in your pocket. Altogether it’s a really fun monitor to game on.

Okay, let’s get into what is bad and good on this thing. I paid for this with my own money and this WAS NOT given to me free so I’m not being forced to say how amazing it is. This is my honest review! Cons: - Heavy; nearly 100lbs put together - Accessories: 2 remotes with no USB C cord (why?) - Assembly; supplied screws won’t tighten to screen - Multi-view; PC doesn’t always display when enabled - Software; the UI is laggy and sometimes will freeze - Price; MSRP $3000.00 Pros: - Screen; vivid screen with 165 refresh rate - Remotes; easy setting edits - Cockpit mode; vertical orientation (gimmick?) - One Connect box; no mess cable management First impressions: The monitor is really nice but does come with some flaws that everyone should know. After you get over how cool the size is and picture quality you’ll start to notice things that can be improved with either a firmware update or revision. Building: Putting the thing together requires at least two people. The biggest complaint I had was the supplied screws will not tighten to the back of the monitor according to the instructions. I had to go on to the Internet and Samsung website to trouble shoot. Basically to tighten it, either gently flex the plastic (screen) so the screws will catch or I found that if you stand the monitor up it will be easier to screw in. Samsung should have went with and supplied an Allen wrench for this method. After the frustrating assembly you’ll definitely need at least another person to help lift the product on to the desk. Interface: I really like the UI, it’s easy to browse and install all my favorite apps. The UI is the same thing we have seen before used in Samsungs other smart TVs. Doing updates is super easy now using the remote and menu. I no longer have to fumble around on the back of the monitor to access the buttons, everything is assembled using the remote like a TV. Having a remote for a monitor is amazing and other monitors should follow suit but why two remotes? Remotes: Arc Dial - essentially controls the screen (multi-view or flex view with quick access to gaming menu) Other Remote - controls the menu and tv apps also can access everything the Arc Dial can There isn’t a need for both remotes since they both can do the same thing, it’s basically a short cut for the other. You can access all the features with either one but it just requires some additional clicking. The remotes are essentially just a short cut to the other. Samsung should have provided a USB C cable to charge the remotes. I understand why they didn’t since you can use solar. Is anyone really going to charge there remotes in the sun? It sounds cool but you will be risking sun damage, gimmicky feature that’s cool on paper. Just charge it with a cord, I found that I got a full charge in 20 mins. Screen: The screen is bright and vivid. It’s definitely brighter than an OLED and is amazing for video games with 165 refresh rate at full screen. Samsung finally fixes its biggest complaint on the last gen monitor. The Arc 2 can simultaneously display all four inputs on screen at once without using its own built in apps. You can now display all four sources which is a game changer for multitasking. The one connect box has a HDMI 2.1 (2), HDMI 2.0, and Display Port. Multi-view results: 4 & 3 Screens; 1080p/60 FPS 2 screens; 4K/120 FPS I absolutely love the multi-view on it but it’s finicky with a computer. The PC hates it when the resolution and Hz change and sometimes will not display on screen. This is super annoying, when the monitor is utilizing a 4K and 165 Hz signal it looks glorious but once you add another screen the refresh rate will drop to 120. What makes it worse is adding a third or fourth screen, it nocks it down to 1080p/60 which isn’t terrible but if you decide to start deleting screens the PC will not display anymore since the resolution and refresh rate has changed. The only way to fix it is to completely reboot the PC or I found if you navigate to the gaming settings and change the resolution from 16:9 to either 21:9 or 32:9 for some reason the PC will correct itself and display but the refresh rate will still show 60 HZ which is annoying so just restart the PC. I recommend only using multi-view with one other device when using a PC so you do t have this issue. The PC doesn’t seem to have any issues using two sources. If you don’t use a PC all four sources work perfectly. I have a 6800XT GPU as a reference. Final thoughts: The monitor is nice, beautiful screen with some issues I think can be resolved with a firmware to fix the PC issues. The price is a bit out there when you’re paying it at retail ($3K) but it’s on a Black Friday sale for ($2K) as of writing. If you can get it at $2K or less then I absolutely recommend this monitor. I did end up returning this monitor to Amazon shortly after purchase. I found a few dead pixels on the upper left corner of the screen which wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t want to go through the hassle of sending the thing back so I worked with Amazon for a partial refund but shortly after that the thing went on a holiday sale. Amazon was not able to provide an additional refund. I sent the monitor back and repurchased it at Best Buy for $2K ($1K savings).

Edit: Turns out I just have a bad unit, samsung replaced it and it works now. Keeping review here in case someone encounters the same issue. I use this for work and gaming. The monitor is large, I place it at the end of a 34" width table and it's still closer than I would prefer, so for those with the standard 24" tables, it's probably going to be too close. For gaming, the flex screen option allows you to shrink the screen size, this allows you to see the whole screen without moving your eyeballs I guess. For programming, it's excellent, huge vertical space as compared to an ultrawide. The monitor is easily configurable, very bright, multiple color profiles, no dead pixels, and is very stable on its stand. Its stand weighs as much as the monitor itself, and for those thinking of comparing it to a 50+" tv, no this monitor is at least 2x heavier than my 50" flat screen tv, there's just so much bulk. No complaints whatsoever about the monitor hardware. Aesthetics wise it looks awesome, all of the components (connect box, table control, remote control) look great. They also give a wall mount that allows for rotation, although for obvious reasons you're not mounting this onto some typical drywall. Now for the downsides. The one connect box is massive for some reason, and it only has 1 DP port. There's 2x hdmi 2.1, but word of warning, unless you have a 2023+ mac pro, it won't recognize a 2.1. Many older graphics cards also don't support 2.1, so you're stuck with the sole DP port. That's one dumb design decision. You need 120hz (lower resolution is fine) because otherwise at this size your mouse pointer will stutter. When connecting to my 1080, the monitor will disconnect and reconnect after ~10 seconds, resetting the screen, as though I have turned off and on the monitor. This happens every 2-3 hours or so, and is only resolvable (for now) by 1. turning off gsync, 2. turning off hdr on your pc, 3. turning off hdr and game mode on the monitor, and 4. switching the provided dp cable with your own 4k+120hz onwards cable. Also, there's a weird vertical color streak across the monitor when on game mode. And, when your computer (I tested on both pc and mac) is connected to the monitor, and you turn on your pc/mac, there will be no sound from the monitor. You have to turn off and then on the monitor again. For those asking, yes I'm on the latest monitor software, nvidia driver, etc. It is honestly a piece of crap, and if it wasn't for the fact that it's the only viable large (40+") curved matte monitor, I would have returned it. So yes, it is undoubtedly the only computer monitor of this size, and it works for its intended purpose, TVs are just crap with their glossy screens. And it works, don't get me wrong, but it requires a lot of fiddling and coping, only reason I'll recommend this is because it's the only one in the market. If LG or someone else comes up with something similar I'll probably sell this and buy that.

I've been following the Ark's progress since its release and this generation still seems to be plagued with an undeserving bad rep for a few reasons: -If you're looking specifically for a family/living room TV, you should probably look elsewhere. It is first and foremost a gaming monitor. It has a strong 1000r curve, which is perfect for one person, but not 3 sitting on the couch, although it would still be decent in that situation. -Gen 2 allows multiple HDMI inputs, whereas Gen 1 didn't. That was in fact an L on Samung's part. This model does not have that issue. -Like most large and heavy electronic products, you run the risk of getting a unit that is damaged somehow in shipping. Triple check everything upon arrival and do a pixel test. Amazon will replace it. Not a big deal. This thing is a beast. The colors are amazing, the picture is perfect. OLED steals the show for dark lit scenes. Take some time to test out different settings and do not pass up the auto picture calibration feature. This will use your phones rear camera (placed 3/4" from the screen), to automatically adjust all of the picture settings to be perfect. For gaming, make sure to turn on gaming mode, as it'll cap at 120hz if it is not on. It's very heavy. The Amazon delivery drivers said 127lbs in the box. To my fellow 180lb plus guys, you can solo this onto a desk if you're careful. All in all, $2k is the right price. Just send it.

This monitor is dope. Its more than anyone would need and has features that are genuinely innovative like screen resizing, multiple devices, multiple screens, the dial remote. Unfortunately, it is plagued with a black out issue. It started while gaming and now it happens even if I am simply watching YouTube. I have researched a lot and some say it is related to Samsung products, or cables, or drivers, or settings on graphics card, or refresh rate. I have tried all of these things but regardless of what it is, this should not be an issue at this price. I have plenty of other monitors that never experience this. Its a super cool monitor and I would give 5 stars if the black out issue was not a thing. But if I could I would return it at this point.

The monitor is amazing, I have no issue with the software although I can understand the frustration of it having the same OS as a Samsung TV. I have no issue with the TV OS because I have gamed and used TV screens as monitors for years and when the Ark was dropped a few years ago it was and is the answer to my needs. I literally have no idea why people hate on the special remote, it feels premium and much more satisfying than the default Samsung remote, its intuitive and I challenge you to lose it! (except hoarders then its not a challenge) I am curious on why they made the remote with a solar panel as if I would leave it out in the sun? The connect box for the IO is new for a monitor, I actually really love not having every cable in history going into the back of my monitor, it makes cable management so much easier, plus when I get around to actually using the KVM switch features im sure I will dig it some more. My only issue so far is that the monitor is insanely heavy, it is a 2 person job unless your Eddie Hall in which case its chump change! ( I did make the mistake of not following instructions it still weighs more than my water cooled tower 500 which is probably around 75lbs ) Overall if you want the most immersive gaming monitor ever, this is it!