OC3D at Gamescom 2022

The Samsung Odyssey ARK

At Gamescom 2022, Samsung showcased their new Odyssey ARK gaming display, which recently became available in Europe. The Odyssey ARK is the world’s first 55-inch curved gaming monitor, offering users a 1000R curvature, 14-bit processing, and a Quantum Mini LED panel for superb HDR support. 

With the ARK’s height adjustable stand, users of this ultra large gaming screen can position the monitor in a portrait or landscape orientation, allowing the screen to ark over or around users. While we prefer the standard landscape orientation, the screen’s portrait mode does have its uses.

With its 4K display panel, 165Hz refresh rate, and its huge 55-inch screen size, the Odyssey ARK is an incredible gaming screen. At Samsung’s Gaming City location, the screen’s matte screen coating practically eliminated reflections, which is no small feat for a showroom environment like this. 

Samsung had several gaming PCs on show with their Odyssey ARK displays, showcasing the screen in its portrait and landscape modes. You’re gonna need a big desk to use this screen. 

Built into the Odyssey ARK is a set of 60W 2.2.2 speakers with Samsung’s “Sound Dome Technology”. The Odyssey ARK has four speakers, one on each corner of the screen to deliver compelling sound with their AI Sound Booster technology. This screen also features Dolby Atmos to increase sound quality, and two central woofers to deliver richer audio.

Sadly, we could not have a good listen this these screens due to th background noise of Samsung’s showroom environment. 

Samsung also confirmed to us that their Odyssey ARK gaming display features support for AMD’s FreeSync Premium Pro technology, features a 1ms screen response time and also comes with support for Samsung’s Gaming Hub. 

With Samsung’s Gaming Hub, Samsung has added some of their Smart TV features into their latest Odyssey gaming displays. This allows users of Samsung’s latest monitors to connect to services like Xbox Cloud, Nvidia Geforce Now, Stadia, and more. Additionally, streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube, Spotify, and Twitch can also be utilised. The Odyssey ARK is not just for console and PC gaming, it is also for cloud gaming and entertainment. 

Odyssey OLED

At Gamescom Samsung also showcased their 34-inch Odyssey G8QNB Quantum Dot OLED monitor. This screen is a 175Hz 3440×1440 21:9 gaming monitor that features a 10-bit display panel, a 1800R curvature, 0.1 ms response times, and peak brightness levels of 1,000 nits. 

This monitor is 5.9mm thick at its thinnest point, a feat that is only possible thanks to this screen’s self-emitting blue OLEDs. Using Quantum Dot converters, this monitor can convert blue colours to create red and green light, offering users the full RGB colours that we all expect. 

Samsung has confirmed that they are working to verify this screen as G-Sync Compatible and FreeSync Premium Pro compliant, which confirms that this screen is Variable Refresh Rate compatible. Samsung has also claimed that this screen features Real-Time ISC (Image Sticking Correction), which Samsung claims reduces this screen’s chance of burn-in to less than that of competing LG displays.  

Samsung TVs as Gaming Monitors 

With their latest QLED gaming TVs, Samsung is offering PC gamers support for 4K at up to 144Hz refresh rates, alongside low latency display modes and 14-bit HDR support.

Samsung’s latest 8K TVs can also be used to play 4K content at 120Hz, giving users the option to play games at 8K using powerful PCs at 60Hz or 4K content at 120Hz. Samsung’s latest TVs are also FreeSync Premium Pro and HDMI 2.1 VRR compatible, which is great news for gamers on all platforms.

Samsung is designing their latest TVs with console gamers, PC gamers, and cloud gamers in mind.   

Folding Phones are becoming mainstream

If you thought that folding phones were a fad, rest a assured that Samsung does not think that this is the case. Why else would Samsung create four generations of folding phones? 

At Gamescom, Samsung showcased their Galaxy Z Fold 4 smartphone, a 5G handset that features 12GB or RAM and up to 1TB of integrated storage. The phone has a 6.2-inch cover screen and a larger 7.6-inch mains screen in unfolded mode. The phone has a PC-like taskbar for productivity use and multi-view support to enable mobile multi-tasking. 

With an asking price of £1,649 in the UK for their baseline Galaxy Z Fold 4 model, this handset is an expensive one. That said, this phone does offer features that others do not, and some users may find those features very useful. I just hope those users have fat bank accounts.

Samsung’s Galaxy S22

Phone-wise, Samsung were also displaying their new Galaxy S22 smartphone, which is the first handsets from the company to use a 4nm processor. The phone is also the first Galaxy S device to feature an integrated S pen, and one of the first to utilise a Dynamic AMOLED 2x display that can offer up to 1750 nits of peak brightness to improve outdoor visibility in bright days.

Other features that Samsung notes for this phone is its 45W fast charging capabilities, and its “super steady” camera that can remove unwanted shake, stabilise motion, and remove blur from captured frames.