The newly unveiled second-gen Samsung Odyssey Ark is an impressive and massive monitor, but it also costs a penny under $3,000. If you want an immersive gaming experience on a monitor with a similar form factor and specs, you should check out last year’s Samsung Odyssey Ark. Since it has a newer sibling, you can get the first-gen Samsung Odyssey Ark for $1,799.99. Not only is that drastically cheaper than the new Odyssey Ark, its $900 off the price off the normal price of the original Odyssey Ark.
The second-gen Odyssey Ark has some key improvements, such as a built-in KVM switch, an improved Multi View mode, and one of its HDMI ports also being a DisplayPort. But those upgrades alone aren’t enough to justify the new monitor for most people. Last year’s Odyssey Ark has the same 165Hz refresh rate and 1 ms response time as its successor. Both monitors also feature an AI processor to improve screen quality, immersive Sound Dome technology, and Samsung Gaming Hub.
55-inch gaming monitors are rare, but the Odyssey Ark has something else that makes it unique. You can rotate the monitor into Cockpit Mode to immerse yourself in a curved vertical monitor. If you prefer to keep the monitor in landscape mode, you can enable multi-view mode with up to four screens at once. You can also, of course, just span your PC across the massive 55-inch display.
While the size and unique orientation option of the Samsung Odyssey Ark will be the first thing to catch your eye, it’s not just a gimmick gaming monitor. It has a 165Hz refresh rate, 1ms response time, and support for FreeSync Premium Pro. That refresh rate isn’t the highest you’ll see, but it is respectable.
The 55-inch Samsung Odyssey Ark is so large, in fact, that its speakers will sound like they’re coming from different directions. The monitor has four corner speakers and two central woofers to produce a 60W 2.2.2 channel. Dolby Atmos and AI Sound Booster round out the Sound Dome technology in the Odyssey Ark.
While you’ll get the best gaming experience by using a gaming PC, you can also enjoy many of the best PC games on the Samsung Odyssey Ark without a PC or console. The monitor has Samsung Gaming Hub, which lets you stream games through Xbox Cloud Gaming, NVIDIA GeForce Now, and other streaming services.
