You shouldn’t expect perfection from a R21,000 TV from any brand and LG’s offering is no exception. Still, the focus has been placed where it matters most. The panel is the main thing and if there’s nothing else you take from this review, know that this one is splendid. The semi-affordable price is almost a surprise at this point.

Boxing match

One of our main concerns when it comes to new TVs is how much of a pain they are to set up alone. Trying to unbox and install a 75in TV is a serious pain in the neck, for example, and smaller screen sizes are no guarantee of an easier time. LG’s 55CS3 has the benefit of the smaller panel but the screen’s extremely thin profile does make it challenging to extract and assemble without help. That said, some smart design work with the box and the base means that anyone with a moderately-sized coffee table and the ability to lift about twenty kilos at a time should have no trouble putting this up.

Installing the base is as simple as gently popping the screen face down on one of the box’s styrofoam inserts (the flat one, please) and inserting a couple of screws. Then it’s all over barring the lift-and-place in your chosen location and the subsequent software setup. If you’re looking to install the set on a wall, you can expect to do a little more work. Part of this work involves finding a mounting bracket since this TV doesn’t ship with one in the box. You should also have an assistant on hand, ensuring that it’ll only be slightly more of a mission than standing it on its base.

Everybody wants to be Netflix

Subsequent setup is the domain of LG’s Magic Remote, an onscreen pointer, and your internet connection. There’s little point in buying the 55CS3 — or one of the differently-sized variants — unless you’re planning to connect the TV to the internet and the interface reflects that. Perhaps unfortunately, WebOS 2.3 is also the same interface everyone else is bent on using. Visually, anyway.

There are plenty of smart features once you’ve clicked through the prompts and inserted your credentials in the right places and it’ll all feel familiar while you’re doing so. In a way, that’s a great thing. Ease of setup is always desirable. But it also immediately feels like everything else on the market and that’s something WebOS has never really been. Still, it’s a slick interface even if it tries just a bit too hard to be everything for everyone.

As was popular in 2023 (the year this television launched) and still is in 2024, there’s the option to let onboard artificial intelligence handle most of your audio settings. This can be enabled during the initial setup but you can also opt to skip it and fiddle by yourself for a bit. We took the latter course, because what’s the point if you’re not going to explore the menus on your own? Predictably, no matter which option you select, you’ll find that the 55CS3 will perform better with a soundbar attached. It’s nothing personal. Any TV at this price point (or lower and higher) faces the same challenge.

Zero performance anxiety

If middling audio has you slightly worried, you can stop now. Even if the 55CS3’s standard audio was all but absent, the TV’s visual performance is stunning enough that you’d still want to own one. We could gush about picture fidelity and contrast, the vibrant colour reproduction (we used Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom for visual testing, if it’s not immediately obvious) and the sharply defined outlines the OLED evo 55CS3 is capable of but we’d be rehashing any of the recent reports about LG’s OLED panels. They’re good. They’re always good. It would be more remarkable at this point to encounter a shoddy TV screen from the South Korean brand and even then, it’d have to be a factory defect.

The 55CS3 should especially be on the average gamer’s radar and not just because of the dedicated gaming dashboard packed with tweakable settings. There are four HDMI ports capable of 120Hz and the panel invokes all of the magical words required to summon the gaming gods. Nvidia’s G-Sync and AMD’s FreeSync, support for variable refresh rates, a 0.1ms response time, and support for Dolby Atmos and VisionIQ outfit this screen to give you the best possible image from the new generation of game consoles. It’s this way in practice too, with even previous generations (we took it as far back as the Nintendo Wii and Sony’s PlayStation 2) being offered a vibrant overhaul by the TV’s internal processing. It won’t scale Mario Galaxy or Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal up to 4K but it looks better than you’d expect it to.

LG OLED evo 55CS3 4K TV verdict

LG’s OLED TVs rarely have any serious competition. When they do, it’s because LG provided the panels for those too (looking at you, Sony Bravia XR). The Evo version of the TV offers better brightness than LG’s stock OLED panels but there are better options from the company out there too. It mostly comes down to how much you’re willing to pay for one of LG’s OLEDs. If your budget is around the R20,000 mark (if it’s nearly there, make it bigger), you really should be sprinting in the direction of anybody who sells the 55CS3. The next step up is LG’s C3 set, with a corresponding leap in price. For an excellent balance of smart features and picture quality and to keep a little cash for a soundbar add-on, the OLED evo 55CS3 is very worthy of your attention.

This OLED gaming monitor is definitely one of the best and Asus recently made it available in SA. Make no mistake, the R35,000 price tag will keep it out of reach of most, but maybe other companies won’t be as hesitant to bring more high-end kit to SA. That’s the dream anyway.

Regardless of whether or not our dream comes true, if you’re looking for one of the best monitors for gaming and content consumption on the market (and can stomach the price), you should absolutely consider the ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDM.

If you dressed your TV in techwear

If you’re familiar with the ROG sub-brand, you’ll already know what to expect from the PG27AQDM. Strong angles, air vents, multiple lighting zones, and at least three ROG logos make up its heavy gamer aesthetic. But it’s ‘Republic of Gamers’ not ‘Republic of I Hope No One Notices My Monitor’ so that shouldn’t be surprising.

The build quality of this high-end monitor didn’t leave us wanting. The display housing is made of high-quality plastic and the tripod stand is mostly metal. It features rubber feet to keep it from sliding around and has a wide footprint which inspires confidence in its stability.

The stand isn’t only stable, well-made, and good-looking, it’s also rather capable. You get around 10cm of height adjustment, a decent degree of tilt, and the option to swivel and rotate in both directions. The back of the monitor doesn’t have any VESA 100×100 mounting holes. Instead, those are found on the included adapter – which is the most ‘1337’ mounting adapter we’ve seen.

Seems like a standup guy

We appreciate that assembly is possible with just your fingers – no screwdriver necessary. If you plan on streaming, there’s a threaded mounting point at the top, a hole to route cables towards to bottom, and a light in the base of the stand that projects a ROG logo onto the surface below. If you’re feeling creative, you can swap it for one of your own designs.

Asus has kept physical buttons to a minimum, you’ll only find two behind the ROG logo chin-protrusion, along with a mini joystick. You can also use a mouse plugged into the monitor to fiddle with the settings menu but you’ll need to download and install some software for that.

Ports are where you’d expect. There’s one for DC power, a 3.5mm audio out, two HDMI 2.0, one DisplayPort 1.4, and a USB Type-B uplink connection for the two 5Gbps USB-A ports. No HDMI 2.1 means DisplayPort is your only option if you want to get the most out of your PG27AQDM. In a strictly PC gaming environment, you might not have an issue with that. We didn’t. But if you plan to switch to a console input, the best you’ll get is 1440p at 120fps.

Ready for your ocular feast?

So, the PG27AQDM is well-built, has a feature-rich design, and a decent (if slightly disappointing) selection of ports. But what about performance? Well, aside from one or two shortcomings that we’ll get to later, this is one of the best gaming monitors available.

Dell and Samsung both offer OLED gaming monitors in SA for around the same price. But they’re both 34in curved ultrawide monitors and that’s not going to appeal to everyone. If that’s you, then the PG27AQDM is your only OLED option.

With it, you get a 27in flat panel with a 2560×1440 resolution and a 240Hz refresh rate – something the other pair can’t match. It supports a variable refresh rate with AMD’s FreeSync Premium and it’s compatible with Nivida G-Sync. Those specs are impressive enough on their own but when combined with this OLED panel from LG, the result is the best overall gaming monitor we’ve tested so far.

Whether you’re playing a competitive title with the settings turned down, like Counter-Strike 2, or the latest GPU-torture title with the settings cranked up, like Cyberpunk 2077 with Overdrive ray tracing, the image on the PG27AQDM will look fantastic.

This is, first and foremost, a gaming monitor so motion performance is very important. The PG27AQDM performs excellently, thanks to the inherent benefits of its OLED panel’s near-instant pixel response time. Asus says that’s 0.03ms but even if it was being generous (as most monitor manufacturers are), we didn’t see any visual artefacts like ghosting or inverse ghosting in our limited time with it. We also didn’t notice any input lag whatsoever.

Cerulean and Fuchsia never looked so good

Contrast and colour performance are just as impressive. Every pixel can be switched off when not needed, so you end up with an effectively infinite contrast ratio providing deep inky blacks and bright highlights. You won’t find any blooming around bright objects in dark scenes and viewing angles are superb for co-op gamers with real-life friends.

Another tick in the ‘you’re getting what you paid for’ column, the PG27AQDM ships factory-calibrated with a printout of the report in the box. That will mean a lot to some and nothing to others. If you don’t care about deltaE values, we found the ‘Racing’ pre-set picture mode looked the best in SDR and ‘Asus Gaming HDR’ in HDR. If those don’t tickle your fancy, there are plenty of options to tweak in ‘User mode’ if you want to adjust things, including brightness. Speaking of which…

A downside of OLED displays is they’re not as bright as LCDs. To our flawed but experienced human eyes, the PG27AQDM didn’t appear to get as bright as the 450 nits advertised. You actually can measure brightness with the naked eye. You’ll know you’ve hit 450 nits if you’re staring at a full-screen white image and start to smell burnt pork.

Having said that, its brightness level was still impressive for an OLED. Make sure that any eco- or power-saving settings are disabled and you’ll probably want to enable the ‘Uniform Brightness’ setting in SDR mode. This does limit the overall brightness but without it, we reckon most people will find the automatic brightness limiter annoying.

If you’re able to control ambient light (close a curtain, switch off a light) you shouldn’t have an issue. If you can’t control the light around you, the rather aggressive matte anti-reflective coating will effectively reduce reflections but it does also affect image clarity in a bright environment when compared to a display with a glossy finish, like LG’s newer OLED TVs.

Another drawback of OLED displays is the risk of image burn-in. Asus has fitted a custom heatsink to draw heat away from the OLED panel in the interest of panel life and minimising the risk of burn-in. On top of that, like most OLED displays, the PG27AQDM comes with a few features that’ll also help reduce the risk – Adjust Logo Brightness, Pixel Cleaning, Screen Move, and Screen Saver. To sweeten the pot, at the local launch event Asus’ PR team said that burn-in was covered by the product’s three-year warranty.

What’s wrong with my words?

Other than the risk of burn-in, the other potential drawback of this OLED monitor is its use of a non-standard subpixel layout. We say ‘potential’ drawback because if all you’re doing is gaming and watching movies, you might not notice or care. But if you tend to take work home with you and your work includes staring at a lot of words, you’ll probably experience issues with clarity and colour fringing.

If you want a full explanation, Adam Simmons at PC Monitors explains the topic in detail. But the short version is that Windows doesn’t know how to render text properly with this subpixel layout so you might see things like this…

And this…

Depending on your tolerance, you might not mind or it could be a deal breaker. While we found it a little annoying, everything else about this monitor dramatically overshadowed this issue for us.

Asus ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDM verdict

Sure, R35,000 is expensive. You’ll also need a beefy PC to play games at 1440p with 240fps. And sure, if you use the PG27AQDM in a bright room you may want more brightness. Or if you’re easily irritated the fringing might get to you.

But there is literally no other monitor in South Africa that can tick off all of the same ’27in’, ’16:9′, ‘1440p’, ‘240Hz’, ‘flat OLED panel’ boxes like this one. On top of that, you’re getting a well-built, well-supported product with a fantastic feature set, flawless motion performance, near-perfect contrast, great out-of-the-box colour accuracy, and ample viewing angles.

This is the best gaming monitor we’ve tested so far and we absolutely recommend it to anyone who can afford it.

The tricky bit about choosing what backup option to choose is navigating the capacity/price graph. Is it worth spending R5,000 on a battery backup? Can you get away with less than a thousand Rand? Or should you drop a mighty R25,000, the RRP of the Delta 2, in order to keep some of your electronics running? Actually, if you can afford one of these weighty blocks, you should own one. Winter is coming.

Solid as a brick

The EcoFlow Delta 2 comes in a compact, neatly-packed box along with every cable and connection you could possibly need. It doesn’t ship with the solar panels you can connect to the unit in order to top it up but that’s about all you don’t get.

The battery itself is as easy to set up as any tech we’ve ever seen. Extract from the box, press the power button, activate the bank you’d like to access and… that’s it. There’s no app required (but it’s an option), there’s no WiFi connection, and you don’t even have to charge it for the first use (though you probably should).

There are two carry handles that make handling its twelve-kilogram weight a breeze, though you still don’t want to drop the sturdy plastic casing on your toes. Not only is it potentially disastrous for the lithium iron phosphate battery inside the Delta 2, but the small bones in your feet won’t appreciate it either.

Any port in a blackout?

We’re not here for the aesthetics (which are staid but reassuring) or the ports (which are numerous)… Actually, we’re definitely here for the ports. Four USB-A slots live on the front end, above the power button. Dual USB-C PowerDelivery ports surround the on/off for that bank of ports. Turning the EcoFlow Delta 2 on or off requires a long-press on the sedate little beige circle.

Around the other end, there’s an on/off for the mains plugs. Two Type D (three-prong) and two Type C (two-prong) outlets are available, and there’s a secondary 12-volt output in case you want to power some camping equipment during the blackout. All told, you can directly run thirteen different devices at once, assuming you have enough of the different types to fill up every power. And the Delta 2 has the capacity to keep almost everything running for quite some time.

Alright, pardner… draw!

That’s not an exaggeration. The EcoFlow Delta 2’s battery is a massive 1,024Wh number that accounts for its twelve-kilo weight. The company reckons it’ll run a washing machine for a few hours and we believe the claim. Users can draw up to 1,800 watts of power from this battery at once, with startup draw supporting up to 2,700 watts. Technically, you can boil a kettle using this thing (try that using a basic solar system — actually, don’t) but it’s an awful waste of that capacity when you could power… everything else instead.

A power draw that could crush lesser batteries in less than an hour is handled for ages by EcoFlow’s monster power bank. And it does so largely silently. The only way you’ll know it’s working is that whatever is connected is still operating. Even the LCD readout shuts down after a short time so it just kinda… sits there, magically emitting electricity.

And, once it’s depleted, it’ll get back up to speed in minutes. It’ll top up in a little over an hour (the company claims 80% in 50 minutes, which is about right). What with Stage 6 roaming the land, re-upping your backup in a hurry is now an essential feature. It’s present here. About the only thing we couldn’t experience is its long-term performance. EcoFlow says that it’ll handle 3,000 charges (to 80%) in its lifetime. We’ll have to take their word for it.

EcoFlow Delta 2 verdict

The greatest obstacle to owning the EcoFlow Delta 2 is the price tag. R25,000 is a substantial chunk of a home solar installation. It’s also the cost of two decent generators (plus enough petrol to keep them going for a while). But it’s packing a massive capacity, it’s almost soundless (unless it’s charging), and it’s unobtrusive enough that you’ll barely know that it’s there. There’s just a lovely stream of electrons making your TV and Xbox go while the rest of the suburb is sitting in the dark wondering if the power’s ever coming back. Is it worth 25 grand? That’s up to you and your bank account. But not sitting in the dark for hours at a time certainly has a value attached to it.

If you’ve got R6,000 or so that could go into keeping a room lit and several devices (internet, certainly, and smaller TVs) powered, then Switched’s 300W/307Wh battery pack is worth considering. It’s incredibly easy to set up and use, it’s almost impossible to make a mistake using it, and it’s got two integrated lights so you can find the bloody thing in the dark.

The Orange Box

Back before video game downloads were a serious thing, Steam proprietor Valve released a product called the Orange Box. It introduced much of the PC gaming world to Steam. Switched’s orange box is considerably larger and it helps its users avoid going back to the steam age. At least, for a little while.

Constructed of a durable plastic casing (but please don’t drop-test it), this 307Wh battery pack has a largely industrial design. The textured sections are broken by vents on the sides. There’s a large PC cooling fan inside there and it will kick on during operation. Yes, even if you’re not drawing massive amounts of power. Thermally, it’s perhaps not as optimised as it could have been.

But the front section is extremely clear and easy to understand. All of the buttons are soft-touch — you don’t need to long-press anything to make it light up. Power, via a solar adaptor or the included power bar, is easy to connect. The various sections can be individually powered, so you can run a Type D plug and a 12V DC output at the same time, or just charge your various mobile devices via high-speed USB-A and -C connections.

Screen and sound

There’s loads to like with the simple design. The front LCD screen is easy to understand, displaying input or outpower power depending on what’s connected. You can see how your mobile devices level their charge if you’re willing to sit and watch the numbers change for long enough. But we were bound to complain about something and that something is the noise. And the capacity. A little bit.

Using the Switched 307Wh battery is easy enough. Putting up with its noise, even when drawing a puny 9W, is another matter. It’s not obnoxiously loud but we do question why it has to make any noise at all at lower power draws. We’ve seen other devices where the fan kicks in if you run it a little hot but this R6,000 battery pack should do a little better than it does. Improved passive cooling would have gone a long way here.

And then there’s the capacity, but this is more of a Stuff problem. We tend to run high-end electronics. That stuff loves to chew power. As such, we were able to crush this thing’s battery in about 45 minutes on a couple of occasions, using a single device. Now, normal people don’t do that but this thing is rated up to 300W draw. You can use it like that. We got close. But you can only expect 30 to 40 minutes of power at a time if that’s the route you’re heading. If you’re civilised and stay under 100W, you can expect to get through most bouts of load shedding.

Switched 300W/307Wh Portable Power Station verdict

The Switched 300W/307Wh Portable Power Station is a great little device, about the size (and weight) of a bread box filled with bricks. It’s far more useful than our example, however. You’ll keep some lights on, your internet running, your laptop charged, and perhaps your fitness tracker and a couple of phones topped up at the same time. There’s plenty of capacity to be had unless you start using it at close to its rated 300W draw. In that case, your uptime will be measured in minutes rather than hours. Be sensible about it and you’ll get through load shedding in comfort. Take Switched at its word, however, and you’ll spend a long time sitting in the dark.

The smaller of the pair, the Era 100, is positioned to replace the Sonos One Gen 2. While the latter was released in 2019 and sold for R5,500, the Era 100 and its slightly larger R6,500 price tag are sort of expected. The Era 300 most closely resembles the Play:3 which was discontinued back in 2018. The pair have considerably different purposes.

Back then, the Play:3 sold for $300, so the Era 300’s price tag of $450 (or R11,000 locally) is a steeper increase. But Sonos reckons the spatial audio smarts of the Era 300 (a first for the brand’s smart speakers) make it worth it.

Is this really a new Era?

At the launch event, hosted at Sonos’ local distributor Planetworld’s offices, Stuff spent some time listening to what the Era speakers could do in a few curated settings. Generally, the improvements in audio quality across the board were immediately noticeable. But we’ll get to the specifics in a bit.

We started with the Era 100. First in the play queue was Billions by Caroline Polachek. Here, the 100’s improved stereo capabilities over the One were put on show thanks to the two separate tweeters able to reproduce left and right channels. The third, larger mid-woofer is slightly bigger than in the One so we found a bit more punch behind the lower-mid and bass frequencies in our next track, Lizzo’s About Damn Time.

The Era 100 is roughly the same size as the One, only a little thinner and taller. You should also keep in mind that it is still a small single unit, so it’s not going to achieve ‘proper’ stereo separation. What it does achieve is clear and detailed audio, at least in the two hand-picked songs played for us.

It’s all around you

Next, we moved to the Era 300’s showroom to experience its spatial audio capabilities first-hand. The 300 employs six individual drivers in its attempt to surround you with audio. There are two woofers on either side together with a tweeter each, a tweeter pointing up for the height channel, and a single tweeter facing forwards.

The layout makes some sense for spatial audio playback but that singular front-facing tweeter can make stereo content from the 300 sound a little dull in comparison. That’s not to say the Era 300 doesn’t perform well. The side-firing woofers and tweeters allow for a decently wide sound stage, especially for a speaker this size, and the vocals in the stereo version of Rosalía’s LA FAMA were surprisingly crisp.

Read More: Sonos Beam Gen 2 review – Spot the difference

Where the Era 300 shone was in the Dolby Atmos version of Finneas’ A Concert Six Months from Now. The rich, expansive audio filled up the room without losing definition which held up even as we moved around, looking for any discernable changes to tone and volume. Having said that, we highly doubt this will be true for every Dolby Atmos mix and will depend heavily on an album’s production as well as the room you’ve put it in.

Newer albums, like Finneas’ Optimist, that are produced from the outset with spatial audio in mind are likely to offer more than albums with Atmos added in post-production. We were told Finneas has signed a deal with Sonos and used the Era 300 as his preferred reference speaker which probably helps as well. But we’ll need to spend some more time testing this thoroughly.

Yours, for a small fortune

Finally, we seated ourselves in the third showroom in front of a large format TV, surrounded by a full complement of Atmos-enabled Sonos speakers for a showcase of what was possible if you have more money than sense. The flagship Sonos Arc soundbar and Sonos Sub were positioned in front, with a second Sub and pair of Era 300s on stands behind.

First, we viewed a clip from one of David Attenborough’s many nature documentaries followed by a scene from John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place. These clips offered excellent examples of what a full Dolby Atmos system can do. In the nature doc, we could hear the jungle rain hitting leaves seemingly behind the camera and the fullness it gave to Attenborough’s voice evoked childhood memories of watching his early documentaries when he was closer to 50 years old than 100.

If you haven’t yet seen A Quiet Place, we would strongly recommend you do so with a Dolby Atmos capable system if possible. There’s a good reason it was nominated for an Academy Award and a BAFTA in audio-related categories. It’s an already frightening film but the added immersion from the pair of 300s as surround units made it even more so.

Overall, we left the launch event with a few mixed feelings. The general audio performance improvements from both Eras were appreciated. The Era 100 is poised to be the next go-to smart speaker for people that want a smart speaker and decent audio quality. It’s just a pity Sonos and Google are still fighting so there’s no Google Assistant support. We’ll be spending more time with both units over the coming days, so expect a full review before too long.

Sure, TCL doesn’t hold the same weight as industry verterans Samsung or LG. But more often than not, it offers decent, affordable TVs that continue to go underappreciated. We got to test the TCL C735 QLED, one of TCL’s higher-range models. It sits just under the C835, which we also reviewed.

The C735 falls into the mid-range TV category. It delivers a similar product to that of established brands, but for a lot less money – R13,000 in this case.

Posture is important

Upon opening the box, the price suddenly makes more sense. TCL has opted to spend its budget where it’s most important – the hardware, rather than a fancy façade. Despite the clear bias, it’s pretty good-looking. The panel is light – as plastic usually is – and doesn’t experience much flexibility while managing to maintain the premium feel of a far more expensive television, even if it doesn’t look the part.

We must admit, we weren’t looking forward to setting this one up on our own. It turns out that our worries were unfounded, with the set-up being as simple as screwing the screws into the right holes and sticking the remote’s batteries in the right way. We’d hope this is something you could do on your own.

The stand, once everything’s in place, looks decent enough. It’s desperately missing something, though. Stick a soundbar down there, and it’ll fill the void of empty space beneath the TV. Anything to avoid exposing your poor cable management.

Where TCL’s promises of a bezel-less design are concerned, don’t believe a word of it. The Bezels are still there, clearly, measuring 1mm thick on our 55in model. That’s perfectly okay. We don’t mind a bit of a bezel. Just don’t promise one thing, and turn up to the party with empty, 1mm-sized hands.

A smorgasbord of colour

When it comes to picture quality, the C735 caught us a little off-guard. We saw the R13,000 price and (perhaps unwisely) made some assumptions about the picture quality. How wrong we were. Colour reproduction feels vibrant enough so that you won’t feel any buyer’s remorse – unless you’re really picky about your budget TVs. The C735 handled most lighting situations we threw at it, though it’s best suited in a darker environment.

TCL has (thankfully) opted for a direct-lit LED backlight array in the C735, instead of the more common edge-lit array. This means there are more LED backlights arranged directly (duh) behind the panel instead of a few around the edges. This allows for a uniform amount of light across the panel and a generally brighter picture.

Unfortunately, all that uniform light deals a blow to black levels in dark scenes. It also means the whole panel is illuminated, even if there are parts that shouldn’t be. You’ll notice this when watching ‘cinematic’ letterbox content with black bars above and below. Full array local dimming would help with that, but it also would’ve shot the price up. This particular direct-lit LED backlight only has a peak brightness of 330 nits. That’s a little dim for proper HDR performance, although the C735’s dynamic tone mapping does its best to make up for that – and mostly succeeds.

Unless you’re the owner of the TV, you’ll probably be shunned to the side of the living room, forced to watch from some obscure angle. This is a problem on most low- to mid-range TVs. We expected it to be true here too. But it defied our expectation again. Colour accuracy remains mostly unchanged while viewing from an angle. Definitely not as bad as we were expecting. We’d still suggest claiming the Master Chair (don’t pretend you don’t have one) to get the best experience possible.

Adding a few bells & whistles

The C735 performs its best while gaming. TCL’s inclusion of Variable Refresh Rates (VRR) and auto low-latency mode (ALLM) prove that. It also supports AMD Freesync Premium, if that’s your thing. These features are coupled with a panel that’ll support a refresh rate of up to 144Hz, provided your source can support it.

ALLM is there to get rid of any input lag you might experience, though we can’t say that was ever a problem for us. As much as we’d have liked to have blamed our performance in Rocket League on input lag, we just can’t. That shame lies with us, forever.

Flip the TV over, and you’ll be greeted by four HDMI ports, though not all are equal. The first is sporting HDMI 2.1 smarts and will take a 4K signal and up to 144Hz. The second – 4K 120Hz with the third and fourth offering a paltry 60Hz accompanied by eARC support in the fourth.

All the fixin’s of a decent TV

A decent display isn’t the only mark of a good TV. You must consider all the little extras that go with it. The remote, the UI, sound… everything. Almost all of the C735’s features impressed us to some degree. Although, as is often the case, audio quality is where things started to get a bit murky.

We forewent our soundbar to give the C735’s audio performance a good, proper testing. We noticed the two 10W speakers on the bezel’s bottom, bearing the popular Onkyo name. Despite the branding, we were left rather disappointed. It falls into the category of middle-class, constantly leaving you wanting more.

You’ll notice the overly compressed sound more in particularly epic soundtracks, no matter which of TCL’s six or seven presets you opt for. Take, for example, the ‘voice’ preset. While usually designed to amplify the common frequencies of the human voice, it doesn’t sound like that’s what’s happening here. Especially when you turn the volume up.

There isn’t much to say about the remote. It’s difficult to screw up a remote. Don’t add gyro controls, throw in a few dedicated streaming buttons and make it comfortable to use. We’re glad to say TCL has done exactly that. We do have one complaint – the batteries. Are we living in the 1950s? The scramble to find double-A batteries once a year is becoming increasingly exasperating. Throw us a bone and add USB-C charging. Pretty please?

Google TV is still around, with a quad-core ARM Cortex-A73 processor, 3GB of RAM, and a Mali-G52 MP GPU powering the innards. It’s as great here as it is everywhere, though we did notice some lagging in the homepage menu, often after booting up the TV. Once everything is warmed up, the lag disappears for good. Other than that, we hardly noticed any other performance issues – at least where the TV is concerned.

TCL C735 QLED TV verdict

TCL doesn’t often stray far outside the realm of budget devices, and they’ve continued that tradition here nicely. We hardly have any gripes with the C735 QLED, apart from the sub-standard sound quality (though that’s easily countered with a soundbar) and occasional laggy menus. Everyone will find something to like on the C735 – whether it be the gaming features, 144Hz display or the R13,000 price.

Wastelanders has a little something in common with a comic book series of the same name but its roots lie in the iconic Marvel comic series Old Man Logan. It’s dark. Like… DC dark. An aging Wolverine sets out on one last heroic quest as a way to atone for… well, you’ll see. The comic series involves one of Peter Parker’s descendants, some truly disturbing revelations about the Incredible Hulk, and the reason why Logan has been dormant for so long.

The podcast series (because calling it an ‘audio drama’ isn’t cool enough, we guess) is related but the darker tone of the original comic series is held at arm’s length. It’s also massively expanded and Wolverine isn’t the main focus. Up first, amazingly, is Peter Quill of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Old Man Star-Lord

Each of these podcasts consists of ten episodes. They’re all self-contained, meaning you could listen to one and then just bail on the entire thing. But you probably won’t. For starters, each has its own tone and setting. Here you’ll meet Star-Lord (Peter Quill, voiced by Timothy Busfield) and Rocket (Chris Elliot) as they touch down on Earth in search of an artefact for the Collector. They’re on a time limit. Failure to locate their MacGuffin results in their heads being lopped off. Along the way the pair encounter a few familiar faces but it’s Doctor Doom and Craven the Hunter that present the greatest threat.

Also present is a character called Cora, a Rigellian Recorder, a character that makes it possible to narrate settings and situations that are inherently visual. Marvel’s presentations, whether on-screen or in print, rely on spectacular visual accompaniment to get their point across. That’s harder to achieve in an audio-only format, meaning a few shortcuts are needed. Throughout the series, listeners will encounter jarring moments that yank them out of the moment. That’s because the podcast’s writers can’t seem to let go of the need to do more than sketch and image and let the imagination fill in the rest.

Still, there’s substantial emotional investment possible in this semi-Western quest to liberate the folks of Doomwood from the heavy hand of Victor von Doom and Craven the Hunter. Peter Quill is, generally, an impulsive moron but the interplay between him and Rocket will hit you in the chest a few times. This podcast is also a decent setup for what’s coming later. Keep an eye out for Donald Glover’s enthusiastic take on an original character.

Old Man Hawkeye

The second Wastelanders series involves Clint Barton, otherwise known as Hawkeye. Perhaps the best thing about this series is how it starts out with relatively unknown and underrepresented characters. It manages to make these initial episodes (Star-Lord, Hawkeye, and Black Widow, below) the strongest of the lot. This one fills in some of the background of how the world came to be in the condition it is. The events of V-Day (Villain Day) are explored via flashbacks that serve to illustrate how tortured Hawkeye (voiced by Stephen Lang) is.

They also serve to point out what Barton has been up to in the 30 years since the villains took over. Hint: He hasn’t been especially nice. If you’re familiar with Barton’s turn as Ronin, you’ll have some idea where this is going. But there’s also a travelling circus involved (helmed by Blob, of all people), a considerable exploration of what it means to be a family, and an emotional climax you probably won’t see coming. The epilogue, though? That you’ll see coming a mile away, even if Barton himself couldn’t.

Old Woman Black Widow

From the carnival grounds, Wastelanders takes listeners to the Onar, a massive building in New York. From the gritty, grimy outdoors listeners are dumped into a techno-thriller involving drugs, nano-tech, advanced surveillance, and massive waves. Yes, really.

The unusual aspect of Black Widow’s arc is that it’s — for the majority — not told from the perspective of any of the main characters. This is a narrative necessity (and we can’t really explain why without wrecking things) but that puts the focus on some of the secondary characters. At least one of them is really easy to hate so it’s disappointing when they’re redeemed simply because they’ve become useful to the story.

As with each of these podcasts, there will be jarring moments where a character points out the obvious thing simply because the writers can’t bring themselves to trust the listener. A strong performance from Susan Sarandon and a really surprising ending sets up for the final (so far) outing of the series. Worth listening to as a standalone but do it in sequence if you’re planning on listening to all of it.

Read more: It’s just a phase: Here’s how you should watch Marvel’s MCU Phase One through Three

Old Man Wolverine

We’ve covered most of Old Man Wolverine’s Wastelanders arc, though Marvel has taken a considerable amount of the dirt off his tale here. The events that led to Logan’s presence in the Wasteland are truly horrifying and there was the potential to do something really effective with the trauma Wolverine would have experienced here. Unfortunately, this entire series counts as a wasted opportunity.

Make no mistake, hearing James Howlett (voiced by Robert Patrick of Terminator 2 fame) calling all and sundry ‘bub’ and popping his claws is always going to be a good time. But Marvel’s most popular character is given the weakest deal, narratively speaking, because he’s got a healing factor and plot armour and can take the hits. Instead of deeper introspection of Logan’s role in V-Day and eventual redemption, we get a road-trip outing with an unlikely pair of mutants. It’s the sort of situation Logan’s been in far too often.

That said, it’s still fun. But it shouldn’t have been. This Wastelanders arc could have been painfully magnificent.

Old Man Doom

The penultimate Wastelanders series follows Victor von Doom (we’re not going to explain how this happened) as he attempts to secure an item of great value. Doom (voiced by Dylan Baker) actually comes across as a sympathetic character throughout the series. Baker’s performance will have you marvel at Doom’s deviousness, his fragility, and his absolutely massive ego.

The only series to focus as deeply as it does on the villains and their role in the Wastelanders universe, listeners will find themselves tying some disparate threads together. Cora the Rigellian Recorder, as hinted at the end of Old Man Star-Lord, returns as a character and a narrative device. This means there are fewer of those jarring moments that yank you away from belief and back into the real world. That isn’t to say they’re not present.

The tale features some really tragic characters, from Doom himself to the last member of the Richards family. If you’re not familiar with Victor’s role in her existence, you might not appreciate the dynamics occurring but you can take it from us. Everything up to the climax goes deeper than it looks on the surface. Doom’s arc calls for the most knowledge of comic lore but it’s worth experiencing all the same. Especially since it leads directly to…

Marvel’s Wastelanders

Remember when Marvel’s first movies coalesced into the amazing presentation that was the first Avengers film? Yeah, Marvel’s Wastelanders doesn’t manage quite a triumphant coming together. That works in its favour in some ways. Each episode is allowed to stand on its own without having to adhere to some greater plan. The groundwork has been laid and there’s an unlikely villain standing in front of the remaining heroes.

The cast here is the broadest it’s been to date but the story doesn’t quite match the casting ambition. The scattered heroes are brought together by unsatisfying means (except when Quill and Barton meet up). AIM, which had a subdued presence in Black Widow’s arc, makes a proper appearance but the whole storyline is a collection of elements that were recently seen elsewhere.

Listeners will encounter shades of the first Guardians of the Galaxy film, along with bits of the Wandavision TV series. One thing that this final series does well is to convey a sense of bleakness. Having the heroes meet up is satisfying in its own way but it doesn’t come across as a foregone conclusion. If not for the central impetus, listeners will get the sense that the aged heroes would have carried on being largely ineffective against a world more or less stripped of heroes. Which, we suppose, was always the point of the Wastelanders universe. Sometimes things don’t work out neatly for all concerned. Or do they?

Marvel’s Wastelanders is available to stream on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, and SiriusXM.

It’s hard to go wrong with a streaming box, especially in South Africa. For some inexplicable reason, the country seems to go crazy for these things. It makes sense. You want a place to watch Netflix, Showmax and Disney+ all in one place. If Showmax would just hurry up with its PS5 app, that would be plenty of folks’ go-to streaming hub. Until that day comes (if ever), we’re stuck with streaming boxes.

Curves in all the right places

Don’t let the absurdly orange packaging fool you; the ColoVu is as white as a box can get. We weren’t thrilled about the colour scheme at first – white just doesn’t blend in well with anything. But, over time, it grew on us. Unfortunately, it grew on the dust bunnies living around our TV setup too. A black shade would be ideal – if it existed. Get on that, please.

Besides the colour, the ColoVu is about as sexy as a TV box can get. Which is to say, not very sexy. It stands a little taller than similar streamers and for good reason. Where other boxes, say the Xioami Mi Box S, compromise on the LAN port for a lower profile, the ColuVu opts to keep it. And thank goodness, because trying to keep a stable 4K stream going on 5G is not it. We’re looking at you, Rain.

The bigger-and-heavier-than-average box goes a long way in making the ColuVu feel more premium. That’s certainly helped by the millions of ports the ColuVu manages to hold such as the: LAN, SD card slot, USB-A, HDMI port and power slot, SPDIF and AV ports. That’s plenty more than other premium boxes out there, and we’re here for it. At the end of the day, you can’t go wrong with more ports. But that’s not why you buy these things. You just want to watch the final season of Better Call Saul on Netflix. We get it.

Read More: Netogy Nova 4K Streaming Box Review – Trying to be #1

Sonic the Android TV Box

We weren’t expecting to even notice a real difference between the C1 Plus and our other favourite Android box – the Xioami Mi Box S. Oh, how wrong we were. From the very first time you boot the C1 Plus up, you notice the difference. It’s smoother than Michael Jackson, which is to say it’s buttery smooth. We never noticed just how jittery other boxes were until we played with the C1 Plus. It’s a small change, but one that we greatly appreciated. This alone would make it worth buying – the other stuff is all just a bonus.

If you’ve ever used any sort of Android software before, the setup and UI will all be familiar. Set up is as easy as plugging the power cord in and typing in your email address. It even comes pre-loaded with YouTube and Netflix, so you don’t waste any time faffing with downloads. You will need to seek out Showmax, Prime Video, and Disney+ on the Play Store, but that’s okay.

Google Chromecast is baked into the UI, which makes casting from your phone or PC much simpler. The Google Assistant feature was something we stayed away from, mainly because we prefer typing manually. But if you’re a die-hard voice browser, Assistant should suit you just fine.

Controlling what you watch

The final piece of the puzzle is the remote control that comes with the C1 Plus. Again, it’s hard to screw up a TV controller – just throw on a power button, some directional buttons, and an OK and you’re set. A couple of dedicated streaming buttons is always appreciated, though the problem South Africans usually face is that most of the buttons send you to services that aren’t available in the country. Who needs the hassle of a Hulu input?

The C1 Plus eliminates that problem. It has all the regular buttons you’d need, plus dedicated Netflix, YouTube, Prime Video and Google Play Movies buttons – all of which are available in South Africa. Stack that on top of its weighty, curved body and you’ve got one of the better Android TV box remotes out there.

ColoVu C1 Plus Final Verdict

If you’ve got a 4K TV and aren’t happy with the built-in smart functionality, then this is the box for you. Our only gripe is the price – R1,600 could easily be spent on something far more useful – especially if you’ve already got a Smart TV. But if you have the extra income, then you won’t be led astray by the C1 Plus. Other boxes like the Xiaomi Mi Box S are cheaper and do many of the same things that the C1 Plus, just slightly worse.

Fortunately, Takealot never seems to actually sell the C1 Plus for R1,600 and often lists it as low as R1,370 – a far more reasonable price. If you’ve got the money to secure the best of the best in the Android (streaming box) world, then this is what you’re looking for. It’s faster, flashier and has more functionality than its counterparts. If you’re in need of something a bit more basic, it won’t be the end of the world to not choose this one.

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children? Wow. The bar really was low, huh? Nevertheless, it wouldn’t have taken much for The Last of Us to be considered the best of a bad bunch. Just throw in the basic plot, get an alright performance from the two leads and call it a day. HBO didn’t do that. Instead, it went a step further, not just making The Last of Us a decent adaptation, but a brilliant series altogether.

You can’t hand all the praise to HBO. The story – as brilliant as it is in both videogame and live-action adaptation, wouldn’t exist without Neil Druckmann, the game’s original creator. Druckmann returned to help write and run the show, though most of that work went to Craig Mazin – whose presence is as apparent here as it was in Chernobyl, his last big-budget project.

Throw in the spectacular performances from Pedro Pascal (Joel) and Bella Ramsey (Ellie) as the show’s leads, and you’ve got what the industry calls ‘a hit’. Why? Mainly because The Last of Us’ best feature is the fact that it can be loved by anyone.  That means fans of the original source material and people who have never touched a controller in their lives.

In need of a binge

First, the show needs to give us an idea of the story and the world we’ll be exploring over the coming nine episodes. The Last of Us centres on Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal), a gruff and violent character – twenty years after the world is plagued by a pandemic that turns people into – you guessed it – zombies. Joel and Tess (Anna Torv) are smugglers in this post-apocalyptic world, just trying to earn enough to keep them alive in the day-to-day. That is, until the Fireflies – a rebellious group going against the government – force Joel and Tess to take Ellie (Bella Ramsey) across the country. Why? We don’t know – at least not at first. It’ll make sense soon, however – don’t worry.

Right from the get-go, fans are treated to a scene that’s pulled almost entirely from the first game. We get a little more backstory for Joel and Tommy (Gabriel Luna) in the beginning – with a few extra minutes devoted to letting audiences attach themselves to Joel’s daughter – Sarah (Nico Parker). If you’ve played the game, you’ll understand the implications. If you haven’t, maybe keep some tissue close by, just in case.

And that theme of pulling directly from the game continues throughout the entire run of nine episodes. There are some episodes that deviate from the main plot – like the show’s third episode – but those sub-plots never overstay their welcome. The game barely pulls you out of the driving seat that is Joel, not leaving much of his story to imagination. That just… wouldn’t work in a live-action adaptation. That’s why we get a little extra here. The show does a great job of adding content from other side characters’ POVs – giving us some time away from the show’s two leads – and allowing the creators of the show to do some pretty enthralling world-building.

Our one issue is that the series feels like it would benefit greatly from being a binge-able beast, rather than the weekly episodic adventure it is. We at Stuff had the benefit of watching the entire season all at once. This helped us accept the slower episodes where the focal point is on world-building, rather than the characters at hand. Don’t fret too much, those episodes are few and far between. Our main concern is that a weekly release might draw the pace out too much for some viewers.

A dynamic duo

For reasons that we’d rather let viewers new to the IP discover, the series eventually settles the focus on Joel and Ellie – alone together as they travel across the country in search of the Firefly base mentioned in the first episode. This is where the show is at its absolute best. The dynamic of a charismatic, energy-filled 14-year-old girl accompanying the old, hardened veteran of the apocalypse is as brilliant here as it is in the game.

The two travel cross-country, fending off both human and zombie foes, though the show tends to give us more of the former rather than the latter. Which works perfectly, but we’ll get to that later. As we’ve already said – the two leads give their all in these performances. Pedro Pascal as Joel may have caused some discourse at first, though is there ever any casting that isn’t met with outrage by the vocal minority on Twitter? After seeing the entirety of the show, it’s clear that he was perfect for the role. Pascal may not have had many opportunities to give it his all up to this point but that should change as more people see his performance here. It’s a brilliant casting choice that shines under a brilliant script.

Ellie, on the other hand, is the life and soul of this series. While Pascal is pulling from years of experience (which, incidentally, is the same for his character), Bella Ramsey hasn’t had as much time leading shows (again matching the theme of the cast’s dynamic). It doesn’t show though, as you’ll feel like Ramsey has been doing this for years. Ellie is an oftentimes unserious 14-year-old girl that has struggled to find her place in this apocalyptic world – until she meets Joel. She bounces off Joel exceptionally well, bringing with her some comic relief when needed. But that doesn’t mean she can’t be serious. Sometimes the tables turn and she has to take the lead in some situations. This is where Ramsey’s nuanced portrayal is most apparent.

Each of the two leads are great in their roles. But their chemistry together is just… perfect. There aren’t many times we find a need for that word. It fits here, though.

Fewer zombies = better writing? 

You already know the basic story of The Last of Us – whether you’ve read this review as a newcomer or as an avid fan of the games. So, we won’t spoil much more than that, because The Last of Us is certainly at its best when the player (or now, the watcher) doesn’t know what’s coming next.

The world, luckily, is still very much up for discussion. It’s a stellar lesson in cinematography. Not just because some of the sets are pulled from the game, down to the very last detail – though that’s apparent for much of the show. No, it’s how showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann managed to create a world that somehow feels devoid of anything meaningful, yet at the same time feels like it’s teeming with possibility. Part of the reason why the show does this so well is that it does away with plenty of the game’s repetitive zombie fights. But rather than hinder the show, the lack of zombies is what makes this live-action adaptation that much better than its counterpart.

Where the game needs to give the player something to do (ie, fighting as many zombie and human henchmen as possible), the show just doesn’t. It would rather spend more time on the writing and interactions between the main cast (and some of the cast that only stick around for an episode or two). It still manages to achieve the threat of zombies – not by having our main cast constantly fighting them off – but by showing us the fallout of the pandemic. As Joel and Ellie continue their venture, we get to see cities and settlements left behind. Sure, the zombies haven’t been left out of the story entirely, far from it. But it helps build a sense of fear — the things that caused this damage could appear at any time. And sometimes they do.

The Last of Us is definitely worth the watch (until the end)

If you’ve skipped right to the end of the review – you’re probably wondering if HBO’s The Last of Us is an adaptation worthy of its name and your time. The answer is a resounding ‘yes’ to both. HBO threw enough money at production and hired exactly the right people for the series, both in front of and behind the camera. The writing from Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin certainly makes the show a must-watch, whether you’ve played the game or not. Chuck in the brilliant performances from the series’ two main leads and you’ve got yourself the best live-action videogame adaptation put on screen yet.

Fans of the game needn’t worry about some of the original game’s best scenes going missing here. The final twenty minutes aren’t just some of the best of the entire series, but of TV in general. Oh, and the giraffe scene is there – you just have to get to it.

The show premieres in South Africa on Showmax today, 16 January at 22:00 – set a reminder for yourself on your account right here. Showmax will do the rest and notify you when the first episode drops. Unfortunately, you’ll be stuck waiting until next Monday for the second episode after the longer-than-usual first episode ends. Rinse. Repeat.

When the Samsung Odyssey Ark showed up at our office for review, we were excited. That quickly faded when we saw the box. It is gigantic. Was it even going to fit? Well, usually the best way to find out is to just do it. So we did and it fit.

Don’t skip leg day

Samsung recommends that you rope in a buddy for the assembly and setup process but it took three of us to assemble and set it up. The location we chose might have had something to do with that. But so did the weight. With the stand attached, this tips the scales at 41.5kg. So do yourself a favour and just stick it on the desk in front of you instead of trying anything fancy.

Or you could wall mount it if you wish. The Odyssey supports a VESA 200 x 200 mount. But then you’ll lose half of what makes this display unique. The height-adjustable stand allows for a decent amount of manoeuvrability, 27cm up and down when in landscape mode, and 3cm when in Cockpit mode (more on that later). There are roughly 10 degrees of tilt in both orientations.

No matter the orientation, you’ll need to be sitting directly in front of the Odyssey Ark to get your money’s worth. The aggressive 1000R curve might mimic the curve of the human eyeball but it also means that if you’re off to the side, even by a little, your content will look washed out. This is the first of many reasons that make the Odyssey Ark ill-suited for use in place of a family TV. Unless you are a family of one.

Let’s get technical

As far as the spec sheet goes, what you’re getting here is impressive. And not just because it’s a bloody great big 55in behemoth. The VA panel also features a 3840 x 2160 (4K) resolution and will manage up to 165Hz refresh rate with AMD Freesync Premium Pro as well as generic Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) for consoles.

This panel uses Samsung’s Quantum Matrix tech and is mini-LED backlit with 1,056 local dimming zones. This makes average-looking games look half-decent and good-looking games pop. You certainly aren’t getting OLED-level inky blacks but colours are still rich enough without being overly saturated.

This couldn’t really be called a gaming monitor without the standard 1ms advertised response time. You’ll no doubt have to switch to the ‘fastest’ setting to come close to this but then you’ll have to put up with some ghosting artefacts because the backlight isn’t keeping up with what’s being displayed. So we’d suggest sticking with the default setting.

As mentioned, this is a mini-LED backlit display so it gets plenty bright enough. Samsung lists peak brightness at 1,000 nits. We didn’t test that but even if the real number doesn’t get there, you probably won’t be disappointed.

We had it set up in our office which is rather bright for most of the day and we didn’t once find the Odyssey Ark lacking. Having said that, it would be best suited in a dark environment. But, if you dim the lights, be prepared to notice some blooming around bright objects in dark scenes.

The 1000R curve isn’t the only aggressive feature. The anti-glare coating on the Ark might be considered aggressive. We found it rather off-putting when the monitor was switched off. But if you can’t help but have your back to a light source you’ll probably welcome its ability to diffuse reflections.

It’s all connected

The Odyssey Ark makes use of Samsung’s One Connect box to handle all but a few connections. On the display itself, you’ll find the proprietary connection for the One Connect box, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a USB-C port. Unfortunately, the USB-C port is only there to provide a means of power (15W) to a peripheral device, like a webcam.

On the box, you’ll find four HDMI 2.1 ports with one supporting eARC, an Ethernet 10/100 port, two USB-A 2.0 ports for more peripherals or storage devices, a USB-B port, an optical audio port, and the One Connect port for sending data to the display.

Here’s the next puzzling case of this supposedly being a gaming monitor but not offering basic gaming monitor functionality. There’s no Display Port. Not even one. Sure, you get four 48Gbps HDMI 2.1 ports that will manage a 4K / 165Hz signal from a PC. But then you’ll need to make sure your GPU supports HDMI 2.1. So you’re limited to the RTX 30-series from Nvidia or the RX 6000-series from AMD. Not exactly ideal but if you can afford the Ark that probably won’t be a problem.

Dialling things in

For controlling everything, the Odyssey Ark ships with two remotes, which is one too many in our book. The first will look familiar if you’ve ever used a Samsung TV. The second, the Ark Dial, is unique to the Ark and features a large dial (go figure) with a few directional and settings buttons.

You’ll need to familiarise yourself with the second as that is how you’ll manage the Ark’s many display features. Both come equipped with a solar panel and the TV remote features a USB-C port for charging if you live in parts of the world where sunlight is absent for weeks on end.

A couple of things to note here. Firstly, if you’ve got another Samsung display in the same room, whether that be a TV or monitor, and it also runs on Tizen OS, you’re not going to have a good time. The remotes for either display will end up pairing with both. Then, when you pick up either, they’ll start controlling both displays.

With a bit of fiddling, we managed to separate them but we could only do that for advanced remote features, like changing the volume or selecting a source. The power button of any Samsung remote will work for any Samsung Tizen display. This can prove to be really annoying if you work with a bunch of clowns who hose themselves when they switch off both your monitors mid-sentence.

You have been warned.

Are you ready for the “Sound Dome”?

On most of the displays we review, TVs or monitors, that come with integrated speakers, it almost always feels like the speakers were included as an afterthought. We were expecting the same with the Odyssey Ark but in this case, we were pleasantly surprised.

We’ll start by saying you’ll still get much better performance from a separate system, but the four included speakers on the Odyssey Ark offer a surprising amount of oomph. Samsung rates it as a 60W system with a speaker in each of the four corners and two woofers in the centre.

The inherent size of the display, aggressive curve, speaker layout, and inclusion of Dolby Atmos support work well together to create a relatively decent soundstage – the width, depth and height of the projected stereo image. This makes for a rather immersive movie or series-watching experience. But again, you’ll need to be sitting relatively close and straight down the middle for the most enjoyment.

Can your other screen do this?

On to the list of features that sets the Odyssey Ark apart from the rest, for better or worse. One of the angles Samsung is pushing with the Ark is that you can replace your multi-monitor setup.

The large screen size means you can theoretically fit four 27in displays onto a single screen in landscape or three 31in inputs in portrait. Or as Samsung likes to call it – Cockpit Mode. In this orientation, the Odyssey Ark becomes even more of a spectacle. This mode makes for great YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels viewing.

Next up is something called Flex Move Screen. This allows you to adjust the size of your content and where it sits on the display with the Ark Dial. Don’t feel like craning your neck while playing a first-person shooter? Enable Flex Move and shrink the picture down to a more manageable size and move it to the middle of the screen.

But having a shrunken picture in the middle of your 55in screen might feel like a waste. That’s where Multiview Mode comes in. This gives you a daunting amount of options for splitting the screen up into smaller tiles and you can save up to three custom layout presets.

Picture-in-picture is supported so you can have the YouTube guide for a particularly tough level open while playing a game. Alternatively, you can put the game and the YouTube app side by side so you don’t obscure anything important.

Downhill from here

Unfortunately, as nice as the feature may seem, it is marred by a puzzling amount of limitations that mean it fails to properly meet Samsung’s pitch to “deliver more possibilities on a single screen”.

The big catch here is that, despite having four HDMI ports, you’re only able to view one source at a time, no matter your choice of layout or screen orientation. Where’s the fun in that?

You’re also limited in your choice of apps with which you can multitask. Your choices are one of the four HDMI inputs, YouTube’s app, Samsung’s bare-bones Tizen web browser, mirroring your cellphone or laptop screen, and other less-than-useful Tizen apps like a timer.

And the disappointment doesn’t stop there.

We managed to get a semi-usable layout of a game in the centre, the Tizen web browser displaying the current FIFA fixtures on top and a mirrored laptop with our live Twitter feed below. But then, with Multiview enabled, the maximum refresh rate of the game (Rocket League) dropped to 120Hz, variable refresh rate was disabled, and the image quality dropped noticeably.

These really shouldn’t be limitations you have to work around for the amount of money you’re paying.

Samsung Odyssey Ark verdict

The price of the Odyssey Ark is the biggest limiting factor. For the recommended retail price of R62,000, any reasonable person would expect only the best experience from this undeniably impressive (at least on paper) gaming monitor.

If you approach the Ark from an early-adopter frame of reference, it makes a little more sense. But that also implies Samsung plans to make another one, learning from the downfalls and shortcomings of the first and improving things for a more compelling offer. From what we’ve heard from Samsung South Africa, that may well be the case with the entire first batch of orders selling out rather quickly.

If that is the case, we’d suggest waiting for the Ark 2.0 to avoid being Samsung’s guinea pig. If the company opts not to continue with this product line and focuses on, say, a range of QD-OLED displays, we’d suggest waiting and throwing your (bags of) money at those.