Samsung Smart Monitor M9 (M90SF): 32-inch "smart" OLED monitor

Samsung's Smart monitors combine, in essence, two products: computer desktop monitors with "smart" TVs equipped with a Smart shell, online services, etc. This is a great idea for users who need a TV with such functionality, but can only put it on a desktop. One of such monitors is the Samsung Smart Monitor M9 (LS32FM902SIXUA) – a 32-inch QD-OLED monitor with the One UI Tizen operating system.

Specifications

Design

The monitor has a thin, elegant body that combines metal and gray plastic – the look is strict, but not "office", so it will fit well into almost any interior.

Unlike other OLED monitors, in which manufacturers make the thinnest possible body around the edges of the screen, and a large, heavy-looking block with electronics in the middle, in the case of the Samsung Smart Monitor M9 there is no such "skew": here the central block is relatively compact and small, while the body around it remains quite thin.

There is a black frame around the screen, and it is matte on the top and bottom: the webcam is located in the center of the upper part.

The leg is wide and flat, the base is very compact, as for a 32-inch model, and does not take up much space on the table. Adjustments include height adjustment (120 mm), tilt forward and backward (-2..25˚), and switching the screen to portrait mode.

All connectors are located in a small niche under the foot mounting point (the VESA-compatible mount is also hidden there) and are oriented horizontally: given the design of the foot and the slot for organizing connected cables almost opposite the connectors, this solution is convenient and at the same time "does not spoil the look".

There are three video inputs available here: DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.1 and USB Type-C. There is also a USB hub with 2 USB 2.0 ports. To the left of them is a 5-way joystick for menu navigation.

The power supply in the Samsung Smart Monitor M9 is external.

Remote control

The monitor also comes with a remote control. This is the SolarCell One Remote (model TM2360 E) that we are already familiar with from the company's latest TVs: a compact and thin remote control with a typical set of controls and their arrangement for a model of this size.

The SolarCell One Remote has a built-in microphone for voice control of the TV. Unfortunately, the proprietary voice assistant Bixby does not yet recognize the Ukrainian language, so you will have to control it in English.

The remote gets its name from the solar panel on the back of the case, which charges the built-in battery, and can also do so from room lighting. If you need to quickly recharge the remote, you can do so via the USB-C port.

Functionality

Like Samsung TVs, the Smart Monitor M9 runs on the Tizen operating system with the One UI interface. It is used on the company's smartphones, but last year Samsung began rolling it out to TVs – and Smart Monitors.

However, there are no fundamental differences from previous versions of Tizen, which we saw during testing of Samsung TVs in the past. The interface is also presented in the form of a compact sidebar with icon items: it can be "expanded" to see a text description of each item.

Here you can find search, sign in to your Samsung account, go to the home screen, and the relatively new Daily+ item: this is a selection of branded applications for daily tasks - SmartThings, fitness trainer, etc.

At the bottom of the main screen are the connected devices menu, privacy settings, and system settings — you can open them without leaving the current screen to the main menu using the "gear" button on the remote control.

When you turn on the computer, the monitor immediately displays the video signal from the last connected video input. You can go to Tizen using the Home button on the remote control, and return back through the preview window of the signal from the connected device on the main screen. In general, it can be noted that the Smart interface "does not impose itself", and if the user is not going to use it for some time, the Smart Monitor M9 will work as a regular desktop monitor.

The Smart Monitor M9 is powered by the NQM AI Gen3 processor, which is used in particular to scale low-resolution content, such as games or videos from streaming services, up to 4K . Like the company's Smart TVs, this monitor can also be used to control a smart home using the company's SmartThings application and cast your smartphone screen to the big screen.

Thanks to the presence of a USB hub and the fact that the USB Type-C connector supports charging of connected devices (90 W), the Smart Monitor M9 is very convenient to use with a laptop: through one cable it transmits a video signal, receives power and works with a keyboard and mouse connected to the monitor.

OLED panels are ideal for gaming due to their fast performance (the claimed response time is just 0.3ms GtG) , so it's no surprise that this monitor supports AMD FreeSync Premium Pro adaptive refresh rate technology and is compatible with NVIDIA G-Sync.

The clarity of dynamic scenes is almost perfect, objects moving quickly across the screen are practically not blurred. Together with the minimal response time, this makes the Smart Monitor M9 a great option for fast-paced online shooters, where instant reaction to what is happening in the game is required.

The developer notes the absence of screen flicker, which is very important in the case of an OLED panel – and indeed, while working with it, we did not experience any flickering even at the lowest brightness. HDR support is available – the monitor has a VESA DisplayHDR True Black 400 certificate.

Image quality

The Samsung Smart Monitor M9 (M90SF) uses a 32-inch 10-bit QD-OLED panel manufactured by Samsung Display. The aspect ratio is 16:9, the resolution is 3840×2160 (4K) . The pixel density is almost 138 PPI , the physical size of the dot is 0.1845 mm. The maximum refresh rate in normal operation is 120 Hz, when switching to game mode using the "Game – Game Mode" item in the settings, this parameter increases to 165 Hz (by the way, adaptive frequency technologies also work only in game mode).

The screen coating is semi-matte: when working at the monitor, its surface appears completely matte and does not have the slightest parasitic reflections, which begin to gradually appear when viewed almost from the side. This option is preferable because it does not have the "crystalline effect" characteristic of traditional matte (slight graininess of monochromatic areas of the image).

The subpixels in this QD-OLED panel are more densely packed than in previous generations of this technology, which results in a sharper image with better font quality compared to them.

Thanks to OLED technology, this monitor demonstrates a completely black color, which is no different from the monitor being turned off, and maximum viewing angles: in this regard, the OLED monitor also significantly surpasses the highest-quality IPS models – even when viewed from the side, the brightness and color saturation remain almost at the same level.

Traditionally for OLEDs, brightness dynamically changes according to how bright the current scene is. In the official specifications, the typical maximum brightness of this monitor is indicated at 250 cd/m² – quite standard for OLED monitors. In our tests, such indicators were in SDR mode.

In HDR, peak brightness increases significantly: depending on the size of the white rectangle on the black screen, it varied in the range from 450 cd/m² (2% white) to 260 cd/m² (100% white). Thanks to this, content looks much brighter and more impressive in HDR mode.

In the expert image settings, you can choose one of three color space options. True, they have a bit strange names: Local, Normal, and Custom. Judging by the tests, the first is the native color gamut of the panel without any restrictions, the second is the emulation of the DCI-P3 space, and the third is sRGB.

So, in "Native" the panel coverage completely covers sRGB and is 9.5 % Adobe RGB (98% DCI-P3). In Normal – 86% Adobe RGB (90% DCI-P3). And, finally, in "Custom" – 91% sRGB, 68% Adobe RGB, 68% DCI-P3.

In general, we would recommend leaving the manufacturer's default setting of "Local", which produces the most saturated and spectacular image, and in situations where calm, moderate colors are needed, switching to "User".

In the settings, you can choose a gamma from two options – "computer" 2.2 and "television" BT.1886. However, in the Smart Monitor M9 they actually turn out to be identical: in both cases, the real gamma perfectly corresponds to the standard 2.2.

The color temperature menu (called "Hue" in the image settings) has 5 templates – the "Temp.1" selected by the manufacturer turns out to be very close to the standard value (6500 K) , so you can leave nothing to be desired here either.

In the absence of additional backlighting, the uniformity of color temperature and white field across the entire screen plane is very high: in the first case, the maximum deviation ΔE is only 2.4, in the second – the maximum difference in brightness in different areas of the image does not exceed 2%.

Smart Monitor M9 undergoes factory calibration of the "Graphics" video mode – you can read the corresponding report in its settings. Our tests confirm this, the color accuracy is almost perfect: the maximum ΔE value is only 1.37, the average is 0.74. Recall that it is believed that the average user is unable to notice the difference between the reference color and what the monitor displays at ΔE 3.

In addition to "Graphics", the user has two more video modes available – "Eco" and "Entertain". The first differs little from "Graphics" (mainly in lower brightness), while the second offers image optimization for multimedia content. You can visually compare them in the following gallery.

From left to right: "Eco", "Entertain", "Graphics":