Samsung ViewFinity S8 (S80UD): what a modern 27-inch 4K monitor has to offer for work

When choosing a monitor for work, many users prefer relatively small diagonals (and if they need a large image area, they buy two monitors). At the same time, the resolution should be high enough – pixel density and the ability to fit as much information on the screen as possible are very important for work tasks. Our today’s “guest” meets these requirements: 27-inch Samsung ViewFinity S8 (S80UD) with 4K resolution.

Samsung ViewFinity S8 specifications

Design

The Samsung ViewFinity S8 looks like a traditional model for work: practical black matte plastic, a thin body, and a complete lack of not only backlighting, but even bright design elements that would distract the user.

The screen is made in the traditional bezel-less design: when turned off, it is framed only by a thin line of the body on the sides and top and a panel on the bottom. After switching on, an additional frame around the image becomes visible, hiding under a protective “glass” – along with the plastic of the body, the screen is surrounded by a 9 mm wide frame on the sides and top.

The stand is fully functional, allowing you to rotate the screen left-to-right (+30°~-30°), tilt it forward and backward (+25°~-2°), adjust the height (0-120 mm), and switch the monitor to portrait mode. The bottom of the leg has a soft loop for organizing connected cables.

The base of the leg is metal, very thin and relatively small in size, so it won’t take up much space on your desk.

The monitor has three video connectors: DisplayPort 1.2, HDMI 2.0, and USB Type-C, located at the bottom of the case and oriented downward. There is also a USB hub input: 3 USB 3.0 ports, as well as an Ethernet port and a headphone jack, can be found on the side to the user’s right. This arrangement makes it easy to quickly connect peripherals.

Menu

Samsung ViewFinity S8 is controlled with a 5-way joystick located on the back of the case in the bottom center (above the plate with the manufacturer’s logo below the bottom edge of the screen).

In the main menu, the first item is Picture: it contains all the settings responsible for adjusting the picture – the video mode menu, brightness, contrast, color saturation, white balance, gamma, etc. In the next one, Eye Care, you can turn on the eye protection mode (reducing the proportion of blue in the backlight) and activate the Adaptive Picture option – it automatically adjusts the picture parameters to the environment thanks to the light sensor.

In the PIP/PBP menu, you can switch to the frame-to-frame mode and customize its behavior. OnScreen Display hides the settings of the on-screen menu – transparency, position on the screen, interface language, etc. By the way, Ukrainian localization is also available.

The System item contains all the system parameters: power saving mode, sound volume in the connected headphones, custom key settings (joystick deflection to the right), auto-switching to the signal source, etc. And in the last item, Support, you can find information about the product, resetting parameters to factory settings, updating the monitor firmware and its self-diagnostics.

Functionality

The Samsung ViewFinity S8 (LS27D804UAIXCI) uses a 27-inch IPS panel with an aspect ratio of 16:9 and a resolution of 3840×2160 pixels. The pixel density is just over 163 PPI, and the dot size is 0.1557 mm.

This combination of screen resolution and diagonal produces a high-quality, dense image that makes it very difficult to see individual pixels, even when viewed up close; from a typical distance, it is almost impossible to see them, even for users with very good eyesight.

In addition to a high-quality image with crisp text and smooth lettering, this resolution allows you to fit much more information on the screen compared to the much more common 1440p option on this diagonal – but you need good eyesight (or at least well-fitting glasses for working at the monitor).

The refresh rate of Samsung ViewFinity S8 is standard, 60 Hz: although modern graphics cards support 4K@120 Hz and higher video modes, unfortunately, there are few monitors with such characteristics, and the 4K@60 Hz option is still the most common among work models.

The brightness of this monitor is adjustable by changing the current, and PWM is not used throughout the entire brightness range, so there is no screen flicker.

The USB-C connector can be used not only for video transmission, but also for charging connected devices (90 W), so it is very convenient to use it in conjunction with a laptop.

The built-in KVM switch makes using the monitor to connect two different systems at the same time very convenient: Samsung ViewFinity S8 has not only a USB hub with 3 full-size USB 3.0, but also an Ethernet network port, so you can connect a keyboard and mouse set to it and use it to work on both systems, and the laptop, when connected via USB-C, will not only transmit video and charge, but also connect to the local network (which can be very convenient when Wi-Fi is not available at the workplace).

Samsung ViewFinity S8 is also equipped with a light sensor that can adjust the brightness and color temperature of the image according to the ambient light.

Samsung ViewFinity S8 image quality

The screen coating is semi-matte: when traditionally placed behind a monitor, it looks like a regular matte and does not suffer from parasitic reflections. When viewed from the side, the “matte” gradually disappears and the screen gradually becomes almost glossy when viewed almost in profile.

This solution significantly reduces the so-called crystal effect, which manifests itself as barely perceptible graininess in monochromatic areas of the image – you can only see the matte layer on a macro image of the panel.

The declared response time is typical for an IPS panel in a non-gaming monitor: 5 ms (GtG). Despite the fact that the monitor is designed for work, not gaming, it has a typical gaming function – matrix overdrive; the corresponding item, Response Time, can be found in the Picture item of the OSD menu.

Black uniformity is not bad, but at maximum brightness in a completely dark room, it draws attention to the fact that there is a slightly lighter area in the lower right part of the screen.

The glow effect is typical of IPS technology: when you look at the screen from the side and from above, a noticeable gray-purple glow appears near the black background.

The viewing angles are traditionally large for IPS: when viewed from the side, the screen loses some brightness and warms up, but the colors remain almost as saturated, and the overall image quality is practically unchanged. When viewed from above or below, the brightness decreases less, and the picture, on the contrary, cools slightly.

In the monitor’s settings, you can switch between video modes that are tailored to different scenarios: in the Picture Mode menu, you can find modes for working with graphics, for “entertainment,” for saving power, and even for games of various genres.

After turning on the monitor for the first time or after resetting the settings to factory defaults, the monitor operates in Eco mode, which, at least at first glance, differs minimally from Graphic mode – even the brightness is initially set to maximum and is not limited in any way.

First, let’s check the Original mode – from the name we can assume that all image optimizations are disabled. Despite the declared characteristics that indicate standard color coverage (99% sRGB), Samsung ViewFinity S8 actually has a slightly wider color coverage than standard: tests show full sRGB coverage, 84% Adobe RGB and 91% DCI-P3.

The officially stated minimum brightness (as much as 280 cd/m²), fortunately, is also not true: the brightness of this monitor at the color temperature offered by the manufacturer (Warm 1) is adjustable in the range of 80-370 cd/m². Yes, its minimum value is still quite high, but still not that high: with this brightness, you can work comfortably in a room with moderate lighting.

The Warm 1 color temperature preset, which is set automatically, turns out to be a bit cold, with a temperature value of 7200K. The closest to the standard 6500K was the Natural preset (6300K). It also has the highest values of brightness (400 cd/m², significantly higher than the officially declared one) and contrast – 880:1 (and here the real value falls short of the “passport” characteristics – 1000:1). Unfortunately, as we can see, the contrast is frankly low even for an IPS panel.

Samsung ViewFinity S8 has a gamma adjustment: these are not fixed presets with names that reflect the real value of this parameter, as in other monitors for work, but a slider on which you can select a position from -3 to +3. In reality, this allows you to change the gamma in the range from 2.5 to 1.9; the middle position, “0”, is exactly the standard value – 2.2, and it is reproduced with very high accuracy.

The color temperature uniformity is low: the maximum deviation in different areas of the screen ΔE is as much as 8.3; this difference can be noticeable even to an ordinary user who does not work with graphics. The white field uniformity is much better: the brightest area is the center of the screen, the darkest is the top and right parts, the difference in brightness between them is 7-11%; the rest of the screen has a deviation of 4-7%.

The manufacturer does not say anything about the factory calibration of the monitor, but it is clearly performed: the color accuracy of Samsung ViewFinity S8 is very high – the maximum ΔE value is only 1.34 (except for one color, which is out of the picture due to the peculiarities of the test colorimeter), the average is less than one. As a reminder, it is believed that the average user is not able to notice the difference between the reference color and the one displayed by the monitor if the ΔE does not exceed two or even three.

The monitor doesn’t have any color space emulation modes, so you can stay with the same Original mode for graphics work or switch to Graphic: it has the same gamut and color temperature values, with contrast above 800:1 across the entire brightness range, and even higher color accuracy – the average ΔE value is only 0.7.

Other video modes differ mainly in the initial color temperature, gamma, and various settings such as dynamic contrast or, as in Entertainment mode, turning off the panel backlight when the screen is completely covered with a black background. You can visually compare them in the following gallery.