Samsung Series 9 S27B970D review

Ultra-high-resolution PC monitors aimed at professionals are few and far between, and ones with an attractive design are even rarer. Mac users are catered for by Apple’s Cinema display, but until now, anyone using Windows has had to choose between one or two models such as Hazro’s HZ27WC. Samsung looks set to change that with the Series 9, an incredibly stylish 2,560×1,440 monitor that comes pre-calibrated from the factory.

With a 27in, glass-fronted display, the Series 9 will look imposing on any desk. A tiny silver metal screen bezel adds a touch of class, as does the incredibly thin stand. It’s both height- and tilt-adjustable, giving it the edge over Apple’s Cinema Display, although you can’t swivel it to portrait mode. As the screen uses a Plane Line Switching (PLS) panel, which is Samsung’s variation on IPS technology, rather than TN, viewing angles are exceptional, so you should always be able to see what’s on-screen regardless of where you sit.

A set of LED-backlit, touch-sensitive controls are built into the circular base to maintain the stunningly clean design. The screen even manages to look gorgeous from behind, thanks to the black metal-effect finish devoid of inputs and connectors. Instead, Samsung has moved all connectivity to the base of the stand, helping keep cables out of view.

As well as dual-link DVI (necessary for the huge desktop resolution), there’s also one DisplayPort input and a single HDMI port, which supports the Mobile High Definition Link (MHL) standard. This means you can connect a mobile phone directly to the display for video output, while simultaneously charging it using the same cable. A two-port USB hub is another welcome inclusion, although we would have preferred USB3 at this price.

The Series 9 has a set of stereo speakers integrated into its stand, but with no audio output you won’t be able to plug headphones or a more capable set of dedicated speakers into the monitor. For everyday use, however, you may not have to – the display’s speakers were surprisingly capable during our audio tests, producing clear audio that was easily good enough for playing back YouTube videos. There was also some resemblance of bass, although the monitor’s built-in audio is still no real replacement for a dedicated set of speakers.

Even without the gorgeous design, the high-resolution display would set the Series 9 apart from the competition by itself. The massive 2,560×1,440 desktop resolution makes a huge difference to everyday tasks such as word processing and image editing, letting you view more detail than even a Full HD display can manage. Image quality is outstanding, too; using its own PLS technology and an LED backlight, Samsung has created a gorgeous panel that showed very few weak points in any of our image-quality tests.

In our tests, the backlight was almost completely uniform, with no signs of bleed, with superb levels of both brightness and contrast. Although the display’s glass cover might make light reflections a problem in brightly lit rooms or under fluorescent lighting, it also helps make blacks incredibly deep, to a level that other monitors simply can’t reproduce. Samsung quotes 5ms response times for the monitor, and we had no problems with visible ghosting when playing games.

Every Series 9 display is pre-calibrated before it leaves Samsung’s factory, and the monitor even comes supplied with its unique datasheet to let you know how it performed. It also re-calibrates itself every time you power it on, so the monitor can adjust its picture automatically depending on changing lighting conditions. Even after running our calibration tool, which takes into account ambient light levels, there was only a very minor shift in colours towards the warmer end of the spectrum. Samsung claims the monitor covers 100% of the sRGB colour spectrum, and while our Spyder4 calibration tool measured it at a slightly lower 99%, it’s still one of the most accurate displays we’ve seen.

You control the simple and easy-to-navigate on-screen display with the touch-sensitive buttons on the base of the stand. It has all the standard options you would expect from a premium display, including response time overdrive, gamma control, colour temperature control and dynamic contrast. However, many of these options are only available when using the standard mode – the calibrated and sRGB modes are locked.

Quite simply, the Series 9 is one of the best monitors we’ve ever had the pleasure to use. The brushed metal finish and clean design look gorgeous, picture quality is outstanding and the monitor has plenty of connectivity options. Build quality is a little questionable in some areas, with a little wobble when repositioning the display, and we would have liked to have seen some actual metal instead of metal effect plastic in places, but these are minor quibbles.

Naturally, this level of quality comes at a price, but when the main alternative (Apple’s Cinema Display) costs £100 more, Samsung’s screen even looks like good value. There are other, more basic monitors with the same resolution and similar picture quality, such as the £380 Hazro HZ27WC, but Hazro’s screen doesn’t have nearly as much flexibility when adjusting settings and does without the Samsung screen’s automatic calibration. If you want the best screen there is, this is it.