Meet Maggie, PCMag'sThe Samsung Smart Monitor M9 ($1,599 list) is the most impressive smart monitor we’ve tested—an unusually capable screen that pulls double duty as both a premium computer display and a full-fledged smart TV. This jack-of-all-trades device, which packs a beautiful 32-inch 4K OLED screen, rolls three different functions into one panel: a productivity monitor, a TV and streaming platform, and a gaming console. It does well enough in each of these roles to earn our Editors' Choice award as a high-end smart monitor—to be sure, you'll pay a premium for all its attributes. But if you'll benefit from most or all of them, check it out. It's the best of its kind.
Clad in a handsome silvery-aluminum chassis, the Samsung M9 measures 23.7 by 28.2 by 7.8 inches (HWD) and is relatively lightweight for its size, at 8.4 pounds. The monitor features a 32-inch flat panel (measured diagonally) with a UHD, aka 4K, native resolution of 3,840 by 2,160 pixels. A display with those specs has a pixel density of about 138 pixels per inch (ppi), more than enough for editing photos and intricate illustrations. The panel employs quantum dot OLED (QD-OLED) technology, noted for the richness of its colors, even compared with standard OLED.
The M9 offers wide viewing angles of up to 178 degrees in both vertical and horizontal directions, according to Samsung. I noticed almost no degradation in brightness or color fidelity, even at extreme off-axis angles. Also notable: The matte screen is virtually glare-free, devoid of obvious reflections.
The stand consists of a wide, flat shaft (a rectangular sheet of aluminum) that slides into and extends upward from a sturdy rectangular base that sits mostly in front of the monitor; I think of the base as a foot. In the shaft, you'll find a small oval hole through which you can snake cables.
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You can adjust the height of the M9's screen by up to 4.7 inches, tilt the top of the monitor up to 2 degrees toward the user and up to 25 degrees away, and pivot the panel between landscape and portrait modes. (Note that to pivot the monitor, it must be extended to its full height and tilted all the way back for the monitor's corner to clear your desk.) The M9 does lack swivel control, though. An array of holes spaced 100mm apart allows for VESA wall or arm mounting.
The M9's ports are arrayed in a line at the back of the monitor. Inputs include one each of DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0, and USB Type-C, the latter supplying up to 90 watts of power delivery. (With the M9, you can transfer data, video, and power over a single USB cable.) The display also offers two downstream USB Type-A ports, both of them USB 2.0. Port selection is a little sparse if you're looking at the M9 as a productivity monitor; we would have liked to see at least one USB 3.0 Type-A port.
The ports are not ideally placed: outward-facing in back, behind the wide shaft. You can access them more easily by tilting and/or pivoting the chassis, though pivoting can be dicey if you already have cables snaked through the hole in the shaft.
In the center of the top bezel is a circle that delineates the lens for the 5-megapixel, 4K webcam. By default, the camera captures an ultra-wide view, which makes the person on video appear relatively small in the teleconference view. You can adjust this in the camera app.
Built into the M9 are two 5-watt speakers with surprisingly impactful audio quality for monitor speakers, at least at lower volumes. The monitor lacks an audio-out jack.
To minimize screen tearing and stutter, the M9 pushes its panel at up to a 165Hz refresh rate, supports Nvidia G-Sync and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, and has a 0.03ms response time (according to Samsung). All of that gives the M9 some gaming chops and makes for a smooth video-watching experience. The display also integrates Samsung Gaming Hub, so you can use it as a gaming platform all by itself, independent of a PC or an attached gaming console.
The M9 also features Xbox Game Pass cloud streaming; you just need to supply the Bluetooth game controller. What's more, the M9 supports Samsung's remote-activated Game Bar on-screen overlay, which can display input lag, FPS, HDR status, and variable refresh rate (VRR) information. It also adds a virtual aim point and a dynamic black equalizer.
The M9 can be used independently of a computer as a smart TV, a streaming platform, and a gaming hub. To this end, it runs the company's Tizen operating system and comes with what appears to be a simplified TV remote control. On the underside of the remote is a window that reveals a built-in solar cell, so it can charge itself when you leave it face down.
After setting up an account with Samsung—using the remote to enter my info—I could access the full range of free, ad-supported content from Samsung TV Plus. It includes several hundred channels featuring news, sports, movies, and child-friendly content.
In addition, the M9 supports streaming apps such as Netflix, YouTube, Prime Video, Hulu, and HBO Max; I logged into my Disney+ account and streamed content from there.
From the SmartThings hub, you can connect and control smart-home devices. The OS supports the aforementioned Samsung Gaming Hub and even Microsoft 365.
At first, using the remote felt daunting, given the sheer amount of content that the M9 offers, but I quickly got the hang of it. Navigation was smooth, and the OS proved responsive.
The M9 is the successor to Samsung's Smart Monitor M8, a similar 32-inch 4K device, though that panel uses Vertical Alignment (VA) technology and lacks some of the M9's features. It also costs a lot less; at $699, it's less than half the list price of the M9.
Our current Editors' Choice-award-winning smart monitor is the MSI Modern MD272UPSW, a 27-inch IPS panel that uses Google TV and, as of this writing, costs a far cheaper $299.99 at retail. Think of it as a budget, coach-car alternative to the M9's Orient Express experience. The LG MyView Smart Monitor (32SR85U) packs a 32-inch IPS screen and uses LG's WebOS, which was a bit sluggish in my testing.
I tested the Samsung M9's brightness, contrast ratio, and color gamut coverage using our standard test gear: a Klein K-10A colorimeter, a Murideo SIX-G 8K test pattern generator, and Portrait Displays' Calman for Business calibration software.
Samsung lists the M9's typical brightness at 250 nits (candelas per meter squared), and it hit that in my testing, on the button. The M9 supports HDR10 and HDR10+, and it is rated as VESA DisplayHDR True Black 400. I measured its average HDR luminance at 357 nits, a little short of what we'd expect from a panel with its VESA rating but still within the acceptable range. Peak HDR brightness, meanwhile, was superb, in the 900-nit range. (We measure sustained HDR brightness at a 10% window size, but to measure peak brightness, we drop the test size down to 2%.)
OLED monitors tend to have lower rated and tested SDR brightness than their IPS counterparts (in part, lower brightness helps to forestall burn-in), but thanks to OLED's vivid colors and magnificent contrast, the M9's brightness may only be an issue when using it outdoors or in a room flooded with ambient light.
As for contrast ratio, Samsung rates the M9 at a gaudy 1,000,000:1. Contrast ratio represents the difference between a display's brightest white and darkest black; since an OLED screen can simply turn blocks of pixels off—creating true black areas—these monitors should have, theoretically, an infinite contrast ratio. In testing, the reading I got was a wild 239,000,000,000:1, likely down the limits of the testing software. Suffice it to say that the M9 does a standup job in rendering detail in both bright and dark areas.
Samsung claims 99% coverage in the sRGB color space for the M9. In our testing, it covered the full sRGB gamut, 151% of the color space when measured by area.
Readings above 100% indicate vivid colors, yet the M9 avoids the oversaturated look that often befalls panels with such high coverage. In addition to sRGB, we test coverage in the DCI-P3 and Adobe RGB spaces, for which Samsung does not provide ratings. The M9 offers nearly complete coverage of these: 98.7% and 98.3%, respectively.
In my experiential testing, the M9 delivered exemplary image quality across our photo test suite and selected video clips. In both cases, colors were rich though not oversaturated, and detail was well resolved in both bright and dark areas. Like on most OLED monitors, overall image brightness in doing our SDR testing was somewhat modest compared with typical IPS monitors (including the laptop from which I ran the tests). Thanks to the M9's superior contrast and vibrant colors, though, this did not detract at all from my viewing experience. We can let in substantial ambient light in the space we use for monitor testing, and even when we did, it was an eye-opener.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Samsung Smart Monitor M9 (M90SF)
- 5.0 - Exemplary: Near perfection, ground-breaking
- 4.5 - Outstanding: Best in class, acts as a benchmark for measuring competitors
- 4.0 - Excellent: A performance, feature, or value leader in its class, with few shortfalls
- 3.5 - Good: Does what the product should do, and does so better than many competitors
- 3.0 - Average: Does what the product should do, and sits in the middle of the pack
- 2.5 - Fair: We have some reservations, buy with caution
- 2.0 - Subpar: We do not recommend, buy with extreme caution
- 1.5 - Poor: Do not buy this product
- 1.0 - Dismal: Don't even think about buying this product
Read Our Editorial Mission Statement and Testing Methodologies.
With the M9, Samsung has produced a smart-monitor powerhouse that's equal parts productivity display, entertainment hub, and gaming panel and platform. These functions are well integrated, and each component performs reasonably well. The centerpiece is, of course, the 32-inch 4K QD-OLED panel, which substantially jacks up the product's price. In comparison, the M9's predecessor, the Smart Monitor M8, offers many of the M9's features, but at less than half its price.
The M9, in fact, is at the high end of the price range for a 32-inch OLED monitor, retailing at the same price as the Editors' Choice-winning Asus ROG Swift OLED PG32UCDM gaming monitor. That said, the M9 offers plenty that the otherwise exceptional Asus lacks: an operating system, accessible content, and other smart features. They're just different animals.
Among the smart monitors we have tested, the MSI Modern MD272UPSW mentioned earlier uses the Google TV interface, which runs on top of its Android TV operating system. Far less expensive than the M9, the Modern has a smaller (27-inch) screen, and it's a standard IPS panel.
Another alternative for some users is one of today's many smart TVs, which have larger screens and are primarily for entertainment. They generally lack the USB power delivery and productivity apps that smart monitors provide. (See our guide to them at the preceding link.)
If you're looking for a desktop-monitor-size panel, not a TV-size one, though, the M9 best integrates productivity, smart-TV, and gaming traits, and does it putting a beautiful OLED screen before your eyes. For many users, that will be well worth the premium.
SHOULD I UPGRADE?
A relatively inexpensive smart monitor like the Samsung M8, the MSI MD272UPSW, or LG MyView Smart Monitor (32SR85U) is enough for most people. But if you have the cash to spare and you are drawn to the M9's 4K OLED screen (plus its productivity, gaming, and smart entertainment functionality), by all means, go for it.
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About Our Expert
Since 2004, I have worked on PCMag’s hardware team, covering at various times printers, scanners, projectors, storage, and monitors. I currently focus my efforts on 3D printers, pro and productivity displays, and drives and SSDs of all sorts.
Over the years, I have reviewed smart telescopes, iPad and iPhone science apps, plus the occasional camera, laptop, keyboard, and mouse. I've also written a host of articles about astronomy, space science, travel photography, and astrophotography for PCMag and its past and present sibling publications (among them, Mashable and ExtremeTech), as well as for the former PCMag Digital Edition.
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