Given its high cost, there’s a good chance you’ll want to do more than just play with the Ark. This display is large enough to accommodate multiple cases at once with ease. Based on the standard picture-in-picture (PIP) feature offered by many TVs and some monitors, Ark includes powerful display manipulation settings that let you go from basic (stack four windows, two by two) to more advanced (set one input to be 32:9, with a traditional 16:9 input above it). The features, while not endlessly configurable, seem ripe for some interesting use cases if you’re the type who likes to tweak settings. And that’s before you turn the Ark on its side into cockpit mode. To do this, you have to tilt the screen up, raise it to the highest setting its large, minimalist, height-adjustable stand allows, and then rotate it 90 degrees counterclockwise. I was worried it would be a two person job, but I managed to do it myself without too much trouble. What’s nice is that rotating the screen will automatically rotate your source image as well. With the Box oriented like this, you can display up to three displays stacked vertically, or stretch one from top to bottom if your game supports it. In cockpit mode, it looks like the ark is a wave about to crash over you. Samsung’s Owen Sexton told me during the demo that the Ark is also wall mountable and will include a VESA mount. In cockpit mode, it looks a bit like the Ark is a wave about to crash over you. Although Samsung promoted the Ark for its appearance in cockpit mode, I preferred the game in landscape mode with a single source taking up the entire screen. Using the multi-view mode is great, although in either portrait or landscape mode, the curvature of the screen can cause every part of the screen to take on a slight keystone effect, where certain corners look off. This might break the immersion for gaming, but should be fine for other tasks. If I were using the Ark for work, I’d probably prefer to use it in cockpit mode. Similar to the idea behind the LG DualUp’s 16:18 aspect ratio, it’s easier to quickly see multiple windows by simply moving my head up and down instead of side to side like I have to do with multiple screens or ultrawide screen. Samsung includes two remotes with the Ark, one is a standard remote to handle basic functions and another more involved option called the Ark dial. It’s a standalone command center that puts the main Ark functions (power, volume, input selection, and game bar) into large buttons. There is a rotary dial and a directional pad inside it for quicker adjustment of settings. There’s even a solar panel for recharging, so you never have to plug it in. I should note that neither remote seemed to make navigating the myriad of on-screen menus and settings elegant. There’s a definite learning curve to finding the settings you’re looking for, and a lot of my demo was just trying – and sometimes failing – to go where I wanted. The Ark’s dial remote means you never have to fiddle with a joystick on the screen itself to adjust settings. The Ark, like Samsung’s other flagship gaming monitors, is an amalgamation of the best of panel TV technology with features that gamers with deep pockets will likely enjoy, such as HDR, VRR and four HDMI 2.1 ports (although, curiously, there’s DisplayPort). . It features Samsung’s Quantum Mini LED backlight that it claims is capable of up to 1,500 nits at peak brightness, and the company claims it’s the first 55-inch 4K panel to support a 165Hz refresh rate. The Ark combines some of Samsung’s best TV panel technologies with gamer-specific features like VRR This screen has a 1000R curve, and it’s both strange and nice to see the curve return for a panel that looks so much like a TV. The curve scoop isn’t as deep as the Odyssey Neo G9’s 1800R curve (to each their own, but I think 1000R is the sweet spot in terms of being able to easily see everything on the screen without peripheral detail falling through aside) . In my short time with the Ark, playing games like Doom Eternal and Forza Horizon 5 seemed like pretty good showcases for how bright and fast this display can go. No complaints there. The 16:9 aspect ratio meant that the image didn’t show visual distortion around the edges, as we saw on Samsung’s 32:9 aspect ratio, Odyssey G9 and Neo G9. However, I wasn’t as surprised by the opposition to Microsoft’s Flight Simulator as I had hoped I would be. With the Ark’s curve and QLED display, I expected the immersion to pretty much suck. However, the fact that I didn’t feel that way could be due to a number of factors, such as the intense brightness of the room, the visual function of the Ark not being properly tuned for gaming, or perhaps the tuning on this prototype unit not being finished enough. . Ark provides an immersive gaming experience without the distortion you sometimes see on an ultra-widescreen. Overall, the Ark experience looks polished, but there were some other quirks in this prototype. When a Samsung representative was walking me through the image resizing features, some pop-ups wouldn’t go away. The team said this was a known issue before the release. Also, a piece of the top bezel didn’t want to stay seated, leaving a trail of backlight peeking out. When I pressed down on the bezel, the light leakage disappeared, but returned shortly after release. Maybe it’s a glue issue or another problem. Hopefully this isn’t in the shipping units. The Ark seems like a familiar quantity on its face, but there is something about it that is unique. It packs impressive gaming monitor specs into a design that is, in every way except the base, an old curved TV. Given that it has some nifty features like cloud game streaming and smart TV apps, the Ark could be perfect for someone who wants to do it all — both in terms of size and the $3,499.99 cost. $. I’m almost more excited about the idea that it’s a sign that some of these features could be coming to cheaper Samsung gaming monitors in the near future. Photo by Cameron Faulkner/The Verge
