Samsung’s huge 55-inch curved Odyssey Ark monitor can turn portrait

Samsung has lifted the lid on something of a beast, and we’re almost certain you won’t have seen a monitor quite like this before. 

The company’s latest Odyssey-branded curved monitor – called the Odyssey Ark (presumably because it’s roughly the size of a large wooden ship) – features a 55-inch screen and can be rotated 90 degrees to use in portrait mode. Yes. Really. 

As is true of any wide curved monitor, in landscape, it’s designed to immerse you in your gaming, taking up your entire field of view to help you feel closer to the action. 

Samsung clearly doesn’t just see it as a gaming monitor, however, with portrait mode offered to give you a large surface area for multitasking. 

Looking at some live images from CES, shared by Tim Schofield on Twitter, you can see the monitor towers over the user and can comfortably fit in three on screen windows stacked on top of each other. 

Here is a first look at the INSANE Odyssey Ark from @Samsung! This is a curved 55″ 4K Monitor with a 16:9 aspect ratio… Can do some serious gaming/multitasking on this! #ces #samsung pic.twitter.com/Y82hbeY9gg

— Tim Schofield (@qbking77) January 5, 2022

We can’t imagine using it in this orientation is very ergonomic, we’re getting a sore neck just looking at it.  

Unlike its other curved monitors, Samsung’s Odyssey Ark features a 16:9 aspect ratio (not an ultrawide 32:9 ratio) and features a Quantum Dot Mini LED display mounted on a height adjustable stand. 

Being 55-inches also means it needs lots of pixels to look even remotely sharp at such close proximity, and so Samsung put a 4K panel in it. 

The Samsung Odyssey Ark will be available to buy at some point in the second half of 2022, but we don’t know how much it’s going to cost. One suspects it will be incredibly expensive.