Samsung’s new 99% DCI-P3 5K monitor might be ideal for photo pros

Samsung 5k monitor landscape orientation

For graphic designers and photo editing professionals, Samsung’s new ViewFinity s9 27-inch 5K display might be a handy professional tool

The new monitor has been designed with creative professionals firmly in mind according to Samsung and is especially well-suited for photographers and graphic designers.

This new ViewFinity edition might just be one of the best non-Apple offerings out there for anyone who for whatever reason can’t buy an Apple Studio Display.

The ViewFinity S9 is Samsung’s rather abruptly unveiled successor to its S8, which was released only a few months ago in June of 2022.

The previous model was also designed with creatives in mind and Samsung claimed that it could faithfully reproduce 98% of the DCI-P3 color spectrum on its matte display. However, it only delivers a 4K resolution.

The S9 edition on the other hand takes sharpness up to 5,120 x 2880 pixels and while Samsung was busy adding this extra resolution, it also bumped up the DCI-P3 gamut coverage to 99% according to the company’s claims.

The monitor also delivers a Delta E of less than 2. This is important because Delta E is an essential all-around measure of display color accuracy that scales from 0 (for perfect color accuracy) to 100 (total color distortion). An accuracy of 2 is indeed excellent.

With these and other specs in the ViewFinity S9 5K, Samsung claims that the monitor delivers superbly crisp detail rendering and color even “in complicated or nuanced visual environments.”

In other words, it’s superb for photo editing. Its matte display is also designed to minimize glare and visual distractions during workflows.

Another feature of the ViewFinity S9 is its integrated Color Calibration Engine for consistently ensuring precision color and brightness. The engine lets users of the monitor fine-tune key settings such as white balance, RGB color balance, Gamma and others with “perfect accuracy.”

The Color Calibration Engine can do this through a user’s smartphone through the Samsung Smart Calibration app.

The S9 monitor comes with powerful connectivity options too. It features USB.C and Thunderbolt 4 ports for rapidly transferring even massive visual files and archives.

Additionally, Samsung outfitted the monitor with plenty of professional video conferencing technology thanks to its 4K SlimFit camera and compatibility with conferencing apps like Google Meet.

For relaxing after a long run of editing work, the S9 also comes with Samsung’s Tizen TV OS platform built into it, letting you access the same content apps that a smart TV from the brand offers. This OS platform is accessible even if the monitor isn’t connected to a PC or other device.

One slight downside of the ViewFinity S9 5K edition is its single display size option of 27 inches. The predecessor 4K S8 comes in both 27 and 32-inch versions. This might change after release though.

Samsung hasn’t yet stated when the ViewFinity S9 5K will go on sale or at what price, but we’re assuming that it’s going to cost less than the equally-sized and possibly even better $1,969 Apple Studio Display.