Samsung's glasses-free 3D monitor is coming this year, but one key detail is missing

Samsung first teased its glasses-free Odyssey 3D gaming monitor at CES 2024 , and as of Wednesday, we have an official release window for it.

On Wednesday at Gamescom, a massive video game and computing event held in Cologne, Germany, Samsung announced that the Odyssey 3D monitor and updated Odyssey OLED models "will be available globally, including in North America, Europe and Australia, within this year."

Although we haven't had a chance to test this particular monitor yet, we tried a similar model from Acer at Computex earlier this summer, and it impressed us . Who knew a solid, glasses-free 3D experience was so close to our future? Samsung generally makes some fantastic gaming monitors, so we're hopeful this one will live up to the hype once it launches.

In the announcement, Samsung discusses almost every detail imaginable for the Odyssey 3D monitor but conveniently leaves out one major element: its price.

What we know about the Odyssey 3D gaming monitor

According to Samsung, the Odyssey 3D monitor's light field display (LFD) tech is able to create "lifelike 3D images from 2D content using a lenticular lens on the front panel." With this tech, Eye Tracking tech that uses a built-in stereo camera, and View Mapping tech to "continuously [adjust] the image to enhance depth perception," the result is a 3D experience that doesn't require 3D glasses to enjoy.

Because you likely don't want to stay in 3D mode for all tasks, like school- or work-related tasks, Samsung built in the ability to switch between 2D and 3D modes. The monitor will also come with a Height Adjustment Stand (HAS) and tilt capabilities, so you can ergonomically adjust the monitor to the perfect height and angle for you.

Samsung also notes the monitor will feature a 4K resolution, a 1ms gray-to-gray response time, a smooth refresh rate of 165Hz, FreeSync Premium, one DisplayPort 1.4, two HDMI 2.1 ports, and two sizes to choose from: 27" and 37".

We even learned that the monitor earned a Best of CES Innovation award at CES 2024, but Samsung noticeably left out the Odyssey 3D's starting price in the announcement.

Samsung's monitors are generally high-quality, but they're often quite expensive, so it's worrisome that no price was included in the Odyssey 3D announcement.

Many of Samsung's existing Odyssey gaming monitors are over or just under $1,000, and the aforementioned Predator SpatialLabs View 27-inch Gaming Monitor that we tried at Computex is $2,000 , so we can set our expectations in that neighborhood. This is a new tech we're talking about, and that usually indicates a premium for at least a few years until it's more widespread.

Here's hoping Samsung has kept costs down on this one, because glasses-free 3D looks pretty epic, and it would be great to see it widely adopted.

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