Samsung 32-inch Smart Monitor M9 review: Who needs a television?

Note: This review was first published on 30 January 2026.

I recently purchased a new TV to replace an old one. It sits in the living room, gets switched on most nights (Netflix’s Single’s Inferno Season 5, hello!), and does exactly what it’s meant to do. But despite that, a surprising amount of what I watch doesn’t actually happen there. YouTube clips, gaming, and background shows during late-night work – all of that tends to happen at my desk. Which is where Samsung’s 32-inch Smart Monitor M9 starts to make a lot more sense than I initially expected.

Smart monitors have been around long enough that this category should feel settled by now, yet it hasn’t been. Most either leaned too far into being “a TV on a desk” or ended up as monitors with underwhelming smart features bolted on as an afterthought. It’s also a category that Samsung seems to be very invested in for a while, and their S$2,488 Smart Monitor M9 feels like it has finally hit the spot.

Out of the box

Visually, the M9 looks, well, pretty much like a monitor and that’s a good thing. It doesn’t try to pretend to be TV, nor does it chase the aggressive styling of gaming monitors that we have seen from ROG and Alienware. The bezels here are slim, the rear panel is clean, and the stand is more solid than what you’ll find on Samsung’s cheaper smart monitors. It’s wide, stable, and offers height adjustment and tilt, which is great if you’re the sort who uses your screens for long stretches of work before leaning back to watch something later in the evening.

That said, I found it strange that the stand has no swivel and is mildly annoying when you shift your seating position or tweak your desk layout. Sure, not many of us rotate our monitor screens often and this can be mitigated if you attach the display to a monitor arm. It’s not a deal-breaker for sure, but it’s also rare for a flagship monitor to skimp on this feature.

Setup is straightforward on the hardware side as you would expect from a monitor, but it’s the software side where Samsung still insists on doing things its way – and not always for the better. For one, you’ll need a Samsung account to access the smart features, including streaming apps. If you already tied to a Samsung product like a Galaxy Fold or TV, then this is a very familiar process. For those of us who aren’t, this will feel like an unnecessary hoop to jump through on a premium monitor.

Once you’re past that, the experience becomes very familiar very quickly. The M9 runs on Samsung’s own Tizen OS, and its interface is very similar to the one on a Samsung TV. Apps also load quickly, navigation is smooth, and the included minimalist remote does most of the work. That remote is a big part of why the M9 works as well as it does as an entertainment screen. Using it from a short distance feels natural, and more than once I caught myself defaulting to the M9 for casual viewing even though the living room TV was just a few feet away.

Samsung TV Plus is built in as well, offering a range of free channels. I didn’t spend much time there, but it reinforces the idea that Samsung wants this to function as a standalone entertainment device, not just something tethered permanently to a PC. If you choose to, that is.

Connectivity is adequate, but not generous. You get HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 1.4, a USB-C port with 90W power delivery, and two USB-A ports. That’s enough for a laptop-centric setup, but creators may find it limiting. There’s no SD card reader, no Ethernet port, and wireless connectivity sticks to Wi-Fi 5. None of this stopped me from using the monitor day to day, but at this price point, it does feel like Samsung could have been more imaginative or ambitious with it.

OLED is still king

The real draw of the Smart Monitor M9 is its panel. This is Samsung’s first smart monitor to use an OLED display, and that sounds a bit odd to say since OLED is already common in TVs and gaming monitors. But watching movies and TV shows on the M9 is genuinely enjoyable. Blacks are deep, contrast is fantastic, and HDR content has enough punch to give scenes enough depth. One thing that surprised me was how good streaming content looked through the built-in apps compared to watching the same movie or TV show on Chrome browser on my Windows PC.

Colours look rich and pleasing too, though I would recommend calibrating the M9’s display if you’re doing colour-critical work. As far as I can tell, the M9 is certainly capable of handling creative tasks, but it feels tuned primarily for entertainment out of the box.

Then there’s the price. As a reminder, Samsung is selling this 32-inch smart monitor for S$2,488, placing it as one of the, if not the most expensive models in this category. If you do not need the smart features then there are certainly other “smarter” (pun intended) choices out there. A high-end OLED gaming monitor from Samsung’s own excellent 32-inch gaming-centric Odyssey OLED G8 is going for S$1,578 and uses a superior QD-OLED panel, and even some very competent TVs can be found for the same price range too. Discounts will almost certainly make it easier to justify, and that’s when the M9 feels more like a sensible purchase.

Final thoughts

The Samsung Smart Monitor M9 isn’t a replacement for a TV in the traditional sense, and Samsung doesn’t really pretend it is. But for those of us who spend most of the day at a desk – especially if you’re working remotely – and still end up watching content there after hours, the M9 makes a strong case for shifting some of that viewing away from the living room. I still used my TV, but it quietly became the more occasional screen in my day-to-day routine.

That makes the Smart Monitor M9 an easy recommendation. Samsung has done a convincing job here of showing what a smart monitor can be when it’s properly thought through – just don’t buy it at full price.

The Samsung Smart Monitor M9 has an MSRP of S$2,488. Get it at Samsung’s web store.