Samsung Smart Monitor M5 & M7 review: A smart idea

I feel like I’ve been asking for this for some time now. It just makes sense, right? With how smart everything is, and how many people are stepping away from terrestrial TV in favour of streaming services, a smart monitor just seems to make sense—especially if you live in a small apartment or dorm.

With that in mind, meet the Samsung Smart Monitor M5 and Smart Monitor M7, two brand new monitors from one of the biggest smart TV manufacturers in the world. On paper, it sounds like a killer combination: the portability and function of a monitor with the excellent smarts of Samsung’s Tizen operating system? Sign me up!

But, the truth is, reality is often a little less rosy than that.

What is it? 

That part is easy to explain. Samsung basically took their refined Tizen smart TV operating system and slapped them onto two different monitor screens. You’ve got the more affordable, and accessible M5 that tops out at Full HD, and the more expensive M7 which kicks resolution up to 4K.

It’s not just a small smart TV because there is no port for you to stick an antenna in. And it’s not just a monitor because it comes with a remote that you can use to control the smart TV OS. But if I’m being honest, all of that is just a technicality.

What matters is how it performs, and for a period of about a month, that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to find out. I spent most of my time with the 32” 4K Smart Monitor M7, but I’ve also had the chance to check out the smaller 27” Smart Monitor M5 that sits on my colleague Hanif’s desk.

And after this one month, I have to say that as a whole, I really like what they’ve done here. If the attempt was to combine the best parts of a TV with the best parts of a monitor, then I think Samsung has done it…for the most part.

The half that makes it a Smart TV

The most obvious difference between this and your typical monitor, is that this Smart Monitor comes with a remote. Depending on which model you get, you’ll get a slightly different remote, but functionally they’re identical. 

What I like most about having a remote for a regular monitor is that you can make all your display tweaks and settings without needing to fiddle around with tiny unmarked buttons below the display, or with a finicky joystick.

It also makes it really easy to switch between using it as a typical monitor and as a smart TV. Just hit the home button and you’ll be greeted with a small menu that’ll give you quick access to the preinstalled apps as well as any and all settings. Here, you can immediately switch to one of those apps without interrupting your workflow on your connected computer.

The remote also has pre-programmed buttons for Netflix and Amazon Prime Video that will bring you directly to each app, which is super convenient. This made switching between working and taking a quick Netflix lunch break happen at the touch of a button. Once I was done with my break, I could hop right back to HDMI and pick up where I left off. 

On top of that, the VA panel Samsung has bundled into the M5 and M7 monitors is more than good enough if you treat it like a small TV. Kick a little back from your usual “computer seating position” and I think you’ll have a great experience, especially on the larger M7 with the 4K panel. As a smart TV, I definitely prefer the larger screen on the M7, especially with that 4K resolution, compared to the Full HD M5 models. 

Colours and contrast looked great when I was watching content on Netflix. Though, the panel isn’t quite what I’d call state-of-the-art as it only has a max brightness of 250 nits (peak brightness was not listed). Surprisingly, it supports HDR10 (not HDR10+) which I always thought required at least 1000 nits of peak brightness.

Would I have liked a brighter panel? Yes, absolutely. But after a few weeks with this monitor, even in the brightly lit SoyaCincau offices, I didn’t really have an issue with watching smart TV content on it. 

What I particularly liked about the smart TV half of these monitors are their built-in speakers. I’m not sure about your experiences, but for me, built-in monitor speakers have always been terrible. They’re like there for the sake of being there. But on the Samsung M5 and Samsung M7 smart monitors, you get speakers that are much closer to the built-in speakers you’d find on a TV instead of a monitor.

To an audiophile, this probably won’t be very impressive, but I think that the built-in speakers on these monitors are more than enough to replace a pair of cheap sub-RM100 computer speakers. They’ve got a pretty full sound with plenty of volume (again, easily adjustable with the remote), and I think they sound way better than most laptop speakers out there. 

And, if you do have a proper audio setup you’d rather use, switching between audio outputs with the remote is also super easy. You can even set different audio output settings for when you’re using it as a smart TV and when you’re using it as a computer monitor so you won’t be in for any unwanted surprises when switching between the two.

You can even pair Bluetooth headphones or speakers to the monitor if you want to keep your desk clean, so the audio options here are honestly quite plentiful. The only people who wouldn’t be happy are those that want an RCA connection because neither the M5 nor M7 have those.

I think that as a smart TV, I wasn’t really left wanting much else from the Samsung Smart Monitor M7. It was about the right size, had great controls, good speakers and a nice interface. My issue with it comes from:

The half that makes it a monitor

For starters, the Samsung Smart Monitor M7 comes with an atrocious monitor stand. It’s small, short, and wobbles when you type with it on the table. On top of that, there’s barely any adjustability—the only thing it can do is tilt. Samsung, this is a monitor whose price tag starts in the four digits, couldn’t you give me at least some basic adjustment?

I’ll concede that the wobbling isn’t nearly as bad on the smaller 27” M5, but that’s about all the consolation I can give for this included stand. There is a silver lining: both the M5 and M7 will support stands with VESA mounts (100mm) so you can pick up a better third party stand.

Next, there’s the display. While I think it’s pretty good for viewing content like you would on a smart TV, this doesn’t seem to translate well when you’re using it as a monitor. When I use it as a smart TV from a viewing distance of about 130cm (just over 4ft), image quality looks fine. But, when I get closer while using it as a monitor (about 60cm, or just under 2ft) the poor viewing angles become much more apparent.

Colours start to warp in the corners of the display, and you also lose brightness when you turn your head or look at it at any angle but straight on. I’m not entirely sure if it’s something to do with my eyesight, but having used large monitors (IPS, OLED) before, I don’t remember having this same issue. I will note that this isn’t as big of an issue on the smaller Full HD 27” Smart Monitor M5, and I think that makes the smaller monitor better suited for computer/office use.

The monitor also doesn’t look well colour calibrated out of the box, and the picture mode presets are now limited to just Dynamic and Standard. And even then, switching between the two modes didn’t seem to do anything on my screen. You can dive into the settings and tweak the individual RGB tones in the colour temperature setting, so if you’re someone who wants something super accurate for colour work, you might want to have it calibrated before you use it.

Regarding ports, there’s good and bad news here. On the Smart Monitor M7, you’re getting three USB-A ports and one USB-C port. The USB-C port can be used for display, and charging (up to 65W), which means with the right cable you can hook up your computer to the monitor and use it as a hub as well, which is great. The M5 doesn’t come with USB-C and only has two USB-A ports. There are also two HDMI ports, one with ARC (for soundbars, etc).

However, you won’t find any DisplayPorts or Ethernet. The monitor also doesn’t support fast refresh rates (topping out at 60Hz), and there’s no mention of G-SYNC or FreeSync support either. 

That being said, one aspect which it edges out most standard monitors has to be the wireless connectivity. As I mentioned earlier, you can connect Bluetooth speakers to the smart monitors for audio, but you can also connect Bluetooth peripherals and use it to interface with the monitor too. You can even wirelessly cast stuff via Miracast or Apple AirPlay which is always handy. There’s even the PC on Screen function that lets you work on a computer remotely directly on the monitor itself.

Samsung’s Smart Monitors also benefit Samsung users with its support for wireless DeX, but in our experience, the connectivity process was a little more finnicky than it should have been—we had to disconnect the monitor from our WiFi connection before it would connect to DeX. But for non-Samsung users, this shouldn’t affect you.

Splitting the difference

After my month with Samsung’s new smart monitors, I found that they perform much better as small smart TVs than they do as monitors, especially the larger 32″ Smart Monitor M7. Or maybe as monitors for creatives like me who need good colour accuracy and prioritise image quality as well as good viewing angles. I don’t think they’d be good enough for PC gamers either, with the lack of DP and fast refresh rate options.

But, I don’t think it would be fair to call it a bad product. I can see what Samsung is going for here, and it’s the kind of hybrid product I was asking for not that long ago. And I can also understand that it’s not easy to make a good hybrid product, especially one that is to be sold at a reasonable price point.

And yes, I don’t think that these monitors are overly expensive. Searching online, what I found is that comparable monitors—both in size and features—weren’t a whole lot cheaper than Samsung’s Smart Monitors. The 27” Smart Monitor M5 we have is priced at RM1,288 (Lazada, Shopee) while the 32” Smart Monitor M7 is priced at RM1,999 (Lazada, Shopee).

From my research, this makes them at about RM200-RM300 more expensive than a standard monitor. So, if you wanted to build a similar setup with a regular monitor and something like a Mi Box or Mi TV stick, the price should work out to be about the same. But you don’t get the slim, well-built, all-in-one chassis you get with Samsung’s Smart Monitors.

That said, is this product a necessity? No, I wouldn’t say that. After all, you can access all the most popular streaming services and more with your computer browser—so functionally, this kind of Smart Monitor doesn’t really add much.

What it does bring is convenience and refinement thanks to the included remote and Tizen OS. It felt great to just grab the remote, kick back on the couch after work and watch some content. Well, that and the solid built-in speakers. 

Though, if you were going to pick one up, I’d recommend one of the Full HD Smart Monitor M5 models instead. I think the lower price point and practically identical functionality makes it a far more prudent choice. Yes, the 4K resolution is nice to have, but I don’t think resolution alone is enough to make up the price difference—especially when the rest of the panel is pretty much identical.

Photography by Hanif Azrai with the Sony A7 III.