Today, we are taking a look at a G7 Pro – a touch-capable monitor by Osee with super high brightness, camera control, and touch-to-focus functionality.
About Osee
OSEE Technology was founded in China in 2001 and specializes in on-camera and production monitors as well as streaming accessories. And the Osee G7 Pro will be the first product from the company that we are reviewing here.
In the box
In the box, you get the monitor, 1m (3ft) USB-C cable, Allen key, dummy battery (this one might be just something we got with our pre-release unit), DC to d-tap cable, mini tilt head with a locking pin, as well as a user manual.
Build and Design
The monitor chassis is made from durable, lightweight aluminum and feels well-made. The monitor measures 17.5cm (7”) long and 11cm (4.3”) wide and is just over 2cm (1”) deep. It has ¼” 20 threads on the top and bottom, both with Arri locating pin holes (but sadly no ¼” 20 on any of the sides for vertical work.
On the left side, there is an SD slot for adding Luts and a 3.5mm headphone jack; the right side has no connections. On and bottom, there are some fan slots for cooling the monitor.
On the back, there is an on/off button, HDMI in/out as well as SD in/out, USB-C for camera control or power, DC-in, and an NP-F battery slot.
Performance
We tested several aspects related to the performance of the monitor:
Turn on time – In our test, the monitor was fairly quick to turn on at around 11 seconds and showed an image from our camera in about 13 seconds, which is about 2 seconds faster than the Atomos Shinobi 2 that we recently tested.
Brightness – While the official specs for the monitor are 3000 nits, we actually measured a maximum of over 3400lux, which is extremely impressive (well over twice that of the Shinobi 2) and more than most users will ever need when shooting outdoors, even in bright daylight. While the monitor doesn’t come with a hood, you can buy one from Osee if you really want one.
Outdoor test – larger and MUCH brighter than our Sony A7R V monitor
Viewing angles – In our test, viewing angles, both horizontal and vertical, as well as the colors, look great.
Heat and noise – At max brightness, the monitor does get a little warm, especially in the back, and the internal fan is audible in a quiet room from under 1 meter or so, although it mostly sounds like a low, constant hum that is not too disturbing.
Battery life – in our testing, we got between 3-6h with a 50Wh V-mount battery, depending on the brightness.
Menus
The menu and control system on the G7 Pro is quite extensive, and we will only cover the main features.
One click on the screen will bring in the menus (and make them disappear). On top, you can choose the source, Lot, and user profile, and see the battery status and other info on the monitor.
A slide on the left side of the monitor increases/decreases the brightness, and on the right side increases/decreases the volume of the monitor if headphones or speakers are connected.
At the bottom of the monitor is where most of the action is. Going from the right, you have all the settings of the monitor, including several options to rotate the monitor display, which does have a sensor for upside-down mounting, but not for vertical mode.
Next, we have the option to save up to 8 user-configurable profiles. This is cool and super easy to do. Just tap on the plus on the myset page and then on the plus icon in the bottom part of the screen, and choose any of the 16 tools and make different settings for different use cases, and flip between them with a left/right swipe.
Changing the settings on each tool requires a to swipe up from the tool’s icon, you can then choose the next tool to set up or swipe down to close the settings.
The monitor does have touch-to-zoom functionality, but it is quite poorly implemented. Double tap doesn’t go all the way in, and it always zooms to the center of the frame. Zooming out takes a lot of time. We shared this criticism with Osee and discussed how this will be fixed in a future firmware.
Osee G7 Pro settings menu
Camera Control
The G7 Pro has basic control of many cameras using USB-C. On our A7 IV, we can control the WB, ISO, Aperture, shutter speeds, start/stop record, and the highlight–touch to focus.
We also tried this with our Sony A1 and A7R V, however, only the record/stop option seemed to work. We would definitely like to see more cameras added to the support list soon.
When it comes to the focus, the touch to focus did work with our A7 IV, although it was not as responsive as touching the camera monitor and had some issues in a couple of AF modes and for us it worked best at expend mode, although not perfectly and it still seem to require some refinement.
Camera control screen on the G7 Pro (with the Sony A7 IV)
Conclusion
The Osee G7 Pro is an impressive 7” modern monitor. The screen is fantastic and extremely bright with great accuracy and viewing angles. It’s fast to respond with most of the popular tools and user-configurable pages at your fingertips.
The camera control is a nice addition and works fairly well on the Sony A7 IV, adding another degree of usefulness to the monitor.
There are some things that we would like to see improved, either in firmware or in the next versions. These include better magnifying options and usability, more cameras supported, and improved touch functionality.
It would be nice to see future versions with ¼” 20 on the side and vertical menu mode, built-in WIFI/BT for controlling cameras without a cable, as well as several physical buttons.
All in all, though, for the price, the Osee G7 Pro offers more than almost any other monitor on the market at the moment.
Update: We had a talk with Osee just as we were finishing this review, and there will soon be a new firmware update with more supported cameras, and we were promised that support for more cameras will continue to evolve.
Pricing
The Osee G7 Pro sells for $500.
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Iddo Genuth 
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