What you need to know
- Alienware introduces a world-first with its new gaming monitor.
- This 34-inch curved monitor is the first Quantum Dot OLED gaming display.
- Slated to launch in March with pricing yet to be confirmed.
However good your gaming monitor is, Alienware just one-upped it at CES 2022. The AW3423DW has a predictably boring name, but the product itself is far from it. For this new goliath of gaming displays is the first Quantum Dot OLED monitor to be introduced.
Wowzers.
But what does all of that actually mean? Well, quite a lot. And while there's no pricing to discuss at this time ahead of a planned launch beginning in March, don't expect it to be particularly affordable, either.
So, why Quantum Dot, then? This snippet from Alienware gives a better summary than I ever could.
"Quantum Dot Display Technology enables a slim panel design and delivers a superior color performance with a higher peak luminance and greater color gamut range vs WOLED (White OLED) by taking the impressive qualities of OLED (such as true blacks & infinite contrast ratio) and enhances color performance by directly converting blue light into the primary colors of red and green through a Quantum Dot pixel layer. This results in higher color uniformity, wider color coverage, and increased brightness."
The result is a 34-inch ultrawide monitor with a 1800R curve and 21:9 aspect ratio. And since this is a gaming display, that OLED panel comes paired with gamer-friendly specs. Over DisplayPort, you can push a 3440 x 1440 resolution at 175Hz, while over HDMI the same resolution drops the refresh rate to a still respectable 100Hz.
It's no glossy OLED display either with an anti-reflective coating meaning you're going to be able to focus on your games and not your own reflection. And for silky smooth, tear-free action, you get NVIDIA G-Sync Ultimate.
With an OLED monitor such as this, though, color is obviously important. And not just for gaming, after all, this is an ultrawide OLED panel, so Alienware has thought of content creators as well. It supports 99.3% DCI-P3, HDR with 1000 nits peak brightness, and the choice to switch between color spaces at your discretion.
Alienware has included what it calls "Creator Mode" which can be accessed in the monitor settings with the flexibility to switch between the sRGB and DCI-P3 color spaces with full gamma adjustment as you require.
It's a pretty mouthwatering monitor, and we're looking forward to seeing the real deal in action. China will be first to see it in early March, followed by North America later in the month and the EMEA region should be able to get one from early April.
