Alienware AW3423DW - Review

The Alienware AW3423DW monitor, or going by its English name, the Alienware 34 Curved QD-OLED Gaming Monitor, takes the foundation that Alienware started with their 38inch curved display, but with the addition of what they call Quantum Dots, elevates the screen quality to some insane levels. The question remains, is enhanced screen quality enough for this display, or is it missing the picture?

Given that Alienware are so focused on the term Quantum Dot, I feel that in order for most of the review to make sense, a general sense of what that technology is, is required. Quantum Dots are a layer of nanoparticles, that when hit with light, illuminate in varying colours, depending on their overall size. Most nanoparticles range from 2nm to 10nm, that is not 2 millimetres, but 2 nanometres, which if you had something 1cm wide, you could get 10,000,000 nanometres of space, so they are really tiny. These dots are not replacements for the LED panels that many folks know, rather they are an enhancement layer, allowing for a richer image to be displayed, without making the display thicker than it needs to be. So, with that, how does this Alienware QD-OLED screen measure up?

When I reviewed the 38inch monitor, I said that it offered up a great colour balance and that was true then, but now this one makes that look like it is monochrome. Connected to my PC the display was able to make the recent Avatar 2 trailer look incredible, even more than it is normally does and when I booted into some games, it just made everything pop. When I connected it to my Xbox and booted into Forza Horizon 5, it made the game seem more real than it had before and given how gorgeous the game was before, that was no easy feat. As the display offers up full HDR support and a richer colour balance, without me needing to tweak any settings, from the moment that I plugged it in, everything just looked better. What was interesting though, was that there was no discernible difference between the content on the screen, when comparing movies to games, something that can be very noticeable on other displays. This happens a lot with movies that have been compressed, or the quality of the image just isn’t there and older displays can’t show the right colours to compensate, with this one, it was never an issue.

Now while using it for gaming would be the ideal purpose of the display, given its unique refresh system, I did put it through its paces as a regular use monitor. I have to say this first, the same issue I had with the larger and slightly older model, where a lot of applications and websites, just can’t make use of all that screen real estate is still the same here. Now when I was using Photoshop or Davinci, it wasn’t an issue, because I am always happy to have more tools on the screen, but when I was using Microsoft Word or even Chrome, things just never looked right. Websites especially almost always aligned to the left, which left 2/3rds of the display to either present nothing, or just repeat the background and it always stood out. These issues, whilst common are not deal breakers by any stretch of the term, however it does need to be considered, because if you don’t plan on using the screen, primarily as a gaming monitor, then you are going to have to deal with them a lot.

Back to the gaming side of things, refresh rates are crucial elements to some games these days, while I will forever remember growing up when 50Hz gaming on my NES and Super NES were king, these days if a screen refreshes less than 144Hz, it feels slow. Now I am fortunate enough to admit that for the most part, I never notice games that refresh at 30fps or 60fps, it was never something I needed to focus on, but when I turned on this monitor for the first time, it displayed a prompt that was going to allow for periodical refreshes of the quantum dots, to ensure that they were going to operate at the best they could. It was not something I considered, so I said yes and moved on and thankfully the refreshes never got in the way of things, they always seemed to happen when I stopped doing things, so no random mid-game refreshes. When you combine that with the 0.1ms refresh rate, the screen was delivering smooth gameplay, no matter how intense the action got on screen.

Something that Alienware and a number of other display makers are doing these days, is incorporating USB ports and headphones jacks into the display, enabling you to access them, without the need to reach behind your desktop. Sadly, though on this screen, they were a little weirdly placed, oh they were somewhat easily accessible, but they were not centre to the display, but rather off to the left. I would have preferred that they be centre, however for some reason they opted to install a downlight, its not a button or some other secret function, it’s just a light. It was actually something that annoyed me, because I am someone who turns off all those extra lights, I dislike RGB lighting on my accessories, so the one on the back of the display got turned off and that randomly placed one, also got turned off. Now if the light somehow illuminated the controls for the screen, or something else, then sure, I could understand it, but it does not, it just sits there.

There is something else to consider here as well, the connections from the display to your device and the others, are all located on one side of the screen, which feels weird. I would really like to see a company make a screen that puts inputs on both sides of the display, so they can be set up for the user, no matter where their PC is. The reason why it was a problem here is that all the ports are quite close together, so the two HDMI ports and the DisplayPort are so close together, I couldn’t use the included HDMI and my existing one, as the size of mine was too large for it to fit in, next to their cable. Of course, not everyone will have that issue, but when you consider the amount of space on the back of the display, having them all bunched together just feels silly.

Like the previous ultrawide display, the Alienware AW3423DW is an impressive piece of hardware, it delivers some of the best display results around, from near instant refresh rates to a colour gamut that is rich and deep. When used within a game that supports ultrawide, you are going to feel pulled into the world like nothing else, but that is the catch. There are just so few games or applications that really take full use of an ultrawide display and while the list of games is ever growing, it is a slow pace. If you are looking at something for the future, then this is a screen worth looking into, however if you are looking for the here and now, I might stop and think. Those who are hardcore gamers or content creators will get a lot from it, but general use folks may be better off with a standard screen and thankfully Alienware have some of those as well.

The Score

8.5

Review unit provided by Alienware

The Pros

+Refresh rates are so good, when let loose, you will never notice any issues

+The colours are just sublime, with the Quantum Dots really helping make everything pop

The Cons

-Still not enough valid use, outside of games or content creation

-Connections and ports are not the most user friendly, in terms of their locations