The Ultimate Gaming Monitor? - Alienware AW3225QF Review

right here I have a new monitor from Alienware the aw 3225 qf it has a 32in curved OLED panel with a 4K resolution and 240 HZ refresh rate so it is basically an ultimate high-end gaming monitor with pretty much an ideal combination of specs it has a great size it has a great resolution it has great pixel density it has super high refresh rate and on top of that it also has all the benefits of an OLED panel like uh instant response times like great color reproduction and a perfect contrast but this is also not the only gaming monitor with these specs that is coming out this year so let's check it out and let's see how it performs and let's see if it's worth getting it over the other similar models on the market let's begin design-wise I think alien wear monitors always look unique and a bit different than most others and even though they use a lot of plastic the quality of that plastic is great so it looks and it feels very well built the cable management of this design is also better than on a lot of other monitors I've seen uh using a cover and then an extra channel in the stand so you can easily hide all the cables nicely there's a bit of RGB as well if you're into that but it's not bright enough to light up the wall behind the Monitor and you will barely see it in most situations now the panel does have active cooling but in the last couple of weeks of testing it and using it it did not really become audible at all and I couldn't hear it at all now the ergonomics are completely fine too it is height adjustable you can swivel it you can tilt it but you cannot rotate in 90° which kind of makes perfect sense for a 32 in curved Monitor and if you want to you can vase am mount it as well and speaking of the curve this is one area where alien wear stands out from most of the other new uh 32in 4K 240 HZ OLED monitors that are coming out this year because almost all of the models will use a flat panel while this alien wear offers a nice curve for anyone that prefers that now the curve is actually relatively small so it might not matter as much for people that prefer flat panels but at the end of the day it is a personal preference and it is also very nice to have both options that you can choose from in terms of connections you get a display port and two HDMI 2.1 ports both with full 48 gbit bandwidth so you can easily connect your PC your PlayStation and your Xbox at the same time with the variable refresh rate support for all of them as well you also get a USB hub feature and you can update the firmware via USB which is very important for this model but I'm going to talk about that a bit later you don't get a headphone jack and there are no speakers built in which might be a bit of a problem for console users because you will have to use an audio device connected directly to your console now what would have been being nice is a type-c input with power delivery but that is missing here the OSD is controlled with a little button at the bottom of the screen and the OSD itself is quite decent it looks clean it is very responsive and even though it's not the most extensive OSD I've seen so far it is completely fine in terms of options and you pretty much get everything most people need but let's check out that panel so in SDR mode it only goes up to 230 nits of brightness which is actually quite low if you compare it to most other monitors but because it is an OLED panel with perfect black levels it feels a lot brighter than that number suggests now Alienware is also doing this on purpose as the panel can go a lot brighter in HDR mode but by completely limiting the brightness in SDR mode they're kind of avoiding those big and noticeable brightness shifts that we see in most other OLED models so it basically has a permanently turned on uniform brightness feature which is a decision they made and I can totally understand the reasoning behind that decision but I still think it would be nicer to have an option to turn that off if you ever wanted to now minimum brightness came in at 23 nits so if you like to dim your monitor a lot while you're gaming in a very dark room this monitor will do just fine in HDR mode it gets a little bit more interesting so alien wear is claiming a 1,000 nit Peak brightness and in my results it was just under that but I would say it's close enough and a full screen HDR brightness of about 250 knits isn't that unusual either but it does mean that this new CTI OLED panel isn't really that different in terms of brightness and brightness Fallout compared to previous options that we've seen so far I also think that alien wear's HDR tuning is a little bit odd because in the default HDR setting the brightness kind of doesn't track that well and it is really overexposing dark areas for some reason now there are also different settings that you can play with to make the HDR 1000 mode look relatively perfect and there are several other options that you can experiment with as well I just think that it is such a shame not to use the very best profile as the default one anyway you get support for Dolby Vision as well which is great if you're using consoles or other devices that support Dolby Vision but it just doesn't work that well with Windows H it was even causing some HDR issues when I first got this monitor but they already released a firmware update that added a switch so you can turn it off for PC use and then turn it back on for console use and I would say it's a bit of a pain to have to swap it around like that but at least you have the option to do so in terms of color performance it is a very nice wide gamut panel with full srgb coverage and 98% % dcip 3 coverage and it is calibrated very well out of the factory so you can definitely use it for some proper creative work right out of the box now with that first firmware version the srgb profile was a complete mess but this was also fixed with an update so the data you see in this review is with the latest firmware version that came out in U March this year since this is an OLED panel the pixels turn off completely when displaying black color so it has perfect cont contrast assuming your room is not too bright because just like previous generation of cutie oleds the panel is inherently reflective and it does have a tendency to look a bit more gray instead of black when you're in a very very bright environment now I don't think this is a very big issue for most users but that reaction to the lights in the environment is definitely still there and I assume it will be there for similar models coming out this year too but viewing angles are excellent uh both horizontal and vertical a backlight bleed isn't an issue for this type of a panel and while Ola doesn't guarantee perfect uniformity most oleds perform well and this one is not an exception and because this is an OLED panel it also has a near instant response times with no significant overshoot at all and then when you combine that with a 240 Herz refresh rate you basically get the best moving image Clarity you can buy at the moment um except for the 480 HZ panels but those have plenty of other limitations and you don't need to bother at all with overdrive settings or anything like that it just performs very well regardless of the input it has the same behavior as other OLED and QD OLED monitors I've tested before so the brightness does dip on every refresh cycle which is something that most users will never ever see or will ever have to worry about but there's still a small group of people that are sensitive to this Flicker and might find OLED panels uncomfortable to look at so if you find all the TV is uncomfortable uh this monitor will be the same input lag is decent uh the total endtoend latency result is not the best but it is competitive enough uh unless you only care about high Esports performance in which case you probably wouldn't be buying a 32 in 4k monitor at all and when it comes to power consumption it is pretty reasonable I would say uh the power it uses does depend on what's going on on the screen but on average I measured 41 watts in SDR mode at full brightness which isn't excessive at all for a high-end monitor so I think what this monitor really offers is that proper experience that you can expect from a high-end high-spec gaming Monitor and even though we had plenty of other OLED and QD OLED models in the past there was never a monitor that was combining these particular specs so it has a large immersive panel without being too large like previous TV size models a 4K resolution at this size gives you great pixel density so everything looks very very sharp and very clear and then a 240 HZ refresh rate is a great bonus and a significant upgrade over the previous 120 htz or 144 Herz 4K monitors now previous 27in models do feel a bit small in comparison especially if you mostly watch content or play immersion style games and then previous 34 in Ultra wides performed really well but Ultra wides are not ideal for all types of games uh they don't have the pixel count to compete with 4K monitors for productivity and they're also not as compatible with consoles so this alien wear here gives you that perfect balance of specs that just works great with content consumption with content creation and playing all games so it is a great monitor overall and I dare to say it is one of the best monitors in terms of image quality and speed for uh most use cases I also noticed that because of the higher resolution the color fringing that is inherent to these QD OLED panels is a lot less noticeable I mean it is still there if you really look for it but if I compare it to the 49 in model that I'm using right now the difference is actually night and day but one thing it doesn't fix is the risk of burning that is also inherent into every OLED panel if you mostly play games or you mostly watch content it's not that hard to avoid it but if you do a lot of desktop work with a lot of uh static images it is definitely still a possibility now Alienware here does include some protection features that are enabled by default and they do offer a three-year long warranty that specifically includes burning so you are covered for a while but these are expensive monitors and you need to be aware that that you might run into those issues after that warranty expires so keep that in mind but that aside if you're looking for that proper high-end top tier gaming monitor this does have everything and the only thing you need to do is decide if you should go for this one or one of the other models with the same or very similar panels that are launching this year so Alienware was the very first to arrive here in Europe but Asus and MSI have started selling their monitors as well and I'm actually already testing the MSI model so keep an eye out for that video as well but considering that a big part of the whole experience is due to the cue OLED panel itself I kind of do expect that most of the models coming out will be pretty competitive to each other and the price will play a huge part when making a decision in the US the Alienware is currently selling for $1,200 while the MSI is $950 which is a big difference and definitely worth waiting for or checking reviews of that model before choosing which one to get while in Europe you can buy this alien wear for €140 while Emi is asking ,00 for their model and the Asus should cost around $1,500 and seeing how well this monitor performs and how well it is built uh MSI and Asus will have to do something very very special to justify that price premium so right now picking the Alienware in Europe should be a pretty easy choice unless you really really don't want a slightly curved panel but if you set on these specs and you're not really in a hurry it is definitely worth waiting a little bit longer because if we look at the 34 in and 49 in OLED monitors and how their prices changed over time it makes sense to expect a real price competition with these monitors as well and probably some serious price drops too but if you cannot wait and you just want a great monitor today say just go for it I really don't think you will be disappointed now that's all I had for today but before I go let's check out the sponsor of this video this video is brought to you by Corsair and their brand new Micro ATX case the 2500 x it is a stunning well-built dual chamber case that can fit pretty much any high power system you have in mind while offering great performance and lots of glass panels so you can see your hardware and all your RGB properly and if you want to spice things up a bit you can get a mash FR panel instead or different wooden panels that change the look of the case completely and offer something a bit more special check it out using the links in the description below thank you all for watching and staying to the end of this video I really hope you liked it and I really hope it was helpful at least a bit if you want to see more videos like this one do consider clicking that subscribe button so you never miss my future uploads bye guys and I will see you in the next one bye [Music] go

Channel: Techtesters

Views: 35,148

Keywords: Alienware AW3225QF, Alienware AW3225QF Review, AW3225QF Review, AW3225QF, 32, OLED, 4K OLED, 4K 240HZ OLED, 240Hz OLED, Alienware, Alienware OLED, Alienware 4K OLED, Best monitor, best gaming monitor, best 32, monitor, Techtesters, monitor test, monitor review

Id: ERk556G5fsY

Length: 14min 5sec (845 seconds)

Published: Fri May 17 2024