Alienware's QD-OLED Monitor Seems Expensive, But It's Actually Not

Alienware has recently revealed the pricing of its upcoming 34-inch QD-OLED monitor. First announced during CES 2022, the monitor marks an important step in the technology used in gaming displays — it features quantum dot OLED technology. Considering that this is the first such monitor to be announced (with others undoubtedly to follow sooner or later), Alienware could have charged a larger premium for simply paving the way for other companies. It seems that it chose not to.

When you hear about the pricing of Alienware's new gaming display, you might think it's expensive. It has an MSRP of $1300 USD and it will be available in the spring of 2022. You're not wrong: $1300 is a lot to pay for any gaming monitor. However, weighing in what the monitor has to offer as well as the pricing of other OLED gaming displays leads us to believe that Alienware could have gotten away with a higher price tag.

OLED technology is known for its brightness and beautiful visual experience, but it rarely finds its way into gaming monitors. These displays are often tailored toward higher refresh rates instead of stunning visuals. However, gaming is not all about shooters and other such titles — many games provide rich, colorful worlds for you to sink into, and it does feel better on a monitor made to support it. Alienware, so far, seems to be one such display.

The new Alienware AW3423DW features a quantum dot film on top of its OLED panel, both created by Samsung. Quantum dot OLED displays may one day be much more widespread if the technology proves to be reliable, considering that they come with most (if not all) of the benefits of OLED, but are much cheaper to produce. As a result of using this technology, and being an OLED display in general, the new Alienware model should offer a wide color gamut, high contrasts, deep blacks, and true-to-life color reproduction.

OLED displays are more common in televisions where refresh rates are generally less important than in games. However, the new Alienware is able to check both the boxes, sporting great visuals combined with a reasonably high refresh rate of 175Hz. This makes it optimal for fast-paced games, such as first-person shooters or MOBAs. It also has a 3440 x 1400 resolution and a 21:9 aspect ratio as well as a 0.1 ms response time.

When it comes to brightness, there is a large gap between its base brightness and the peak luminance it can achieve. The typical brightness is a fairly modest 250 nits, but Alienware promises that it can hit up to 1000 nits at its peak. Whether that will be true or not remains to be seen — the monitor is DisplayHDR TrueBlack 400 certified, so 1000 nits could be a bit of an exaggeration. Let's not forget that this is a curved display, which is an acquired taste, but it does add to the gaming immersion.

All in all, the new 34-inch QD-OLED Alienware monitor sounds fantastic on paper. While it's on the high-end of gaming monitor prices, it packs a lot of punch for this price tag. With a release date of March 29, 2022, it will undoubtedly garner a lot of interest once it hits the shelves.