Thursday, January 6th 2022
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Alienware Demos 34-inch QD-OLED Monitor at CES
Although Samsung apparently wasn't ready to show off its rumoured 34-inch QD-OLED monitor at CES, Alienware stepped up and demonstrated a fully working model that is said to be launching as soon as the 29th of March in the US market. The Alienware 34 Curved QD-LED Gaming Monitor or the AW3423DW as it's also known as, uses a curved QD-OLED panel from Samsung, with QD standing for Quantum Dot, a technology used to boost colours in various types of display panels.
The Alienware 34 Curved QD-LED Gaming Monitor offers a resolution of 3440x1440, which gives it an aspect ratio of 21:9. It's said to feature Nvidia's G-Sync Ultimate, with refresh rates of up to 175 Hz over DP and 100 Hz over HDMI. It has a typical brightness of only 250 cd/m², but as this is an HDR capable display, this can go as high as 1000 cd/m² in HDR mode. The monitor sports one DisplayPort 1.4, two HDMI 2.0 ports and three USB 3.2 ports at 5 Gbps, as well as a 3.5 mm headphone jack and a line-out jack. No word on pricing as yet, but it would be silly to presume this will be a cheap monitor.
Source:
Dell
The Alienware 34 Curved QD-LED Gaming Monitor offers a resolution of 3440x1440, which gives it an aspect ratio of 21:9. It's said to feature Nvidia's G-Sync Ultimate, with refresh rates of up to 175 Hz over DP and 100 Hz over HDMI. It has a typical brightness of only 250 cd/m², but as this is an HDR capable display, this can go as high as 1000 cd/m² in HDR mode. The monitor sports one DisplayPort 1.4, two HDMI 2.0 ports and three USB 3.2 ports at 5 Gbps, as well as a 3.5 mm headphone jack and a line-out jack. No word on pricing as yet, but it would be silly to presume this will be a cheap monitor.
67 Comments on Alienware Demos 34-inch QD-OLED Monitor at CES
I expect this monitor to be $1000+ just because its alienware. Agreed anything over 32 is better with a curve for me.
1. Nvidia's G-Sync Ultimate module doesn't support either.
2. There doesn't seem to be any DP 2.0 display drivers are yet, as in the physical chip that goes inside the display.
2½. DP 2.0 is said to require captive cables on the displays, but this might not be the case.
Also, some quality of life improvements to the algorithm for HDR and stuff is much welcome imo, and only comes with use over time and community feedback. I watch a youtuber guy named Teoh, he has a famous youtube channel reviewing TV's, and he has gone over in detail some of the LG OTA updates, honestly its really impressive stuff man, you really shouldn't just dismiss it as not being important based on historical context. I understand why you feel this way though, so its all good if you don't believe me, but I personally believe times have changed and LG has proven it and gained my trust, and also my wallet when the LG 42" C2 comes out.
Size is relative ~ That's what she said ~
The issue that I might personally have with TV's is that they are made for entertainment first, and the specs don't list what color space are supported if its factory calibrated... things that you get when you buy a high end monitor. (Along with stuff like display port, usb HUB, Type C with PD for some...) and anything above 35" is way too big for my taste, and I don't see anyone making a High-end Oled TV below 45".
So yeah, it's an odd situation where the two markets merge at a certain point, but they quickly go their separate ways. (TVs get too big, and monitors too small)
48" is definitely too big for a desk. But that being said now that I have it wall mounted and the desk pulled back from the wall 5 inches. I'm afraid to go back to 32" :/ the immersion in games is awesome and sitting back further from the monitor has actually made my headaches from too much staring/coding go away-- bit of an unexpected side effect.
OLED will stay a lot closer to 250 cd/m² in color scenes. Say you are displaying red on the screen. Green and blue sub pixels are powered off. The electric power which would have been used to power green and blue can be diverted to red subpixels, allowing you to get red brightness much greater than 83 cd/m². This is because while LCD displays colors by blocking light, OLED generates colors by having millions of tiny red, blue, green lights. So if some pixels are being less bright, that power can be diverted to other pixels. This is where 1000 cd/m² peak brightness comes in. If a scene in a movie has a small part of the scene as very bright... OLED can divert power to allow that bright part to reach 1000 cd/m².
The end result of all this is that when displaying actual scenes, a 250 cd/m² OLED is significantly brighter than a 250 cd/m² LCD.
And you are right this does stink because if someone hasn't studied how displays work, they will look at 250 cd/m² LCD and 250 cd/m² OLED and say they are the same. That is correct.. only when displaying full screen white. In an actual scene from a movie/game, the OLED will be significantly brighter. But the numbers don't convey that at all.
Here is an example of what I am talking about in terms of brightness. Left is LG C1 OLED. Right is Sony X85J LCD.
OLED gets brighter as you move away from a 100% white scene to 50% white scene. But it makes no difference to LCD. In a real scene, the OLED is a lot brighter (628 cd/m²) than what its 125 cd/m² would suggest.
The DisplayHDR 400 True Black certification requires:
- Sustained 10% window be >= 400 cd/m²
- Sustained 100% window be >= 250 cd/m²
The LG C1 meets the 10% window target (725 cd/m²) but fails to meet the 100% window target (125 cd/m²) and thus isn't certified. The Alienware can do 250 cd/m² at sustained 100% window and 450 cd/m² at 10% sustained window. The 1000 cd/m² is for 2% window. From the specifications, it looks like it will be good only for completely dark room HDR.
Teoh will have me covered with a step by step calibration for when the LG C2 comes out. I have had factory calibrated monitors in the past and honestly thought they were overrated.
Regardless, OLED is the future monitor or tv, whatever is your preference... so we will all be having a lot of fun very soon.
I am really hoping LG can make this 42" model come in at $899. if so i will be buying it day 1. I hope the 42" does this for my headaches as well.
However for SDR, you're still going to be stuck with a lower static brightness, and 400cd/m2 is going to be a unicorn. Right?
LG C1 in SDR mode for example displays 150 cd/m² at 100% sustained window (a web browser for example). But for a sustained window of 50% and lower (thus, in movies and games) it gets to 300 cd/m².
This "feature" is called Automatic Brightness Limiter (ABL) and exists so that displaying full screen white doesn't fry the circuits of the display because displaying full white on OLED consumes a great amount of power. It is not a limitation of the Organic LEDs themselves.
I have a hunch that the Alienware will not have ABL for SDR and you are right that 400 cd/m² is going to be a unicorn. This is going to be a PC monitor and say you switch from Microsoft Word to YouTube (with dark mode on) and the display suddenly got much brighter.. it will be unexpected and quite irritating.
Alienware might give you an option to turn ABL On so that you can have brighter games and movies but I am 90% sure that even if that option is there, it will be turned off by default.
The ideal curve radius matches your viewing distance and 1800R-3000R curvatures are better suited to televisions that are viewed from further away.
My 32" display is only 1800R and I wish it was 1500R or lower. Something that big and that close to my face really could do with a greater curvature but I'll take it over a flat display when it's that close to my face, just to somewhat mitigate the extreme viewing angle between opposite edges of the display...
Not that I've kept a TV or monitor for more than 5 years in the last two decades though, I want new features like VRR, high refresh, HDR etc.
With TV's I think the issue of 'sweet spot' is a far bigger problem. TV's must be placed in a general living environment, couches and chairs placed in accordance to the room layout etc. It's very hard to have the perfect viewing distance, centered to the screen, to get the same sweet spot in something other than a purpose built home theater (or a man cave). Monitors on the other hand can be shifted forwards/backwards on the desk to get it correctly distanced for a given panel size/curve radius. I feel like curved TV's were quickly relegated to the gimmick category because they are actually more harmful than good in a majority of general living rooms, but curved monitors on the other hand -when properly set up- are a big advantage just as you said. Very true, my curved screen was instantly comfortable and natural to look at on day one. Now that I have used it daily for quite a while, sometimes sitting in front of larger flat panels actually have a 'convex' illusion to them.