Monday, February 14th 2022
Alienware's 34-inch QD-OLED Monitor Gets a Price
Remember that 34-inch QD-OLED monitor that Alienware announced at CES earlier this year? The company has finally worked out how much it's going to charge for it, although there is still no fixed availability date. At US$1,299 the AW3423DW is going to be a $100 pricier than the AW3821DW, which sports a 38-inch Nano IPS panel with a resolution of 3840x1600, rather than the 34-inch QD-OLED panel with a resolution of 3440x1440 of the AW3423DW.
Obviously the two display technologies aren't comparable, but it's at least an indication of how pricy QD-OLED will be initially, compared to more traditional display technologies. Both displays feature G-Sync Ultimate, so it's not as if Dell has tried to cut any corners here. The AW3423DW does offer a higher refresh rate of 175 Hz vs 144 Hz for the AW3821DW, which may be an advantage to some, but the official HDR certification is oddly enough only HDR 400 vs HDR 600, despite the fact that Dell claims it can deliver up to 1000 cd/m². That said, the black levels of the AW3423DW should be vastly superior, as should the colour gamut. The display is said to be available sometime early this spring, presumably in the US market first.
Sources:
@Alienware, via TFT Central
Obviously the two display technologies aren't comparable, but it's at least an indication of how pricy QD-OLED will be initially, compared to more traditional display technologies. Both displays feature G-Sync Ultimate, so it's not as if Dell has tried to cut any corners here. The AW3423DW does offer a higher refresh rate of 175 Hz vs 144 Hz for the AW3821DW, which may be an advantage to some, but the official HDR certification is oddly enough only HDR 400 vs HDR 600, despite the fact that Dell claims it can deliver up to 1000 cd/m². That said, the black levels of the AW3423DW should be vastly superior, as should the colour gamut. The display is said to be available sometime early this spring, presumably in the US market first.
135 Comments on Alienware's 34-inch QD-OLED Monitor Gets a Price
Still, VESA's standards are, as you say, crap. HWUB recently covered just how broken their testing systems are as well, which is downright atrocious (they don't even require their contrast measurements to be made on the same image!), which renders the regular HDRXXXX standard essentially useless - they can be cheated quite easily, and you can pass even HDR1000 with a pretty crap display, as seen in that link.But you also get some pretty serious drawbacks - a "monitor" that you need to manually switch on and off every time you turn on your PC, that doesn't go to sleep when the PC does or when the PC turns off the monitor, that makes you navigate a relatively slow and clunky OS for simple things like input switching, etc. And no DP or USB-C inputs, of course, or USB hubs or other basic monitor features. Minor annoyances to some, major to others, but they're there regardless.Curved for a 16:9 panel at reasonable sizes (</= 32") doesn't make much sense - there's a relatively small combination of viewing distances and screen sizes (particularly widths) where it does. Ultrawides are another thing entirely though, as their with is so extreme that the curve dramatically minimizes the change in viewing distance between the centre and edges of the screen. A flat ultrawide at a desktop viewing distance would be really difficult and tiring for your eyes to pan around, as they would need to noticeably refocus between the edges and the centre. And, of course, you'd be far enough to the side of that part of the panel that you'd likely start noticing colour shifting on a VA panel or severe IPS glow on an IPS. None of these issues are relevant on a 16:9 panel at the same viewing distances unless it's huge.
As always Vincent is superb and explains why they fall short in HDR:
There is a reason why OLED EX are getting brighter. :p
You are complaining about something that is not even relevant to the conversation.
Anyway, I strongly disagree with TheLostSwede's take here. I've never seen anyone suggest that HDR600 LCD monitors have more impressive HDR capabilities than an OLED TV before, and this display actually offers several significant advantages over LG's OLED tech including higher brightness levels, better color saturation, and less black crush. There's more to a panel's HDR capabilities than the number at the end of the certification.
Not into "Alien" branding, G-Sync tax & "G4M3R" finish, so I will wait for versions from other manufacturers (Samsung, LG, Lenovo, etc. get on it!)
Btw. here's the product video:
(Non QD) OLED will even get burn in from basic TV content, as the Real Life OLED Burn-In Test on 6 TVs shows.
Never wondered why they haven't released "wicked gaming" OLED monitors, until now (QD OLED)? Hint: Burn-In ;)
Of course I have all the "safeties" enabled, I use dark mode and have it set at ~100 nits in SDR. But I would use these settings with any display.
But yes, burn-in can happen when using the display improperly (cranking up the brightness and leaving on the same image for hours).
By the way, my 2008 Samsung LCD TV developed horrible image retention after a few years. And later some permanent black spots showed up near the edges.
My 2015 Sony LCD TV developed some stuck pixels or something pretty quickly. Permanent little white spots in a few places.
The LG OLED is the best display I have ever owned so far. But I realize it will not last forever. I actually hope MicroLED will become the ultimate display tech when they can scale it down enough.
It could get burn in, but LCD has to deal with dead pixels or they just break after 2 years. OLED seems more durable in the long run (while also having superior image quality).
I am still running a 60" Pioneer KURO (last version), it got a little burn in from gaming, but it is only visible at bootup or longer unicolored images.
Most won't even notice burn in unless they really looking for it, f.e. with monitor test images.
If they use panel from LG, I'll wait for LG to make one. Should be cheaper.
Keep in mind this is an Alienware product + ultrawide form factor meaning it certainly comes with a significant markup , 32'' QD-OLED panes may come at sub 1000$ maybe even sub 900$ .
This is great princing for a 1st gen .
For now there are only confirmed Sony TV's & Alienware Monitors with QD OLED (with Samsung panels), strangely no Samsung monitor with the new tech.
Pretty sure more TV producers will follow to ditch LG OLED panels for Samsung QD OLED, same goes for those wo bought LG widescreen panels for their widescreen (gaming) monitors.
I did read a comment on one of the QD-OLED video's on Youtube, and there was a guy who seems to have some knowledge about OLED production. He mentioned that QD-OLED will be easier to produce, better yields, which means cheaper prices. If true it will be Samsung's "turn the tide" tech & LG's OLED's will collect dust on the shelfs.
This monitor is really appealing.
34in QD-OLED for 1300usd seems like awesome deal
Never said the other display was better, I said I was surprised by the fact that the QD-OLED display was only rated at HDR400, as it seems really low.