Deep purple is the brand new black, or, if the basic gaming model Alienware had its means, it might be. Alienware’s new AW2725Q 4K, 240Hz QD-OLED monitor with its twilight hue blends into the shadows of my fake gaming setup in my workplace like an extraterrestrial on the prowl, solely to drown me in vibrant colours from its stunning display. The Dell-owned model’s newest $900 monitor is extreme, costly, and subdued, particularly in comparison with final 12 months’s giant, large, curved fashions. In some ways, that’s to its profit. It’s a little bit overkill in others except you propose to pair it with the newest and biggest graphics playing cards.
Alienware AW2725Q 4K QD-OLED
It’s a beautiful-looking monitor with crisp visuals and stable constructed, although it comes for a fairly penny.
Professionals
- Crisp photographs and delightful colours kind QD-OLED
- Excessive refresh price and shade accuracy
- Straightforward setup and stable construct, although it is the minimal for this worth
Cons
- Costly
- Comparatively low brightness
- Dolby Atmos settings trigger drop in show constancy
The corporate’s new monitor takes a web page from final 12 months’s ultra-expensive, curved AW3225QF (a brand new model of that monitor, the AW3425DWM, with the identical purple aesthetic Alienware dubbed AW30). With its 32-inch curved show, that monitor was already a fine-looking, stable desktop piece providing 4K at 240Hz refresh charges. The brand new, 27-inch, sq. AW2725Q is a extra easy providing that’s not any much less expensive at $900. That’s cheaper than final 12 months’s $1,200 32-inch curved show, however when spending near $1,000 on a monitor, you need every little thing you will get from a show, proper?
Alienware first introduced this monitor throughout CES 2025, simply as many different show makers introduced their 4K, 240Hz gadgets. The newest Alienware monitor makes a case for itself by providing deep, deep shade with the assistance of QD-OLED at its measurement. It sits at 166 PPI or pixels per inch. The scale of the show often impacts pixel density. For example, a telephone will often sit at between 500 to 600 PPI on an OLED show. Nonetheless, that’s moderately dense for OLED. Alienware claims the PPI comes from a exact QD-OLED printing methodology throughout manufacturing, however all I can say is that the readability on the display is very nice. It’s particularly nice for these video games awash in distinction with fairly, vibrant colours like Avowed or Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.
Alienware’s AW2725Q Is a Very good Although In some way Refined Display screen Expertise
For these not within the know, QD-OLED is a sort of show that runs parallel to the QD-mini LED, AKA QLED. It takes a typical OLED panel however provides a layer of small semiconductor nano-crystals, the titular “quantum dots,” enhancing the colour of the OLED’s self-emitting show layer. If OLED already affords high quality black ranges, distinction, and shade density, the QD know-how is meant to make it look even higher.
As typical amongst show aficionados, few can agree whether or not the QD side of QD-OLED does something typical OLEDs don’t already present, particularly on a smaller display measurement than a bigger tv. All I can say is that the colours on Alienware’s 27-inch monitor are always gorgeous. Even when not within the recreation, I’d discover myself gazing my PC’s default desktop wallpaper, distracted by the deep sundown hues radiating from the show.
The monitor helps Nvidia G-Sync and AMD FreeSync, plus it has the .03 ms gray-to-gray response time typical of OLED. It’s an authorized DisplayHDR True Black 400 for vivid display content material. What’s extra, the show can be surprisingly glare-resistant. Shining my telephone’s flashlight straight on the display doesn’t cut back the visible high quality a lot. I additionally skilled minimal reflections from the show. Despite the fact that that is the kind of monitor you’ll all the time sit straight in entrance of, it has large viewing angles, the place the colour doesn’t diminish even sitting 70 levels away from the display.
The show’s acknowledged brightness is 250 nits at SDR. That’s not nice, particularly contemplating your worth for this monitor. It goes as much as 1000 nits with HDR, however that comes with issues. Attempting to mitigate brightness with the Dolby Imaginative and prescient on PC dramatically adjustments the distinction of no matter I used to be taking part in and washing these stunning colours out. We observed it with the AW3225QF, which additionally appears to be the case right here. You may change these settings by way of the OSD (on-screen show) menu or Alienware Command Heart Software program.
OLED burn-in is all the time one thing to contemplate for any show of this kind. It’s particularly essential should you’re dropping $900 on a monitor you need to be hoping to make use of for years down the road. Alienware claims it’s solved any instant points with an “AI algorithm” that regulates electrical present per pixel in order that no portion of the display suffers greater than one other. After all, that’s not one thing we are able to confirm on our personal. As a substitute, Dell does provide a free panel alternative below guarantee.
Alienware’s 27-inch QD-OLED Feels Premium, Although $900 Is a Onerous Tablet to Swallow
The AW2725Q has two HDMI 2.1 ports (one with eARC), a single DisplayPort 2.1, three USB-A, and a single USB-C for passthrough energy as much as 15 W. Which may show useful if you wish to make charging your mouse or telephone a little bit extra handy. It’s all commonplace for screens of this measurement, even with the glowing Alienware emblem on the again. The stand is the standard you count on from the Alienware model, even when it’s largely plastic on prime of a metallic body. It might tilt from -5 to +20 levels and swivel from -20 to +20. The stand solely raises and lowers 4 inches, which you want for many desktop setups.
This sort of monitor is made to pair with a similarly-expensive desktop PC. I’ve been utilizing the AW2725Q for my most up-to-date GPU critiques. A 240Hz show may assist showcase your video games at their prime when paired with body technology capabilities of the newest AMD Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT GPUs. Nonetheless, if we’re being trustworthy, the excessive refresh price is a boon to the fortunate individuals who handle to get their fingers on the newest high-end Nvidia RTX 50-series. 4-times multi-frame gen permits you to play some video games at over 150 FPS. For the $2,000 Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090, that graphics card can put out nicely over 200 FPS with 4x body gen in a recreation like Cyberpunk 2077 with ray tracing turned on. And sure, it seems to be superb on the AW2725Q.
Will you really have the ability to inform the distinction between a recreation operating at 140 FPS versus 240 FPS? In all probability not. Body Gen is simply actually helpful for individuals who play single-player video games. Multi-frame gen’s affect on latency is sufficient that any particular person trying to compete in multiplayer would have it turned off anyway. Professional gamer tournaments usually depend on 240Hz screens. Something greater than that’s overkill. It simply implies that solely these spending an excessive amount of on their desktop setup will expertise their video games on the absolute peak of what’s at the moment obtainable.
So, for anyone else, the value continues to be exhausting to swallow. Alienware additionally has a $550 27-inch QD-OLED that maxes out at 1440p decision. In the event you purpose for 1440p gaming together with your new graphics card, that’s an choice. In the event you’re not dropping $2,000 on a graphics card, it’s exhausting to justify spending as a lot as your GPU on a monitor. Nonetheless, should you desperately want a brand new monitor to pair together with your GPU, Alienware’s newest will make your content material sing.
