It’s amazing how good Alienware’s $350 OLED screen is

I’ve recommended many OLED gaming monitors to readers over the years, and I finally took my own advice to buy one. Alienware’s new 27-inch 1440p QD-OLED has all the features I want Low price $350 It was too tempting to ignore.

The AW2726DM has five things that make it stand out for the price: a 1440p QD-OLED display with great contrast, a fast 240Hz refresh rate, a semi-gloss screen coating for improved detail, a minimalist design without flashy RGB LEDs, and a great warranty (three years with burn-in coverage).

I’ve been using the new Alienware monitor for a few days now, and I’ve already spent hours playing with it Marathon. It was my first chance to see Bungie’s new first-person shooter in all its HDR glory, and I can never go back. Turning on HDR wasn’t automatic, although it actually looked much better than my IPS panel without activating it.

Empower it transformed how Marathon I looked for the best, but it made everything else about the OS look so dull. It’s a Windows problem, not an Alienware problem. It’s easy to enable HDR every time I launch a game and disable it afterwards using the Windows + Alt + B keyboard shortcut, but unfortunately it turns HDR on for all connected displays. This includes my IPS display which gives everything a terrible gray tint when HDR is turned on. Therefore, the best way to adjust HDR for a QD-OLED display is to use System Settings only.

I got the QD-OLED after spending a lot of time looking at more expensive models. The unanimous takeaway from reviewers was that LG’s Tandem RGB WOLED panels are some of the brightest panels available, but they also tend to exhibit poor gray uniformity in dark scenes. On the other hand, QD-OLED displays offer slightly better contrast than WOLED displays and don’t suffer from the same uniformity issues. However, blacks sometimes appear dark purple in bright rooms on QD-OLED panels, meaning they’re ideal for rooms without a pool of bounced light.

There’s no perfect option, and frankly I was tired of doing the research, so I decided to buy the cheapest OLED. I’m glad I did. Shopping for an OLED gaming monitor can be difficult, but it can also be difficult this easy. AOC makes a discounted model $339.99 At the time of publication, its specifications are comparable.

As expected, the AW2726DM is not a high-end monitor. Its QD-OLED panel isn’t as fast or bright as some other pricier options, and it doesn’t have USB ports for connecting accessories. Given its low price, it’s easy for me to overlook those omissions. I would have a harder time accepting it in an expensive display.

The fact that I use my computer mostly for text-based work Edge Which is what stopped me from upgrading to an OLED screen. The 1440p IPS display is bright, good at displaying text clearly, and has a fast refresh rate for gaming. The Alienware’s QD-OLED is less bright, and some may be bothered by how text appears (I have to really squint to see the slight fringing from the QD-OLED’s subpixel layout). But I have a life outside of work, which involves playing a lot of computer games. This is the chip I bought this monitor for, and I’m so glad I did.

Photography by Cameron Faulkner/The Verge