Caporegime
UPS haven't bothered to turn up today. Tracking still says due this morning 
World first QD-OLED monitor from Dell and Samsung (34 inch Ultrawide 175hz)
- Thread starter Grim5
- Start date
There is rotation of 5 degree to either side @Hudzy
One Monitor to RULE them ALL - Alienware QD-OLED AW3423DW Review
LINKS TO EVERYTHING BELOW Check out Govee Glide Hexa here:https://amzn.to/3CFA5oAhttps://amzn.to/3nQ3DtuAlienware QD-OLED: https://dell.to/35nkA...youtu.be
I'm not seeing how.
EDIT: I see her doing it, I just can't seem to move mine like that.
I just tried that, seems a little too dark for me, even in a low light room.
I also turned the brightness up
When in doubt, have the screen positioned like she has in the video, then it should be a matter of force.
Force worked.
Time for some first and second day impressions.
Size and resolution
As expected really. I'm coming from an X34A so I knew what to expect here. This resolution is already taxing enough for a 3080 so I'm happy to stay here for the foreseeable future.
I've been sold on 21:9 for a long time and don't see myself moving back to 16:9.
Build quality
Decent, definitely. My first Alienware product. It seems well built and sturdy. I struggled to rotate the screen back to a level position, which hopefully means that's going to hold just fine. No rattling fan issues like others have reported, although it definitely is audible.
No marks on the screen from the packaging or anything else.
I could do without the white back, but hey ho. RGB is tasteful enough I guess. In general I think it's fairly ugly from the back or sides.
Picture quality
Looks amazing in SDR on the desktop. It's OLED, so that was expected.
I was expecting to see the text fringing after all the hype that has built up online, but I honestly would never have seen it. I can only see it on white text on a dark background, at about 15 cm viewing distance.
The coating is fine. I had to shine my phone torch at it before it showed as grey instead of black. I haven't used a glossy screen for a long time, but the reflections are minimal for me.
I haven't measured response times or anything, but everything feels fluid and smooth.
HDR
I'm not sure what I'm missing here. I've been through the Cyberpunk and Horizon Zero Dawn benchmarks, and I'm not sure what the fuss is about. I can't really see a difference between SDR and either HDR mode.
It looks good either way, of course. I was just expecting to be blown away with HDR when everyone says it's the next level in gaming visuals.
I'd say everything looks great because of OLED, not because of HDR.
Anyway, this isn't necessarily relevant to the monitor, more a thought on HDR in general. I think it looks fine in films, but I use my LG OLED for that.
Final thoughts
I'm really torn on this.
It's obviously the best picture quality I could buy in this form factor. I've waited for 21:9 OLED for years. Now that it's here, I feel pretty indifferent about it. The X34A was already well calibrated, so it just doesn't feel like a huge step up.
I don't feel that HDR is really selling me on anything, so essentially I've traded silence for better contrast levels.
I'm sensitive to noise and this thing just annoys me during regular desktop use. That second fan with the weird breathing is... well that's annoying too. Pointless noise. I get that's Nvidia's fault with the gsync specification. I'd replace this monitor as soon as gsync no longer requires active cooling.
Amusingly, the jump from 100 to 144/175 has triggered some serious coil whine on my GPU, so I can't hear the fans while gaming.
That's enough rambling for now.
Size and resolution
As expected really. I'm coming from an X34A so I knew what to expect here. This resolution is already taxing enough for a 3080 so I'm happy to stay here for the foreseeable future.
I've been sold on 21:9 for a long time and don't see myself moving back to 16:9.
Build quality
Decent, definitely. My first Alienware product. It seems well built and sturdy. I struggled to rotate the screen back to a level position, which hopefully means that's going to hold just fine. No rattling fan issues like others have reported, although it definitely is audible.
No marks on the screen from the packaging or anything else.
I could do without the white back, but hey ho. RGB is tasteful enough I guess. In general I think it's fairly ugly from the back or sides.
Picture quality
Looks amazing in SDR on the desktop. It's OLED, so that was expected.
I was expecting to see the text fringing after all the hype that has built up online, but I honestly would never have seen it. I can only see it on white text on a dark background, at about 15 cm viewing distance.
The coating is fine. I had to shine my phone torch at it before it showed as grey instead of black. I haven't used a glossy screen for a long time, but the reflections are minimal for me.
I haven't measured response times or anything, but everything feels fluid and smooth.
HDR
I'm not sure what I'm missing here. I've been through the Cyberpunk and Horizon Zero Dawn benchmarks, and I'm not sure what the fuss is about. I can't really see a difference between SDR and either HDR mode.
It looks good either way, of course. I was just expecting to be blown away with HDR when everyone says it's the next level in gaming visuals.
I'd say everything looks great because of OLED, not because of HDR.
Anyway, this isn't necessarily relevant to the monitor, more a thought on HDR in general. I think it looks fine in films, but I use my LG OLED for that.
Final thoughts
I'm really torn on this.
It's obviously the best picture quality I could buy in this form factor. I've waited for 21:9 OLED for years. Now that it's here, I feel pretty indifferent about it. The X34A was already well calibrated, so it just doesn't feel like a huge step up.
I don't feel that HDR is really selling me on anything, so essentially I've traded silence for better contrast levels.
I'm sensitive to noise and this thing just annoys me during regular desktop use. That second fan with the weird breathing is... well that's annoying too. Pointless noise. I get that's Nvidia's fault with the gsync specification. I'd replace this monitor as soon as gsync no longer requires active cooling.
Amusingly, the jump from 100 to 144/175 has triggered some serious coil whine on my GPU, so I can't hear the fans while gaming.
That's enough rambling for now.
Associate
- Joined
- 23 Sep 2008
- Posts
- 169
My order is now not expected until the end of August. I am torn as to stick with this or just getting the LG C2 42" instead
Wow. Surprised you don't see a big difference in HDR. I see a huge difference personally. I wonder if you are doing it right or just had unrealistic expectations. One of the first games I tried was Mortal Kombat 11 and there is a huge difference. Suddenly all the speciel moves come alive and pop out. Raiden’s electric looks awesome and pops out.
Right now I am playing Resident Evil Village and again, huge difference between HDR on and off.
I never tried HZD without HDR, will need to do that to compare. But with HDR on it looks awesome imo.
I'll test some more games tonight hopefully.
Maybe I am actually blind
I can't see the text fringing after all.I'm using the Windows+Alt+B toggle to switch it on, get the Windows notification, then turning it on in game. I'm assuming I don't need to enable it in the monitor OSD? I couldn't see a toggle there, just a switch between 400 and 1000.
HZD looks amazing I agree, but I found it amazing without HDR last year too. The main thing I noticed this time around was the contrast in shadowed areas, which I probably thank OLED for.
Caporegime
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 31,162
Must admit that I don't either, but tbf I haven't tested it out a great deal.
Do you have Resident Evil Village? Give that a go, especially in the castle dimitrescu or whatever it is called with the vampire ladies.
I noticed it on MK11 even on my gaming laptop and my OLED TV last year. As soon as HDR got enabled the difference was night and day. Same again in Flight Simulator.
I'll test some more games tonight hopefully.
Maybe I am actually blind
I'm using the Windows+Alt+B toggle to switch it on, get the Windows notification, then turning it on in game. I'm assuming I don't need to enable it in the monitor OSD? I couldn't see a toggle there, just a switch between 400 and 1000.
HZD looks amazing I agree, but I found it amazing without HDR last year too. The main thing I noticed this time around was the contrast in shadowed areas, which I probably thank OLED for.
One more thing guys. Can you try this at night in a pitch black room. Might help maybe. Though I notice the difference during the day anyways, but nighttime does help things pop more
forza 5
guardians of galaxy
lego star wars
re village
deathloop
Probably the best ones to show of HDR gaming.
MSI AB + rivatuner is a very good tool to show if HDR is working properly too.
e.g.
SDR colour = orange text
HDR colour = red text
If it is fake HDR, the text will be washed out orange, although not always the case but 99% of the time, it is...
guardians of galaxy
lego star wars
re village
deathloop
Probably the best ones to show of HDR gaming.
MSI AB + rivatuner is a very good tool to show if HDR is working properly too.
e.g.
SDR colour = orange text
HDR colour = red text
If it is fake HDR, the text will be washed out orange, although not always the case but 99% of the time, it is...
On release they seemed to be doing some gamma ramp manipulation of an SDR image or something for "HDR" and on my HDR display it looked more like HDR with HDR off
with the latest patch I can't really tell the difference between HDR on or off in CP2077.Some HDR videos look very impressive but most games don't seem to really benefit from HDR anything like as much.
So No Man's Sky has three HDR settings: 400, 600, and 1000. I noticed that setting the game and monitor to 400 gives the brightest, but also least washed out, image. Or not washed out at all. 1000 is dull and washed out in comparison.
I'll test that some more later.
I'll test that some more later.