World first QD-OLED monitor from Dell and Samsung (34 inch Ultrawide 175hz)

mrk

mrk

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My Quidco cashback has just confirmed :D

Unfortunately it's tracked the discounted amount, so it's only £25, but every little helps :)
Hah same here but just over £26. so with this cashback now confirmed and the amex cashback promo too, the total cost for this monitor for me was £720. Best deal of the decade on any purchase by far let alone the latest tech :p
 
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Quidco and Topcashback only give the cash back on the amount before VAT. I learned that when I ordered a Dell monitor before. I think they were offering any where between 5-7.7% cash back on monitors recently. I am expecting around £60 from Topcashback for the 7.7% offer when I ordered the AW3423DW on June 13th.
 

TNA

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I got around £45 each for both my orders with TCB. I am a premium member there though, not sure if that helped.

Boosted the money to tesco vouchers to get an extra 5% out of it too :p:D
 
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Ordered mine a few days ago on Dell. ETA is early November but in the past Dell have been much faster than their ETAs suggest.

How long has it taken for these to be shipped from date of order?
 
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That’s too bright for 24/7 desktop use. No wonder your eyes hurt. What about your contrast?

I believe the default values for brightness and contrast are 75 on both. That is the most I would use.

Personally you should go watch Vincent’s video and copy his settings. Will be more colour accurate and will be your eyes a major favor.
The contrast is 75. Brightness is 100. But SDR brightness of AW3423DW is not brighter compared to XB271HU.

When I was playing Escape from Tarkov in SDR mode, other players were much harder to see on AW3423DW. Other players appeared to be much darker in the background. I thought the infinite contrast of AW3423DW can help me see more details. But in reality, other players were almost merged into the background, I couldn't see them. Sometimes they were nearly black.

The other weekend I was trying to attack the S rank of Resident Evil 3 Inferno in HDR mode. The S rank can be done in a little over 3 hours. Though HDR appeared to be a lot better than SDR, I couldn't complete it because my eyes just felt too painful after 1.5 hours. The brightness of AW3423DW also seems to drop quite often. Every time there was a flash or a beam, the whole screen became dimmer.

XB271HU never had these issues. The old monitor doesn't hurt my eyes. It has never caused any pain after hours of gaming.

I guess AW3423DW is not for me. I ended up returning AW3423DW, ordering XB273U.
 

TNA

TNA

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The contrast is 75. Brightness is 100. But SDR brightness of AW3423DW is not brighter compared to XB271HU.

When I was playing Escape from Tarkov in SDR mode, other players were much harder to see on AW3423DW. Other players appeared to be much darker in the background. I thought the infinite contrast of AW3423DW can help me see more details. But in reality, other players were almost merged into the background, I couldn't see them. Sometimes they were nearly black.

The other weekend I was trying to attack the S rank of Resident Evil 3 Inferno in HDR mode. The S rank can be done in a little over 3 hours. Though HDR appeared to be a lot better than SDR, I couldn't complete it because my eyes just felt too painful after 1.5 hours. The brightness of AW3423DW also seems to drop quite often. Every time there was a flash or a beam, the whole screen became dimmer.

XB271HU never had these issues. The old monitor doesn't hurt my eyes. It has never caused any pain after hours of gaming.

I guess AW3423DW is not for me. I ended up returning AW3423DW, ordering XB273U.

Yeah. Not for you I guess. For me it was an improvement in every way except for resolution, as I came from 4K. Not had any issues with my eyes with it and have had it almost since release. I also don’t play any competitive games so no issues with being able to see other players earlier in the dark etc.

Could be that the pixel layout just does not agree with your eyes or something as it does not add up how it’s not as bright yet hurts your eyes.
 

L_D

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The contrast is 75. Brightness is 100. But SDR brightness of AW3423DW is not brighter compared to XB271HU.

When I was playing Escape from Tarkov in SDR mode, other players were much harder to see on AW3423DW. Other players appeared to be much darker in the background. I thought the infinite contrast of AW3423DW can help me see more details. But in reality, other players were almost merged into the background, I couldn't see them. Sometimes they were nearly black.

The other weekend I was trying to attack the S rank of Resident Evil 3 Inferno in HDR mode. The S rank can be done in a little over 3 hours. Though HDR appeared to be a lot better than SDR, I couldn't complete it because my eyes just felt too painful after 1.5 hours. The brightness of AW3423DW also seems to drop quite often. Every time there was a flash or a beam, the whole screen became dimmer.

XB271HU never had these issues. The old monitor doesn't hurt my eyes. It has never caused any pain after hours of gaming.

I guess AW3423DW is not for me. I ended up returning AW3423DW, ordering XB273U.
I use mine for work 8 to 10 hours a day and have not had any issues with the display hurting my eyes.
Make sure you have some other light source to the side or behind your monitor for bias lighting.

Do you wear contact lenses?
 
Soldato
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The contrast is 75. Brightness is 100. But SDR brightness of AW3423DW is not brighter compared to XB271HU.

When I was playing Escape from Tarkov in SDR mode, other players were much harder to see on AW3423DW. Other players appeared to be much darker in the background. I thought the infinite contrast of AW3423DW can help me see more details. But in reality, other players were almost merged into the background, I couldn't see them. Sometimes they were nearly black.

The other weekend I was trying to attack the S rank of Resident Evil 3 Inferno in HDR mode. The S rank can be done in a little over 3 hours. Though HDR appeared to be a lot better than SDR, I couldn't complete it because my eyes just felt too painful after 1.5 hours. The brightness of AW3423DW also seems to drop quite often. Every time there was a flash or a beam, the whole screen became dimmer.

XB271HU never had these issues. The old monitor doesn't hurt my eyes. It has never caused any pain after hours of gaming.

I guess AW3423DW is not for me. I ended up returning AW3423DW, ordering XB273U.

If you want to see players better, lift the black level up. It's not rocket science, every monitor is different especially when you go from non OLED to OLED, some games play nicer with OLED than others, the OLED is more likely to show you the game the way the developer coded the game to look, you may not like it if you are used to a monitor with raised blacks like an edge lit lcd
 
Soldato
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The contrast is 75. Brightness is 100. But SDR brightness of AW3423DW is not brighter compared to XB271HU.

When I was playing Escape from Tarkov in SDR mode, other players were much harder to see on AW3423DW. Other players appeared to be much darker in the background. I thought the infinite contrast of AW3423DW can help me see more details. But in reality, other players were almost merged into the background, I couldn't see them. Sometimes they were nearly black.

The other weekend I was trying to attack the S rank of Resident Evil 3 Inferno in HDR mode. The S rank can be done in a little over 3 hours. Though HDR appeared to be a lot better than SDR, I couldn't complete it because my eyes just felt too painful after 1.5 hours. The brightness of AW3423DW also seems to drop quite often. Every time there was a flash or a beam, the whole screen became dimmer.

XB271HU never had these issues. The old monitor doesn't hurt my eyes. It has never caused any pain after hours of gaming.

I guess AW3423DW is not for me. I ended up returning AW3423DW, ordering XB273U.

If you want to see players better, lift the black level up. It's not rocket science, every monitor is different especially when you go from non OLED to OLED, some games play nicer with OLED than others, the OLED is more likely to show you the game the way the developer coded the game to look, you may not like it if you are used to a monitor with raised blacks like an edge lit lcd

Yeah when you're playing Resident Evil 3 I can see why HDR would hurt your eyes on that game.
Why don't you now play Res Evil 3 on SDR and on Escape from Tarkov turn up the brightness and as it's SDR it surely shouldn't hurt your eyes :)
 
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Being impressed on a daily basis with the AW, I picked up it's spiritual big brother, the Samsung 65inch S95B to go with it. After calming down the Samsung a bit (out of box is yolo), you effectively get the AW experience but more nits overhead, more pop in the mid range due to the less aggressive brightness roll off. Any differences in color volume don't really exist in game mode since Game Mode on the S95B has a lower total coverage range of BT2020 and is more in line with the AW. Naturally, the size itself creates more surface area for the light giving you perception of it being even more bright.

The samsung OS is pure hell so I avoid it by fronting everything via an AppleTV 4k (2021). This pretty much eliminates the bugs and with the TV being off the internet completely, I can control the Firmware version vs Samsung forcing one down.
 
Soldato
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I've had the monitor for around a week now so I am ready to share my thoughts.

The design of the monitor is very nice, the edges taper to give it a very thin profile form the top and sides, the white accent it a pleasing shape and there's a great IO cover for the back. It feels solid and really no problems encountered, as we all know the monitor has a fan but it is very quiet. I would say in most rooms it likely will be inaudible. I am quite sensitive to sound around my PC so can hear it from a normal use distance but it is so extremely quiet any real fan noise form the PC or any audio from your PC will drown it out easily. Input and output wise it has 4 USB ports, two on the bottom and two at the back, one DP and two HDMI.

The screen itself is gorgeous, being an OLED it has almost perfect viewing angles and I find myself shocked by how good it looks from all angles. Of course most people would argue that viewing angles aren't important on a monitor as you are sat right in front of it. With ultrawides this is far from the truth, with other ultrawides I have had the corners were always washed out due to IPS glow. Before I forget, the screen is glossy so you get a bit more reflection and OMG do not touch this screen because fingerprints really stand out, keep a cloth nearby!

The colour and contrast are also top notch, really on a different level to any LCD, I am used to OLEDs with basically every other device in my house so it is nice to finally have an OLED for the PC too. It is very much on par or better than my OLED TV, the quantum dots really give vivid but subtle colours. The HDR is simply amazing, I have tried HDR on some LCD monitors and have been unimpressed but watching movies like Dune or playing games like Cyberpunk the brightness is astounding and the blacks obviously perfect. On the subject of HDR there is one niggle that makes it less than perfect, the monitor has two modes switchable form the OSD and I have found that I have to switch between the True Black 400 mode and Peak 1000 modes depending on content and how games use HDR. I have found Forza Horizon looks best at 400 and Cyberpunk dazzles at 1000. Maybe there is more learning on my part as there are a lot of confusing settings for HDR in some of these games on which I may be missing nuance.

Motion and input latency are top notch too, playing the new Overwatch Beta at 175Hz in HDR is simply a dream!

Screen burn in and retention... OLED gets a bad rap for this but even on my LG OLED TV I have never really had a problem, no burn in at all gaming or watching. Retention is visible on my TV but only ever when going from a menu into a completely grey screen. I have never noticed retention when actually watching content or gaming as completely grey screens are few and far between. The Alienware though has not only shown no indication of burn in but I have also not noticed any retention at all. I have tried a few times by bringing up flat greys and not noticed a thing. It is worth noting that the monitor will do a "pixel refresh" when the panel goes to sleep or sooner if you choose. Sometimes if the screen has been on for a while there will be a popup asking to run the refresh, a small trade off.

In conclusion, this is THE ultrawide display in my opinion, I cannot see any LCD beating this. I think there are some mini LED screens coming in the next few months but with the only perceived downside of OLED not really showing (burn/retention) I don't see that this would better the Alienware.

Edit: Forgot to mention that some people have said text may not look as sharp as more standard subpixel arrangements, the pixels on this thing are truly oddball! I have tried looking but I really can't see a difference in text sharpness, maybe if I have my nose up against the screen but in general the monitor looks sharper than LCD and from my use no issue with text.
 
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Soldato
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Same here maybe a little bigger too, I would love a 38 inch version with something like the LG Ultragear's 5120 x 2160. Though I might have to pony up for a 40 series GPU to go with it.

Yep, that's my only gripe with it. Going from the AW3821 to this... I didn't think I'd really notice the size drop (I didn't notice much going up from the X34 to the AW38) - but man... I really do notice how much smaller it is :(
 
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