Alienware 32 AW3225QF review

All new technologies come with a learning curve. And with the cataclysmically desirable new Alienware 32 AW3225QF, we're definitely learning some lessons about OLED as a display solution for PC gaming. 

This is not, in fact, the first of the brave new 4K OLED generation we've sampled. A few weeks back, I cast my beady, desiccated peepers across the Asus ROG Swift OLED PG32UCDM. That's another 32-inch 4K panel running Samsung's latest QD-OLED tech, albeit with the flat option where Alienware has chosen curved. And what a stunner it was.

But as we clock up the hours with this new format, the sheer wow factor is increasingly accompanied by familiarity. And with that comes, well, a slightly more grounded sense of what these monitors offer gamers. This is an incredible display. But like its Asus competitor, this Alienware is an elusive angstrom or three away from perfection. Living with these 4K OLED panels is just a tiny bit complicated.

However, let's kick off with the basic speeds and feeds. Again, we're talking 32 inches of 4K QD-OLED glory. That matters because, until these new panels arrived, you couldn't have both OLED visuals and nice, tight pixel density. Previous OLED monitors were derived from relatively low-DPI TV panels.

Screen size: 32-inch
Resolution: 3,840 x 2,160
Brightness: 250 nits full screen, 1,000 nits max HDR
Color coverage: 99% DCI-P3
Response time: 0.03ms
Refresh rate: 240Hz
HDR: DisplayHDR 400 True Black, Dolby Vision
Features: Samsung QD-OLED 3rd Gen panel, Adaptive Sync, 1x DisplayPort 1.4, 2x HDMI 2.1
Price: $1,199 | £989

For this 4K option, Samsung has invoked a new ink-jet printing technique to pack 4K into a 32-inch panel. LG has its own 32-inch 4K offering incoming, but retail availability of monitors using that panel are a few months behind the Samsung QD-OLED. Watch this space for coverage of the LG alternative.

Anyway, despite the new manufacturing technique, the specs look familiar. Response is rated at 0.03 ms, peak HDR brightness at 1,000