Alienware 34 QD-OLED Review: HDR Gaming Heaven

The first QD-OLED monitor has arrived, and it aims to bring the incredible contrast of OLED to the world of gaming monitors -- at a more affordable $1,399 price point. The Alienware 34 QD-OLED elevates nearly every game you throw at it, but especially HDR titles that can really make use of that 1000-nit peak brightness. Is it the ultimate gaming monitor for 2022?

0:00 - Intro
0:45 - The Design
1:49 - New Menus and Image Presets
2:25 - Display Assembly, Size, and Adjustments
3:02 - Aspect Ratio, and Resolution
3:47 - Contrast, Color Gamut, and Refresh Rate
5:43 - Color Accuracy
6:39 - Brightness
7:05 - HDMI Ports and Lack of Speakers
7:44 - HDR Gaming Performance
9:06 - What About Other HDR Monitors?

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[lukelarsen]

Any burning questions on the Alienware 34 QD-OLED I can answer? Reply here and I'll do my best to get to them.

[Navhkrin]

5:05 I kinda disagree massively with this part. Assume you are hyper-competitive, what would you go for? 240hz monitor with 4ms pixel transition or 175hz monitor with 0.1ms pixel transition (needs additional testing ofc)? It is difficult to call a shot, but complete elimination of ghosting and ultra-clear motion picture gives massive advantage to QD-OLED even for pure competitive usage.

Why would you be stuck with the resolution? There are countless ways to make this monitor run at traditional 1440P 16:9 layout with black bars. You can set it on Nvidia control panel, on game resolution, etc etc. If you are not going to get any benefit from widescreen you can easily downscale. If else extra FOV is actually really helpful in some games. If you are talking about 1080p you are right but on the other hand I don't think we need to worry about 1080p anymore considering competitive games are already pretty easy to run and GPU's have gotten so powerful. Some competitive games like R6 even support DLSS

[Caleb_Denison]

Great review, Luke! I'm stoked you got this monitor in for us and think you did a great job delivering the most important takeaways without getting buried in the weeds. Props to Dan for the gorgeous filming and color grading! Can't wait to see what more we can do with this thing in the coming weeks!

[LionelGeek]

Thanks for the solid review. I bought the original version of the Alenware 34" display in this form factor a couple of years ago, and it's been great. Looks like the QD-OLED technology makes it worth an upgrade. And whoa... even in this video, Cyberpunk looks stellar with the deep blacks and great contrast. Wow!

[eggnogsaber]

One counterpoint to "stuck at this resolution": You can play with at standard 1440p resolution with black bars on the sides if you ever need the performance boost. Just set scaling to "no scaling" in nvidia control panel and choose 2560 x 1440 in-game.

[TheParkerLewis]

Goodbye to IPS glow, backlight bleed, and 800:1 contrast ratios with "light gray" black levels.

Sad what gamers have had to spend $1, 000+ for and put up with over the past decade but I am excited for the dawn of the OLED gaming monitor era!

[MrLionniol]

Just placed my order for this and I am so stoked!

[DaryXnfinite]

This is crazy cheap. Apple just announced a new budget monitor for a similar price and is just basic IPS with P3 support at 60hz. No mini-LED, no XDR.

[deminybs]

Got the DWF version of this panel a few weeks ago and omg it's amazing 🤩

[dacook]

I must be missing something here... If the monitor can only support max resolution of 1440p then why is hdmi 2.1 a concern? 2.1 is really for 4k at 120fps.

[chadgirard]

Now we just need this panel tech on 16:9 1440p and 4K 27-32" screens. I'll happily drop $900-1100 depending on the size and resolution.

[Shadowsmoke]

Can't wait until they release 4K 27" QD-OLED gaming monitors with high refresh rate 😎

[MTheConqueror]

I hope Alienware makes a 27inch QD OLED 4K 144hz Version of this😍

[momsbasement]

Amazing technology. Finally competition to LG OLED. Considering how superior it is, I'm amazed the prices are so low the first year. Hopefully they scale up production quickly in the next few years.

[sampsalol]

I wish this would come in a 38" 4k ultrawide or a 40" 16:9 4k.

[mikejawid]

my overall first week experience with this monitor is as follows :

1. if the game supports windows auto-HDR feature, a small confirmation pop-up notification appear on the lower right corner of the screen and when it does, your game would shine with colors and perfect HDR experience. if the pop-up notification doesn't appear, you would have a basic and not professional level HDR experience. I played Ori & the Will of the Wisps and Hades and with windows auto-HDR support, it really is an enjoyable experience, particularly with 2 to 5 percent window 1000 nits brightness that this monitor supports, small specular highlights really shine magnificently.

2. the monitor has slight flickering and brightness-shifting issue in the loading screen of the monitor.

3. with HDR turned-on, video-recording of your gameplay would be messed up badly. so if you plan to record your gameplay, the only option is to turn-off windows HDR and play your game in SDR instead, which is really sad. this is also applicable when working with video-editing software like Adobe Premiere.

Overall, I am satisfied with this monitor, its wide-screen form factor and satisfying-level of curvature. if your main intention is to play video games with this monitor, it is absolutely a very good choice to buy it but if you plan to record your HDR gameplay with geforce experience feature, your recording would be a mess.

if anyone have found a way to record their HDR gameplay without pircture getting messed-up, please share it with me. thanks.

[DonaldTurner]

funny, just found this review. I just bought this display a week ago, and all I can say.. this thing is magical!

[frozezone]

if this was a 38 inch I would buy day one hopefully someone makes a 38 inch ultrawide qd oled monitor

[lovexander]

I got a regular 3080 is that good enough?

[ledooni]

Does the G-Sync module come with an audible fan?