The Alienware AW 25.8 HF Gaming Monitor: A Review

I've had the opportunity to test out the Alienware AW 25.8 HF gaming monitor, and I must say that it's been quite an experience. One of the things that caught my attention was its high refresh rate, which is a key feature for gamers looking to improve their performance. The monitor has recorded this at 180 FPS, which is as high as my camera goes, but still impressive nonetheless.

It's worth noting that the panel itself isn't just about the refresh rate; it also features some impressive specs. The Alienware branding and down the bottom of the stand, there's a hole for cable management, indicating a focus on design and functionality. The bezels are fairly thin at around 6 millimeters or so, based on my own measurements.

The stand is sturdy, with solid black metal legs that provide a sense of stability, even when I bumped my desk. It can also easily be removed if you plan on using the 100 millimeter face mount instead. The on-screen display was easy to use, and all the buttons are found on the right-hand side underneath the panel. The i/o is on the back, toward the bottom, facing down from left to right. This means that you have access to HDMI 2.0 port, audio line out, 2nd HDMI 2.0 port, DisplayPort 1.2, and USB 3.0 type B input.

One of the unique features of this monitor is its ability to use two USB 3.0 type-a ports as part of the USB hub. This means that you can connect your computer and use the extra ports for other devices. However, if you want to take advantage of the 240 Hertz refresh rate, you'll need a graphics card that supports at least HDMI 2.0 or DisplayPort 1.2.

The included cables are standard, with an HDMI cable, USB cable, and power cable. There is no external power brick needed here, which is convenient for those who want to keep things simple. The weight of the panel itself is 3.38 kilograms, while the weight of the stand by itself is almost as much at 3.22 kilograms.

In terms of adjustability, the monitor offers -5-25 degrees of tilt, 20 degrees of swivel in both directions, and 90 degrees of pivot in both directions. There's also up to 130 millimeters of height adjustment, making it easy to find a comfortable viewing position. I was pleased to see that the monitor stayed where I left it, even after multiple adjustments.

When it comes to using the monitor day-to-day, everything looked great. Playing games like Overwatch on low settings with my Nvidia 1080 was getting around 250 FPS, which is smooth and enjoyable. However, more demanding games like CS:GO would be no problem at all, especially when dropped down to lower resolutions. Generally, you'll want decent hardware to run even less demanding games at 240 FPS.

However, in triple-A games, you won't be getting anywhere near 240 FPS, even with the best graphics cards currently available. But for less demanding games and eSports titles like CS:GO and Overwatch, it's definitely possible to make use of it. The difference between this monitor and a 144 Hertz display is quite slight, but nowhere near as obvious as going from 60 Hertz to 144 Hertz.

Overall, I've found the Alienware AW 25.8 HF gaming monitor to be well-designed and built. It's not just for gamers looking for a high refresh rate; it also works well for video editing, thanks to its decent color gamut. The price is around $700 Australian dollars or $350 US dollars, which is competitive with other high-end monitors on the market.

What did I think of the Alienware AW 25.8 HF gaming monitor? By far, this was the highest refresh rate display I've ever tested, and it was quite impressive. If you're looking to take your gaming to the next level, then it's definitely worth considering. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below, and don't forget to like if you found this review useful.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe Alienware aw 25-18 hf is a gaming monitor with the crazy high 240 Hertz refresh rate 1 millisecond response time and AMD's free sync so let's check it out and find out if it's a monitor you should consider the monitor has a twenty four point five inch display with the 16 by 9 aspect ratio and runs with the 1080p resolution so 1920 by 1080 fairly standard now here's where things get really interesting the TN panel runs with the 240 hertz refresh rate has a one millisecond greater gra response time and features AMD's free sync making it perfect for gaming as it's got free sync you'll need an AMD graphics card to take advantage of this unfortunately I've only got Nvidia card CS so I wasn't able to test that out myself however the non F version is basically the same that comes with G sync rather than free sync though it does cost a bit more as is typical with G sync monitors as mentioned it's using a TN panel so it's going to look best directly front on Dell list for viewing angles as 170 degrees horizontally and 160 degrees vertically looking side-to-side I didn't notice much of a change even from above that was mostly fine it was only really bad when looking from underneath but that's pretty standard with TN panels in terms of color gamut I could only find these ones listed and unfortunately my Spyder 5 Pro doesn't test most of these so I've performed my own testing which resulted in 96% of srgb 71% of NTSC and 75% of Adobe RGB so it's actually pretty decent for a monitor that's primarily designed for gaming I'd happily use it for content creation the panel also has a peak brightness of 400 nits and with my own measurements found that it went up to 450 nits with the brightness of 100% so it gets fairly bright and has a 1000 to 1 contrast ratio I've also performed my usual backlight bleed test which involves having the screen completely black in a dark room to help emphasize any bleeding I then take a long exposure photo to display any bleed so this is a worst-case scenario test as you can see here was basically fine in regarde although this will of course vary between monitors with the UFO test I wasn't able to see Kersting myself but I feel like I'm not very sensitive to it I've recorded this a 180 FPS which is as high as my camera goes so not quite the full 240 of the display but hopefully enough for you to see for yourself it's not all about the panel though although 240 Hertz is pretty impressive taking a look at the rest of the monitor the stand has solid black metal legs while the rest of it has a silver matte plastic cover featuring some subtle Alienware branding and down the bottom of the stand there's a hole for cable management the stand feels really sturdy and even if I bump my desk it only wobbles little the bezels are fairly thin at around 6 millimeters or so based on my own measurements the stand can also easily be removed if you plan on using the 100 millimeter face amount instead the on screen display was pretty easy to use navigate through all of the buttons are found on the right hand side underneath the panel the i/o is on the back toward the bottom and faces down from left to right thus the power input HDMI 2.0 port audio line out 2nd HDMI 2.0 port DisplayPort 1.2 and USB 3.0 type B input which you connect to your computer to make use of the following two USB 3.0 type a ports once you're done with the i/o you can optionally place this great plastic cover over the back to tidy it up a bit on the very bottom of the panel there's a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack and two more USB 3.0 type-a ports as part of the USB hub to actually use the 240 Hertz refresh rate make sure your graphics card supports at least hdmi 2.0 or DisplayPort 1.2 as these required to actually drive 1080p at 240 Hertz as for the included cables you get an HDMI cable USB cable to make use of the USB hub and of course power cable no external power brick needed here the weight of the panel itself is three point three eight kilos while the weight of the stand by itself is almost as much at three point two two kilos like I mentioned earlier it's a very sturdy stand as for the dimensions here's a well looking up for the panel itself and here's how that changes with the stander touched and fully extended for the adjustments there's - five - 25 degrees of tilt 20 degrees of swivel in both directions and 90 degrees of pivot in both directions as well as up to 130 millimetres of height adjustment and it will easily stay where you leave it so far the monitor looks pretty good but how was it to actually use day to day as expected while playing games where I was actually able to get high enough frame rates everything looked really smooth for example playing overwatch on low settings with my Nvidia 1080 was getting around 250 FPS other games like csgo would be no problem though especially if you drop down to lower resolutions so it really depends on the game setting level used and your PC hardware but generally you'll want pretty decent hardware to be able to run even less demanding games at 240 FPS realistically in triple-a games you won't be getting anywhere near 240 FPS even with the best graphics cards currently available however less demanding games and eSports titles like csgo and overwatch would actually be able to make use of it as for the difference between this and 144 Hertz I think I can just barely notice the difference it's quite slight and nowhere near as obvious as going from say 60 Hertz to 144 Hertzler so a monitor like this is probably mainly for people playing competitively where the difference actually matters or if you want to do whatever you can to get the edge over your opponent I've also used the monitor to edit some recent videos - and that's shown before the color gamut isn't too bad - my eyes that definitely looked good enough to get the job done so no problems there you can definitely use it for more than just gaming as for the price it's going for around 700 Australian dollars here in Australia or around 350 US dollars while on sale in the US there are cheaper 240 Hertz panels available out there but also more expensive options so depends on the features you're after but this one has quite a few and is overall built really well so what did you guys think about the aw 25 18 HF gaming monitor from Alienware this is by far the highest refresh rate display I've ever tested and it was quite impressive if you're looking at taking your gaming to the next level then it's definitely worth considering let me know your thoughts down in the comments and leave a like to let me know if you found a review useful Thanks for watching and don't forget to subscribe for future tech videos like this onethe Alienware aw 25-18 hf is a gaming monitor with the crazy high 240 Hertz refresh rate 1 millisecond response time and AMD's free sync so let's check it out and find out if it's a monitor you should consider the monitor has a twenty four point five inch display with the 16 by 9 aspect ratio and runs with the 1080p resolution so 1920 by 1080 fairly standard now here's where things get really interesting the TN panel runs with the 240 hertz refresh rate has a one millisecond greater gra response time and features AMD's free sync making it perfect for gaming as it's got free sync you'll need an AMD graphics card to take advantage of this unfortunately I've only got Nvidia card CS so I wasn't able to test that out myself however the non F version is basically the same that comes with G sync rather than free sync though it does cost a bit more as is typical with G sync monitors as mentioned it's using a TN panel so it's going to look best directly front on Dell list for viewing angles as 170 degrees horizontally and 160 degrees vertically looking side-to-side I didn't notice much of a change even from above that was mostly fine it was only really bad when looking from underneath but that's pretty standard with TN panels in terms of color gamut I could only find these ones listed and unfortunately my Spyder 5 Pro doesn't test most of these so I've performed my own testing which resulted in 96% of srgb 71% of NTSC and 75% of Adobe RGB so it's actually pretty decent for a monitor that's primarily designed for gaming I'd happily use it for content creation the panel also has a peak brightness of 400 nits and with my own measurements found that it went up to 450 nits with the brightness of 100% so it gets fairly bright and has a 1000 to 1 contrast ratio I've also performed my usual backlight bleed test which involves having the screen completely black in a dark room to help emphasize any bleeding I then take a long exposure photo to display any bleed so this is a worst-case scenario test as you can see here was basically fine in regarde although this will of course vary between monitors with the UFO test I wasn't able to see Kersting myself but I feel like I'm not very sensitive to it I've recorded this a 180 FPS which is as high as my camera goes so not quite the full 240 of the display but hopefully enough for you to see for yourself it's not all about the panel though although 240 Hertz is pretty impressive taking a look at the rest of the monitor the stand has solid black metal legs while the rest of it has a silver matte plastic cover featuring some subtle Alienware branding and down the bottom of the stand there's a hole for cable management the stand feels really sturdy and even if I bump my desk it only wobbles little the bezels are fairly thin at around 6 millimeters or so based on my own measurements the stand can also easily be removed if you plan on using the 100 millimeter face amount instead the on screen display was pretty easy to use navigate through all of the buttons are found on the right hand side underneath the panel the i/o is on the back toward the bottom and faces down from left to right thus the power input HDMI 2.0 port audio line out 2nd HDMI 2.0 port DisplayPort 1.2 and USB 3.0 type B input which you connect to your computer to make use of the following two USB 3.0 type a ports once you're done with the i/o you can optionally place this great plastic cover over the back to tidy it up a bit on the very bottom of the panel there's a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack and two more USB 3.0 type-a ports as part of the USB hub to actually use the 240 Hertz refresh rate make sure your graphics card supports at least hdmi 2.0 or DisplayPort 1.2 as these required to actually drive 1080p at 240 Hertz as for the included cables you get an HDMI cable USB cable to make use of the USB hub and of course power cable no external power brick needed here the weight of the panel itself is three point three eight kilos while the weight of the stand by itself is almost as much at three point two two kilos like I mentioned earlier it's a very sturdy stand as for the dimensions here's a well looking up for the panel itself and here's how that changes with the stander touched and fully extended for the adjustments there's - five - 25 degrees of tilt 20 degrees of swivel in both directions and 90 degrees of pivot in both directions as well as up to 130 millimetres of height adjustment and it will easily stay where you leave it so far the monitor looks pretty good but how was it to actually use day to day as expected while playing games where I was actually able to get high enough frame rates everything looked really smooth for example playing overwatch on low settings with my Nvidia 1080 was getting around 250 FPS other games like csgo would be no problem though especially if you drop down to lower resolutions so it really depends on the game setting level used and your PC hardware but generally you'll want pretty decent hardware to be able to run even less demanding games at 240 FPS realistically in triple-a games you won't be getting anywhere near 240 FPS even with the best graphics cards currently available however less demanding games and eSports titles like csgo and overwatch would actually be able to make use of it as for the difference between this and 144 Hertz I think I can just barely notice the difference it's quite slight and nowhere near as obvious as going from say 60 Hertz to 144 Hertzler so a monitor like this is probably mainly for people playing competitively where the difference actually matters or if you want to do whatever you can to get the edge over your opponent I've also used the monitor to edit some recent videos - and that's shown before the color gamut isn't too bad - my eyes that definitely looked good enough to get the job done so no problems there you can definitely use it for more than just gaming as for the price it's going for around 700 Australian dollars here in Australia or around 350 US dollars while on sale in the US there are cheaper 240 Hertz panels available out there but also more expensive options so depends on the features you're after but this one has quite a few and is overall built really well so what did you guys think about the aw 25 18 HF gaming monitor from Alienware this is by far the highest refresh rate display I've ever tested and it was quite impressive if you're looking at taking your gaming to the next level then it's definitely worth considering let me know your thoughts down in the comments and leave a like to let me know if you found a review useful Thanks for watching and don't forget to subscribe for future tech videos like this one\n"