The Alienware 34 is a premium monitor that boasts impressive features and capabilities, but also has some limitations.

The Alienware 34 only maxes out at 261 nits in SDR, which is a bit low for a premium monitor even if most of the time it's had to be dialed back to 75 or so for reference. Recent gaming monitors we've reviewed from BenQ and HP are all sitting in the mid-400s, which is kind of where I expected the Alienware 34 to be, especially considering its HDR capabilities. The HDR features of this monitor are particularly noteworthy, as it's certified for DisplayHDR 400 True Black, one of the first monitors to use that designation.

The Alienware 34 uses a QD-OLED panel, which is rare in monitors but delivers excellent performance. In HDR mode, the monitor can hit up to 1000 nits of peak brightness and has perfect black levels, making it visually stunning. The contrast ratio is much higher than other monitors using pure brightness horsepower, as excessive brightness can become a liability when you're sitting close to your screen. Instead, the QD-OLED panel delivers incredible contrast that other monitors can't touch.

Aside from its impressive features, there are some small nitpicks worth mentioning. The Alienware 34 doesn't have HDMI 2.1, which may not be a huge deal for a monitor of this resolution, but it's still notable since many of its competitors do include it. Additionally, the monitor lacks speakers, which is not a major issue for most people who will likely connect their own external speakers or use a headset.

The Alienware 34 shines in HDR mode, delivering an immersive gaming experience that puts you right into the game. In games like Cyberpunk and Destiny 2, the HDR capabilities make all the difference, allowing you to see the details of the environment and the characters in a way that's truly breathtaking. The monitor also performs well with other media, such as videos and movies that support HDR.

In comparison to other monitors in its class, the Alienware 34 stands out for its QD-OLED panel combined with superior HDR performance. Its competitors, such as the Predator X35 and the Razer Swift PG35, are G-Sync Ultimate monitors like the Alienware 34 but can't match the display quality of this monitor. The LG UltraGear UltraWide monitor is also in the same class, but its performance is not quite on par with the Alienware 34.

If you're looking for a premium gaming monitor with impressive features and capabilities, there's just no reason to consider anything else besides the Alienware 34. Its unique QD-OLED panel combined with superior HDR performance makes it a standout in the market.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe first cutie oled monitor is here the alienware 34 qd oled an ultra wide curved gaming monitor with the latest and greatest panel technology inside and in case you're wondering yes it totally lives up to the hype this is luke with digital trends and today is an exciting day indeed there's been a lot of anticipation around all things qd oled this year but who'd have thought we'd be reviewing a gaming monitor of all things this early in the release of this technology it's a great sign but it's only the beginning so make sure to subscribe to the channel for more coverage of qt oled as the year rolled out you don't want to miss it when it comes down to it this monitor's claim to fame comes down to three things cutie oled real hdr performance that doesn't suck and the price and we'll get to all of that but when you buy a monitor you're getting more than just image quality so let's quickly talk about the design the alienware 34qt oh it doesn't deviate too far from the company's current lineup of gaming monitors the stark white color blends nicely with the tints of blue light that kind of make up this current iteration of the alienware brand and these small tweaks to the formula this time around are all for the better this 34-inch alienware model does move around a few elements compared to let's say the larger 38 inch model the light up alien head on the back has moved from the left to the right meanwhile the light ring has jumped from the back of the stand to the back of the monitor itself the overall vibe of alienware's branding though remains intact and that's a good thing it's even a look that other companies like samsung have failed to emulate well with their own gaming monitors such as the odyssey g7 in my opinion the one other change i like here is the menu which is now all controlled with a single joystick located right down below the center of the screen always miss having quicker access to brightness or volume control but this is a simplified system that i got used to pretty quickly after poking around for just a few minutes you'll find everything you need here in this menu including access to the six preset modes such as fps rpg and rts and as is common most of these are too extreme for my taste you also get a creator mode for srgb or dci p3 but again i actually got better color readings in the standard mode more on that later now putting the display together is completely tool-less which is great the stand plugs into the base with a single thumb screw while the screen locks into the stand with a satisfying click once the three elements are attached you can access a good amount of height adjustment tilt and swivel everything you need to get comfortable in your desk and chair and that shouldn't be too hard because overall it really feels like a manageable size for an ultrawide monitor it doesn't dominate your desk like others including alienware's own 38-inch option and look i know there will always be people who love to flaunt their 49-inch super ultra wides it's fun but something like this is gonna fit much better on the average desk with that out of the way let's dig into the specs and performance because that's what makes this monitor so unique so here are the specs that really matter with this alienware monitor it measures 34 inches diagonally has a 3440 by 1440 resolution a 175 hertz refresh rate an 1800 r curve and of course uses one of these new samsung qd oled panels now this isn't going to be a deep dive into that technology itself check out our full explainer on that if you want to know more but to put it simply qd oled brings together the best parts of oled screens and samsung's qled screens more specifically that quantum dot filter so you end up with a product that has the incredible contrast of oled and the brightness and color accuracy of quantum dot and that's exactly what we're seeing with the alienware 34. the contrast looks amazing obviously each pixel of an oled screen is individually lit meaning it can turn off completely and produce true black games come alive on this display especially your moodier atmospheric games like cyberpunk 2077 or dying light 2. more on that later but the benefits of oled's super fast response times in gaming has been well documented at this point and overall gaming on the qd oled just looks awesome now the color gamut on the alienware 34 is also incredible 100 s rgb 97 adobe rgb and 95 dc ip3 only the best of the best gaming monitors can hit these numbers and that's even better color saturation than you'll find on many creator or professional displays the point is pc gamers just haven't had access to these types of monitors in the past at least not in the form factors that you'd actually want them in you can count on one hand how many oled monitors there are out in the world and they're all outrageously expensive and probably too big for most people the alienware 34 changes all that and those other specs i rattled off earlier are important too because they should tell you what kind of display this is because you can find sharper and faster gaming displays out there look at samsung's upcoming odyssey neo g8 for example which does 4k at 240 hertz because why not if all you play is hyper competitive games like cs go and rocket league a monitor like this one is never going to make sense curved ultrawide monitors have always been about immersion and image quality rather than just raw performance i mean due to the 21x9 aspect ratio you can't even easily scale down to lower resolutions for faster frame rates you're going to be stuck playing at this native resolution so it might sound obvious but make sure you have a pc that can actually handle this many pixels if you want to buy this monitor i was happily hitting well over 100 frames per second in halo infinite on max settings with my rtx 3080 ti and i never felt bottlenecked by the refresh rate now all that sounds amazing it's a great gaming display but two areas of concern did come up in our testing so let's talk about that next now one of the issues we ran into was color accuracy we noticed that some colors were coming in with a delta e of over five which is considered well into the visibly noticeable territory i got an average color error of 1.86 with my spider which i'd consider sort of middle of the road this is nowhere near the kind of color accuracy we've seen in other qd oled displays such as the sony a95k tv for example the greens in particular on the alienware 34 really start to shoot up as the brightness is cranked and remember while tvs have incredibly sophisticated image processing on them to correct for that type of thing a monitor doesn't it's just a screen it's not egregious though this monitor stays accurate right up to 600 nits and it's only in the brightest areas above that where we noticed some deviations from accuracy and it's possible that this could all be corrected with software down the road let's hope so the second area of concern was the brightness kind of surprisingly the alienware 34 only maxes out at 261 nits in sdr and that's a bit low for a premium monitor even if most of the time i had it dialed back to 75 or so for reference recent gaming monitors we've reviewed from ben q and hp are all sitting in the mid 400s and that's kind of where i expected the alienware 34 to be and that's especially true when you consider the hdr capabilities of this thing now aside from those i do have a couple of other small nitpicks that i have to mention first it doesn't have hdmi 2.1 and hey maybe that's not a huge deal for a monitor of this resolution but it still would have been nice to see here instead you're just getting two hdmi 2 ports displayport three usb 3.2 ports an audio line out and a headphone jack the other small thing that's related is that like other alienware monitors this one doesn't include speakers i know that's not a deal breaker for most people you'll likely be connecting to your own external speakers or using a headset in most cases but it's worth pointing out since many of its competitors do include a set of speakers even if the audio quality on them isn't the best with that aside let's get to hdr because that's where the alienware 34 truly shines so the alienware 34 is certified for display hdr 400 true black it's one of the first monitors to use that designation that's because the true black in the name is for oled only and like i said before those are still rare birds but the alienware 34 can do far more than 400 nits in hdr alienware claims it can hit up to a thousand nits of peak brightness and we tested it and it totally can and as you'd expect it looks amazing in games and other media that can really make use of it take cyberpunk for example without hdr the game tends to blow out highlights that give it an overexposed look turn on hdr and you can see the shades of blue tones in the sky soft clouds floating holographic images projected around the tops of buildings it all looks great darker interior locations meanwhile are given a far moodier and ambient feel find a dingy corridor to climb into and you'll see that the flickering lights and the neon of this world look really brilliant it feels like you're seeing the game the way it was meant to be seen and again that's all thanks to qd oled working with hdr and that's just one example destiny 2 forza horizon rise of the tomb raider they all do amazing things with the hdr capabilities of this monitor and of course you can also watch videos and movies and shows that support hdr and the alienware 34 doesn't disappoint there either now of course this alienware monitor isn't the only gaming monitor to do real hdr the 49-inch odyssey neo g9 boasted peak brightness of 2000 nits and is verified for display hdr 1000. 2000 is obviously higher than 1000 but what makes the qd oled's contrast so visually stunning are those perfect black levels when you start from pure black your contrast ratios are higher and especially on a monitor muscling hdr using pure brightness horsepower isn't the way to go and besides when you're sitting this close to your monitor excessive brightness can become a liability instead of a benefit you don't want to get blinded by your display that's why with a thousand nits of peak brightness and those perfect black levels the alienware 34 is able to deliver incredible contrast that other monitors really just can't touch so yeah this monitor is clearly a winner in its category even if that's a fairly niche one still there are three primary competitors for this class of monitor the predator x35 the rog swift pg35 and the 34 inch ultra gear ultra wide from lg these are all g-sync ultimate like the alienware they're all 3440x1440 resolution with high refresh rates and they can all game in hdr to some extent but the alienware 34 has that qd oled panel combined with the superior hdr performance which makes such a difference in terms of visuals not to mention those first two monitors i mentioned cost well over two thousand dollars and if this is the form factor and performance you're looking for in a gaming monitor there's just no reason to not get the alienware 34. hey thanks for watching this video now's the time head into the comments and let me know what you think of this new monitor i can't wait to hear your thoughts and if you haven't checked out our full review of the sony a95k on the channel make sure to go check that out and one last favor give this video a like thanks so much see you next time you\n"