Alienware’s QD-OLED gaming monitor is an ultrawide marvel

Imagine everything you’d want in a gaming monitor — a bright and beautiful screen, a fast refresh rate for silky smooth graphics, HDR to really make things shine — and there’s a good chance you’ll find it in Alienware’s 34 Curved QD-OLED monitor. It’s one of the first screens to ship with Samsung’s Quantum Dot OLED panels, and it’s stacked with other features that’ll make your Halo Infinite matches all the more satisfying. While it may seem a bit extravagant at $1,299, compared to a sucker for ultrawide (21:9) monitors. Having a ton of horizontal space makes it easy to juggle multiple apps at once, and it’s far cleaner than setting up multiple displays. So when Alienware revealed that it was finally debuting an OLED ultrawide, I was sold. While OLED has solidified its place in premium TVs, it’s taken a while to reach computer monitors (we only started gettingAlienware

Pros

• Gorgeous and bright QD-OLED screen
• Solid HDR peak brightness
• Fast response times
• Plenty of ports

Cons

• Expensive
• No HDMI 2.1

Sure, this new tech means there’s another annoying display acronym to remember, but at least Dell’s 34-inch ultrawide gaming monitor, which I tested for several months last year, the Alienware QD-OLED looked dramatically better no matter what I was looking at. Colors popped off the screen, even when I was just scrolling through the web or watching movie trailers, and the deep curve always kept me in the center of the action. You’ll have to live with vertical black bars if you want to watch typical 16×9 videos fullscreen, but personally, I’d rather have more room to play something in the corner or side of the screen. Let your TV handle movie night — ultrawide monitors are all about multitasking.

A bigger issue is the lack of support for ultrawide resolutions in some games. Elden Ring, for example, can only be played in standard widescreen resolution. (You could risk a third-party patch, but that could get you banned if you play online.) I still enjoyed the dozens of hours I spent with the game on this QD-OLED monitor, but the black bars on the sides of the screen effectively turned it into a 27-inch display. You could run the game in a window and multitask on the side, but Elden Ring is the sort of experience I’d rather devote my full attention to. At the very least, the state of ultrawide gaming is far better now than it was a few years ago. It’s hard to find major titles that ignore 21:9 screens entirely, especially when it comes to shooters.

While the Alienware QD-OLED’s design isn’t as handsome as Apple’s metallic Studio Display, it features the same sci-fi aesthetic Alienware$1,299, you’ll be paying a steep price for Alienware’s QD-OLED monitor, but it’s on par with other premium ultrawide monitors. LG’s 42-inch C2 OLED TV for $1,399, which is one of the best screens you can buy right now. (but it’s probably a bit too tall for desk work). If you’re looking for a similarly-sized display on a budget, Dell’s (admittedly far less impressive) 34-inch ultrawide gaming monitor is down to $500.

Here’s the thing: Even though Alienware’s QD-OLED is a major investment, it’s arguably a wise one that could last you for years. For the price of a premium display last year (and less than Apple’s Studio Display!), you get next-generation OLED technology, an objectively gorgeous screen and all of the gaming upgrades you could ask for. It’s the rare gadget that makes me grin like an absolute idiot while I’m using it, surely that’s worth paying for.