Alienware AW2725Q QD-OLED Review: Beautiful pictures, but expensive

The company's new monitor took a page from last year's super expensive, curved AW3225QF (a new version of this monitor, AW3425DWM). With its 32-inch curved display, the monitor is already a beautifully-looking, solid desktop that offers 4K at a 240Hz refresh rate. The new 27-inch Square AW2725Q is a simpler product that costs no less than $900. That's cheaper than last year's $1,200 32-inch curved display, but everything you want to get from the display when spending nearly $1,000 on the display, right?

Alienware first announced the monitor during CES 2025, just as many other display manufacturers have announced 4K, 240Hz devices. The latest Alienware monitors can justify themselves by providing dark, dark colors on the size of QD-oled. Its position is 166 ppi or pixels per inch. The size of the display often affects the pixel density. For example, on OLED displays, the phone is usually between 500 and 600 ppi. Nevertheless, it's quite intensive for OLEDs. Alienware claims that PPI comes from an accurate QD-old printing method during manufacturing, but I can only say the on-screen clarity is really good. These games are especially pleasing compared to beautiful, bright colors Avoid or Marvel's Spider-Man 2.

Alienware's AW2725Q is great though

For those who don't know, QD-Oled is a display that runs parallel to the QD-Mini LED, which is QLED. It requires a typical OLED panel, but adds a small layer of semiconductor nanocrystals, the nominal “quantum dots”, which enhances the color of the OLED's self-emission display layer. If OLED already offers quality black levels, contrast and color density, then QD technology should make it look better.

Few of the presentation enthusiasts can agree whether the QD-Oled QD aspect can do anything typical OLED has yet to offer, especially in the case of screen size, larger TVs. All I can say is, the colors on the Alienware 27-inch monitor have been amazing. Even if not in the game, I find myself staring at the PC's default desktop wallpapers that are distracted by the display's deep sunset tones.

This monitor supports NVIDIA G-SYNC and AMD FREESYNC, and in addition, it has typical OLED gray to gray response time. This is a certified DisplayHdr True Black 400 that vividly displays content. More importantly, the display is also surprisingly anti-glare. A flashlight that directly illuminates the phone directly on the screen does not degrade the visual quality too much. I also experienced minimal reflection from the display. Even if this is the type of monitor you always sit directly in front, it has a wide viewing angle and the color won't decrease even if it's 70 degrees from the screen.

The brightness of the display is SDR is 250 columns. This is not very good, especially considering the price of this monitor. HDR can reach up to 1000 nits, but this brings problems. Trying to lower brightness with Dolby Vision on PC has greatly changed the contrast of anything I played with and cleaned those beautiful colors. We noticed this using the AW3225QF, and it seems to be the same here. You can change these settings through the OSD (Screen Display) menu or through the Alienware Command Center software.

For this type of display, OLED combustion is always worth considering. If you sell $900 on your monitor, you should expect $900 for years. Alienware claims it solves any direct problem with “AI algorithms” that adjusts the current at each pixel, so any part of the screen is more suffocated than other pixels. Of course, this is not something we can verify ourselves. Instead, Dell does offer free panel replacements during the warranty period.

Alienware's 27-inch QD-old feels high, although $900 is a hard pill to swallow

The AW2725Q has two HDMI 2.1 ports (one with EARC), a DisplayPort 2.1, three USB-As and a USB-C up to 15 W of pass-through power. Even with the glowing Alienware logo on the back, this is the standard for monitors of this size. Even on top of the metal frame, even if it's mostly plastic, it's the quality you'd expect from the Alienware brand. It can be tilted from -5 degrees to +20 degrees and rotated from -20 to +20. The stand only raises and lowers four inches, and you need most desktop settings.

This monitor can be used with similarly cheap desktop PCs. I've been using the AW2725Q for recent GPU reviews. The 240Hz display helps you show your game in quality when paired with the latest AMD Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT GPUs. But, if you are honest, high refresh rates are a boon for those lucky people who manage to get the latest high-end NVIDIA RTX 50 series. Four-frame multi-frame generation allows you to play some games at 150 fps. For the $2,000 NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 5090, this graphics card can be delivered over 200 fps in a game like this with 4x frame GEN Cyberpunk 2077 With the lightning tracking opens. Yes, it looks great on the AW2725Q.

Can you actually tell the difference between a game running at 140 fps versus 240 fps? Probably not. Frame Gen is only really good for those who play single players. The impact of multi-framework on incubation is enough to make anyone looking to compete in multiplayer to turn it off anyway. Professional gamers usually rely on 240Hz monitors for competition. Apart from that, everything is too killing. This just means that only those who spend too much on desktop settings can experience their game on the absolute peak currently available.

So, for anyone else, the price is still hard to swallow. Alienware also has a $550 27-inch QD-old that maximizes it at 1440p resolution. If you aim for 1440p games with a new graphics card, that's an option. If you don't drag $2,000 down on the graphics card, it's hard to justify the spending of the GPU on the monitor. However, if you desperately need a new monitor to pair with your GPU, Alienware's latest content will make your content sing.