Alienware AW2725DF Review

About the Alienware AW2725DF gaming monitor

Here are the specs of the monitor we tested:

• Price: $900
• Display size: 27 inches
• Resolution: 2560 x 1440 pixels
• Refresh rate: 360Hz
• Peak brightness: 250 nits (rated average in SDR), 1,000 nits (3% window peak); 243.7 nits (tested in SDR), 824 nits (test in HDR 4% window peak)
• HDR support: VESA DisplayHDR True Black 400
• Color depth: 10-bit
• Color saturation: 99.3% DCI-P3 (rated); 100% sRGB (tested), 99% DCI-P3 (tested)
• Contrast ratio: 1,500,000:1 (rated), 14,480:1 (tested)
• Pixel response time (GtG): 0.03ms
• Ports: 1 x HDMI 2.1, 2 x DisplayPort 1.4, 1 x USB-B (upstream), 3x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, 1 x USB-C 3.2 Gen 1
• VRR Support: AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, VESA AdaptiveSync
• Other features: 3-zone AlienFX lighting, VESA mount (100x100), three-way adjustable stand, built-in cable routing, Kensington lock
• Warranty: 3-Year Advanced Exchange Service and Premium Panel Exchange warranty (includes OLED burn-in)

What we like

The display is absolutely gorgeous

Few things work better together in gaming monitors than high brightness, high contrast, and a rich color palette. The Alienware AW2725DF delivers all of these brilliantly. While the QD-OLED panel is effectively limited by power constraints when it comes to overall brightness, meaning it can’t reach a searing 1,000 nits across all of its pixels, it is capable of shining bright when only a few pixels are getting those highlights. With an anti-glare panel and an average brightness that is close to 250 nits across the whole screen, it’s competent in a light-controlled room, while the HDR performance zooms ahead.

That brightness capability is paired with deep, rich blacks thanks to pixels that can turn off completely when not in use. This gives the Alienware AW2725DF incredible contrast that provides poignance to content. Dramatic or atmospheric movies or games are amplified by this contrast, and there’s really no beating the ability of an OLED panel to deliver this. Alienware’s bonus here is that the bright content just gets that much brighter than some earlier OLED displays.

That’s all topped off with wondrous color. The display achieves not only 100% coverage of the common sRGB color space but also 99% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space. This gives it such a wide range of colors and hues to work with, and content proves especially vibrant on the AW2725DF.

Wandering around the world in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a delight with such vivid colors, and the highly stylized palette of The Finals is delivered with aplomb on this display.

Gaming visuals are ultra smooth and clear

The Alienware AW2725DF doesn’t trade quality visuals for high-utility visuals. All that brightness, contrast, and color comes alongside rip-roaring pixel response times and refresh rates. A 360Hz refresh rate is fast—very fast. It may not be the highest refresh rate available on a gaming monitor, but it’s quite high for a 1440p monitor, and there’s no forgetting that this is a QD-OLED display with very fast pixel response times.

So when the display tells a pixel to change, the pixel changes lightning-fast. Running Blur Busters’ UFO Test, motion blur is imperceptible. Since refresh rate and pixel response are both critical to motion clarity in games, it’s great to see the Alienware AW2725DF excel so thoroughly in both areas.

Across many rounds of Call of Duty: Warzone and The Finals, the extreme motion clarity helped me stay above the fray and respond to enemies rushing into my field of view.

It doesn’t skimp on USB ports

Quite a few of the recent 1440p, 240Hz OLED gaming monitors (like 2023’s LG UltraGear OLED 27GR95QE-B) opted for a barebones design, effectively delivering a great display and stopping there.

While the Alienware AW2725DF lacks speakers, it doesn’t forgo the USB hub capabilities. It packs in two USB ports in the rear for accessories you’re likely to leave plugged in. It also places a USB-A and USB-C port along the bottom front edge of the chassis for easy access.

While the monitor regrettably doesn’t allow upstream data or DisplayPort connections through the USB-C port, Alienware at least includes a USB-C-to-DisplayPort cable. You can still get up and running if you only have a laptop with display output over USB-C and don’t want to run out to buy a cable.

The common issues of OLED are minimized

One of the bigger nuisances of OLED monitors thus far has been their handling of fine detail. An atypical subpixel layout (the layout of red, green, and blue dots that compose a pixel) meant that sometimes things could render wrong on the monitor, leaving thin gaps in lines or even colors along the edges of lines that could be distracting at best and diminish clarity at worst.

To my surprise, that has been completely eliminated. I couldn’t spot the characteristic color fringing or faint black lines of text that impact many OLED monitors.

The technology has also improved its automatic brightness limiter. OLED and QD-OLED displays simply can’t shine all of their pixels at full brightness at the same time—it would use too much power and prematurely diminish the life of the OLED pixels.

On earlier monitors, this sometimes meant that as the on-screen image displayed more bright or white content, the brightness level of white visuals would lower, sometimes aggressively. The resulting fluctuations and unsightly shifts in perceived color and brightness were distracting. While the Alienware AW2725DF still occasionally presents these shifts, they’re far more subtle and less common, generally only showing when going from a dark screen to something considerably brighter.

The warranty allays some burn-in concerns

For about as long as OLED technology has been in premium displays, there has been some concern about burn-in alongside other common panel concerns like stuck, dead, or bright pixels. Dell’s warranty is not only three years long but it also covers things like single-pixel defects and OLED burn-in.

So, you don’t have to worry too much about spending nearly $1000 on a high-end monitor that could run into issues within a year and leave you in the lurch thanks to distracting issues that mar its otherwise exceptional qualities.

What we don’t like

The screen is way too easy to smear, and not so easy to clear

The Alienware AW2725DF (and larger Alienware AW3225QF) has a glass display with an anti-glare finish. This is different from the plastic and matte finishes that are common on a ton of other monitors. While it looks great, it’s very easy to blemish.

Just a quick wipe of the finger to get a bit of dust off the screen was enough to smear it, and that smear wouldn’t wipe away easily. If you’re likely to touch the screen often, get ready to also clean it thoroughly often. A quick rub with a microfiber cloth I had handy wasn’t enough to clear away the smudge, but Alienware includes a higher-quality cloth that does get the job done with a bit of effort. Though it’s hard to see these faint blemishes when the display is lit up, they show themselves all too clearly when the screen is displaying dark content, which is what the Alienware AW2725DF does best.

The HDMI connection is very limited

If you’re gaming on PC, you better have a DisplayPort connection available. The 360Hz refresh rate is only available at 1440p over DisplayPort. The HDMI port tops out at 144Hz, leaving a lot of capability on the table. This could be tough if you’re gaming with a laptop, as they don’t always have as complete an array of ports as their desktop counterparts.

The single HDMI port here is better used as a connection to a console or streaming device, neither of which is likely to take advantage of the full refresh rate anyway.

There are no speakers or audio output jacks

Things get tricky if you are planning to use this display with a console or streaming stick. The lack of speakers may not be a big deal, as monitor speakers are often not the best quality anyway. But the lack of a 3.5mm, optical audio jack, or eARC support like the AW2725DF’s larger sibling could be trouble.

A streaming stick or console can send video and audio to a display, and then an audio jack could conveniently pass the audio on to a pair of speakers. Without those, you’ll have to find another way to get the audio to speakers or headphones. This is a little easier with consoles, which often have some other means of connecting to speakers, but it can still be complicated. For streaming sticks, though, it might mean turning to the less reliable and bandwidth-limited Bluetooth.

Should you buy the Alienware AW2725DF?

Yes, particularly if you get competitive in your games

The Alienware AW2725DF knocks it out of the park in just about every department. It delivers sharp, utterly smooth gameplay and blasts out stunning visuals thanks to poignant color and sultry black levels. It doesn’t get much better than that, and Dell isn’t even charging an unreasonable price at $900. That flies right in the face of the competing 27-inch, 1440p, 240Hz OLED monitors that launched in 2023 at $1,000.

While the build may be a little creaky and overly plastic, something the LG UltraGear OLED 27GR95QE-B and the Asus ROG Swift PG27AQDM avoid, it’s far from feeling like a bad product. It certainly requires a bit of care, as the glass display is prone to blemishes. And even if it doesn’t offer some of the extras it could have, like audio pass-through or a DisplayPort-capable USB-C port, it still excels in its primary role as one of the best gaming monitors you can buy, especially for high-level play.

The Alienware AW2725DF even provides a great alternative to the earlier Alienware AW3423DW, which doesn’t run nearly as fast and can be fussy to use because ultrawide aspect ratios aren’t always well supported by content sources.

The stack of top-notch qualities the Alienware AW2725DF offers without an inflated price tag makes it a compelling option for gamers looking to get stunning visuals alongside all the speed they need to compete at a high level.