The Alienware AW3423DW is a gorgeous QD-OLED monitor — the first of its kind — and it’s completely changed the way I look at gaming monitors.
I am generally pretty lucky in that I get to use all the nicest gaming monitors as soon as they’re available. I’ve used extremely huge ultrawide monitors like the Samsung Odyssey Neo G9, and I’ve used smaller but extremely fast gaming monitors, too. As a general rule, I tend to gravitate to what makes games look the best rather than play the best because I like shiny things, but the Alienware AW3423DW seems to be able to do both. Right now, everyone is talking about the Apple Event, and so obviously I should be talking about that, too. After all, Apple did release the M1 Ultra and even claimed that it was faster than the RTX 3090. That should be sucking up all my interest right now. But I’ll be honest, I really couldn’t care less about the Mac Studio right now because this monitor just showed up on my doorstep. And as soon as I set it up I couldn’t look away. This is, at first glance, one of the best-looking ultrawide monitors I’ve ever used. I’m stunned. I’ve been playing a lot of Elden Ring on this thing today instead of, you know, doing my job, just because it looks so good. And that’s in spite of the fact that Elden Ring, for some bizarre reason, doesn’t support the 21:9 aspect ratio. That means I have to put up with giant black bars on the side. I don’t care. They literally disappear from my vision because this panel is so damn good.
