So don’t. Upgrade the thing you’re staring at instead.
I’ve been testing Alienware’s AW2726DM, a 27-inch 1440p OLED monitor running at 240Hz, and it’s astounding for $350. We’ve watched OLED monitor prices tumble over the last couple of years, especially during sales, but Dell is planting a flag here with an everyday price that finally pushes OLED out of luxury territory and into the mainstream.
Alienware helped kick off the OLED gaming monitor revolution with the legendary AW3423DW, which launched for a whopping $1,400 just a few years ago (and still earned an Editors’ Choice award for its dominance). Now the company is selling a 27-inch, 1440p QD-OLED display with a 240Hz refresh rate for just $350. What a time to be alive!
The AW2726DM’s QD-OLED panel is the star
The AW2726DM’s QD-OLED panel delivers the stuff that makes OLED special: perfect blacks, phenomenal contrast, vibrant colors, and near-instantaneous pixel response. Combine that with a crisp 2560×1440 resolution and buttery 240Hz refresh rate and games simply look and feel fantastic. Dark scenes have actual depth instead of the gray haze you get from typical IPS panels, while motion stays razor-sharp when you’re whipping around in fast-paced games.
It’s the sort of upgrade you notice constantly rather than in benchmark charts. A faster graphics card might turn 90 fps into 115 fps. This monitor changes how every one of those frames looks — and they look oh-so-delicious. This is a wonderful gaming monitor.
What about when you’re not actively gaming? OLED’s infamous text fringing is still here if you look closely enough at fine lines on stark backgrounds. It’s not something that bothers me much while gaming, but I can see it around text during desktop use, and I’d think harder about this monitor if I spent eight hours a day staring at spreadsheets and Word documents on it. Mixed work-and-play users should know what they’re getting into.