Alienware AW3425DW: What Real Users Actually Think

Still rocking the first version of this monitor from years ago, still perfect. No reason to upgrade it yet, maybe next year.

Coil whine... on a monitor?! That's no bueno!

It really seems like a minor upgrade of the aw3423dwf. If you have that monitor, no reason to consider this one unless you really value 165 vs 240hz. The biggest 'upgrade' is probably the fact that this has a normal stand base and not the ridiculous flaring legs of the dwf. Same panel, same pixel structure, same color performance and HDR performance. However if you're looking to jump into UW or OLED, the price of this makes it super attractive.

Going from IPS to OLED was the best upgrade for my PC since I got my first SSD.

It has been at this price all week. It's just a minor upgrade with the panel being able to hit 240hz over 160 like the previous model going for $500. Whether that's worth the extra $150 is up to you.

I'm loving mine. Had the AW3423DW for 3 years, and this one is just as good, everything looks fantastic, with the added bonus of the jump from 165hz to 240hz, and a better stand. I'd say the number of modern AA & AAA games that support 21:9 is pretty high. Only a very small number haven't supported it, and for most of those there are fixes. Highly recommended!

Had it for a month now, absolutely fantastic coming from a 1080 ips 144hz monitor.

Very nice review. I pretty much agree with all your points! I've had mine now for about 2 weeks.

I just received my Alienware AW3425DW yesterday directly from Dell.com. I love the quality of life features from the previous model AW3423DWF. And the best part ZERO COIL WHINE. SILENT AS A CHURCH MOUSE. I'm so happy with my purchase. And finally 240 HZ from 165 HZ. And we finally get HDMI 2.1 for console setup with this Godly monitor.

No, hands down the best monitor I ever had. Even bought my wife one, too. It's amazing and nothing comes close to it in terms of price/performance especially with a discount. My only gripe with it is the physical size (too smol) and 1440p. Other than that it's as close to perfect as it gets.

I've had this monitor for almost two years with no issue. It's my main monitor so I use it for gaming and productivity when I work from home and have had no issues to speak of. For what it costs now versus what I paid for it I think it's a steal.

I honestly have no idea why people insist text clarity is poor. I press my face up to the screen and it is perfectly sharp. I ran cleartype once and it's been this way ever since.

Brother this is the best monitor I have ever had and have seen in person, I have a lot of friends on PC with various monitors and they are all jealous of mine. I bought it a month after it came out for 800. This is objectively the best monitor in its class. That class being: 34 inches/ 21:9/ OLED/ 3440x1440P/ 240Hz.

Excellent value IMO - really enjoying mine.

I've had the previous model since it first came out over three years ago. I've really liked it and while it definitely has some wear from use it doesn't have obvious burn in. I use it for work and a lot of gaming. Including a lot of wow up until a few months ago. I used elvui in wow which allows you to dim action bars and other ui elements out of combat or in other situations.

It's an excellent monitor. Some older games require a little bit of modification, or mods to make 21:9 work. And Alienware does not offer proper 2.2 gamma with the AW3425DW's SDR mode. "2.2" is actually following the SRGB EOTF. So if you play games in SDR, they're going to look washed out. You'll need to download the ICC profile to make Windows track 2.2 gamma when HDR is enabled, if you want to use a power law 2.2 gamma.

I just got the AW3425DW yesterday I can hardly tell that there is a difference between it and my LG 1440p IPS UW side by side. I'm also a graphic designer for a living and stare at text all day.

Mine doesn't stop even in standby... it just gets quieter. These power supplies that Dell uses are such a joke.

I personally do have the AW3425DW and it's absolutely fantastic, one gripe I have with it is that the DisplayPort cable is only DP1.4 so you have to either use DSC or switch to HDMI to get the full 240hz.

The AW3425DW is a big upgrade in contrast and overall picture quality compared to an LG 34GN850. For dark games and horror movies, the difference is immediately noticeable. Blacks look truly black, and the panel handles shadow detail far better than any IPS I've used. Text clarity is the main drawback. Because of the subpixel layout on QD-OLED panels, small text can look slightly soft or show a bit of fringing.

I got this late last week, amazing monitor. Ultrawide is absolutely worth it.

Got one during the black Friday sale to replace my failing PG35VQ. Absolutely impressed, though I do have occasional VRR flicker (mostly on loading screens) and HDR was a downgrade in terms of brightness. Ended up getting my other half one too.

I got my first oled and it was this one. Such a good monitor for the price.

I replaced my 4K m32u because 4K is just too expensive to run. Monitor is great! Has some text fringing and getting used to the lower resolution will take me another week or 2 but overall I'd take the ultrawide oled image over the 4K.

I've had mine for about a month now and I absolutely love it.

The fan starts at speed 1 when room temp exceeds 24 degrees Celsius. At 30, it goes to L2. L1 is already way too noisy. I just asked Dell to take it back. Impossible to work like this.

I bought the AW3425DW a couple weeks ago to upgrade from an ASUS IPS 34" UW HDR monitor. It honestly took me a total of probably 5-6 hours of research, tinkering and upgrading to windows 11 to get the colors, brightness, contrast, hdr to my liking. This involved the nvidia control panel, windows 11 hdr calibration and the monitors own display settings. But since getting it set up I have been super pleased. The OLED tech is truly stunning and the extra frames are nice to have on some games.

So dang, I literally just set up my AW3425DW today and immediately noticed the text issue. Like you, I intend to work on this monitor day and game at night. The text might also be a deal breaker for me. I love OLED and the 21:9 format, but this is primarily my home office monitor.

I have the AW3423DWF, the previous-generation model. It's outstanding for gaming and content viewing, but it's really really really not great for text. I used it as my main work monitor for about 4 months and then had to switch it out for a 32" 4k monitor because reading text on it for hours at a time was truly terrible.

None. Best monitor ever.

Occasionally it can emit a high pitch electrical whine. You know the kind old people can't hear. Sometimes toggling the lighting on the back of the monitor stops it. Aside from that, text doesn't look quite as good but after a few minutes you won't even notice anymore unless you have bird vision.

Just a heads up; if you plan on using it with a console like a PS5 or anything that routes audio through HDMI, there are no speakers and no audio output/3.5mm jack. The only way to get audio will be directly from your console via headphones, or some other solution like a USB adapter or HDMI splitter. Other than that, the monitor is fantastic. OLED/HDR is a game changer if you're coming from LCD.

I upgraded from the AW3420 to the AW3425. IPS 120hz to OLED 240hz has been amazing, possibly better than a GPU upgrade for the overall experience.

Please do not buy this monitor. 3 monitors later. All refurbs and broken.

I had it for a few days and did not like it. The AW3423DWF was such a beast but this one was a let down. It felt very featureless. In this day and age I kind of expect having some form of PD on my monitors which this lacked and I was really disappointed by its HDR performance. What was especially annoying is there was no OLED care options.

Owner here too. I agree with the positive take on picture quality, but also wanted to add in the fact that I do get bad OLED VRR Flicker when using G-Sync. Even with a stable/consistent frame rate. It's really the only thing that annoys me to no end.

I made the stupid mistake of selling my AW3423DWF a month ago to move to 4K 16:9, not even 24h after receiving the MSI I regretted it and returned it. Luckily the AW3425DW came out at a very decent price and paired with a 10% discount I grabbed it for 777€. I am simply not going back to 16:9, I love Ultrawide way too much.

During Black Friday last year, I bought the 3225Q on sale, it came all scratched up, Dell replaced it with a brand new unit, still the same problem so I just returned both for a refund. Fast forward a few months and it went on sale again so I tried one last time and the screen arrived perfect this time, but my third unit had insane coil whine when in idle, but the first two units were completely silent.

The coil whine on my AW3423DWF drives me insane, was really hoping they would have it addressed in this newer model so I could convince myself to just buy it and be done.

I upgraded from the 3418dw and I really didn't know if I liked it out of the box. The text fringing was crazy to me. After about three weeks with it I now think it's great and am starting to think my other IPS is looking silver/washed out.

I purchased it right after it released directly from Dell's site. I haven't had a single issue. I use this for gaming AND productivity and absolutely love it. Two of my friends have also since bought the same monitor after me, and they also love it and have no issues at all.

Love mine. Coming from IPS, the blacks on my games actually look black now and not washed out - and it's super fast. Great monitor but was $800 + tax on sale here in Canada.

I am going on my 3rd monitor from Dell. At least the 2 I have owned so far the quality of the build is awful. Screen bubbling on the first one and the second replacement one's plastic cover was detached and bowed from the screen itself at the top curve. Never even took the second out of the box. AW3425DW $800 Frustration. Refund is pending.

The text is terrible. I returned mine.

I returned mine. I was coming from AW3423DWF, the newer version looks worse and less punchier and less brighter. Ended up getting MSI 491CQPX and could not be happier.