Alienware’s new monitor is the first to feature a QD OLED panel.
Samsung wants to conquer the market with a new display technology in the coming months. This is called QD-OLED and is a mixture of Samsung’s Quantum Dot technology and OLED.
The new panels should find their way into gaming monitors and televisions. The first tests are already online, but the résumés vary A gamers dream
and these monitors are screwed up
. However, let’s start from the beginning.
The first tests relate to a new gaming monitor from Alienware, the AW3423DW. This is a 21:9 ultrawidescreen and one of the first to feature Samsung’s QD OLED panel. Testers and YouTubers agree Linus Tech Tips and Heise Online agree that the picture of the panel looks very good.
Linus is coming in his video can’t get out of the swarming anymore. According to him, it’s probably the best HDR experience he’s ever seen on a monitor. In addition, the display is far brighter than conventional OLEDs, which are actually not considered particularly bright, and reproduces the colors accurately. There is hardly anything better for games if Linus has his way.
Heise also praises the picture quality, albeit a little more cautiously. Here it says, among other things: The colors are rich, especially the green
and Deep black and almost infinite contrast thanks to OLED per-pixel dimming
. You can find out in our article on the subject what distinguishes the various types of panels that are otherwise common on computer screens:
TN, VA and IPS
Panels of monitors in comparison
Colored edges turn out to be a problem
However, Heise does not only have praise for the display. Disturbing color fringes on the high-contrast edges of the screen were noticed during the test. The edges glow in green, red or blue where they really shouldn’t. It will look like that:
Heise shows what the colorful edges look like in action. Source: Heise Online
According to Heise, this is very noticeable and a fundamental problem. They describe it as: “So the panel as it stands is a fundamentally screwed up affair.” With this opinion, Heise is not alone.
Also the test device of the reviewers from Computer Base has to struggle with the bright color fringes. The pixel structure of the panels is to blame for this. The three colors are arranged in a diamond shape on the new screens instead of in a line, which creates the unsightly edges.
Future televisions with Samsung’s QD-OLED panels should also use the same pixel structure. It is therefore conceivable that the colored edges will also be visible here. However, you usually sit a little further away from the TV, which means that you shouldn’t be too noticeable.
The new panels are not exactly cheap
The Alienware monitor with Samsung’s panel costs around $1,300. And the prices for the first televisions with the technology are already known. The Verge reports that the S95B, a 55-inch 4K QD OLED TV from Samsung, will cost around US$2,400. For the 65-inch model you have to pay around 3,500 US dollars, i.e. around 3,200 dollars. The official euro prices are not yet known.
Monitors can fundamentally change the gaming experience. My colleague Nils Raettig, whose new monitor was probably the most important purchase in recent years, also experienced this:
Are crisp contrasts important to you or should a monitor be cheap above all? Do you have high hopes for Samsung’s new technology? Your opinion matters!
