The 5 Best Curved Monitors - Black Friday 2024

The best curved monitor we've tested is the Dell Alienware AW3225QF. It's a premium monitor focused on gaming and has a 4k, 240Hz QD-OLED display. It combines outstanding gaming performance with fantastic picture quality. Although you need a high-end graphics card to take advantage of its high 240Hz refresh rate, it provides a smooth and detailed gaming experience. It has a near-instantaneous response time, resulting in crisp motion, and it even has HDMI 2.1 bandwidth to take full advantage of modern graphics cards and gaming consoles.

Its QD-OLED panel makes it an incredible choice if you just want to sit back and watch HDR content. It has a near-infinite contrast ratio for deep and inky blacks in dark rooms, and it gets bright enough for highlights to pop. It also displays a wide range of colors that look extremely vivid. One thing to note is that OLEDs risk permanent burn-in with constant exposure to the same static elements over time, so if that's a concern for you, check out the Samsung Odyssey Neo G8 S32BG85 instead. It uses Mini LED backlighting and doesn't risk burn-in, but its picture quality and motion handling are worse than the Dell.

If you don't like the 32-inch, 16:9 format of the Dell Alienware AW3225QF and prefer an ultrawide display, check out the Dell Alienware AW3423DWF. It doesn't have HDMI 2.1 bandwidth like the AW3225QF, and with a lower 1440p resolution, games look less detailed. However, the AW3423DWF is cheaper than the AW3225QF, and the extra horizontal screen space provides a more immersive feel for atmospheric games, so there are some considerable benefits.

Like the AW3225QF, this monitor has a QD-OLED panel, displaying deep and inky blacks in dark rooms with vivid, life-like colors. It also gets bright enough to make small highlights pop in HDR. It supports all common VRR formats, but if you have an NVIDIA graphics card and want to take full advantage of it with native G-SYNC support, consider the Dell Alienware AW3423DW instead. It performs similarly but tends to cost more than the AW3423DWF, so only get it if you want the native G-SYNC support.

If you don't need gaming features and want a curved monitor only for work, consider the Dell U4025QW. It has fewer gaming features and worse picture quality than both the Dell Alienware AW3225QF and the Dell Alienware AW3423DWF, but the differences don't have a big impact on productivity tasks. However, instead of high-end picture quality, it has a much bigger 40-inch screen with a 5k2k resolution and high pixel density, producing extremely sharp text. It has many productivity features that make it great for office use, and it doesn't risk permanent burn-in like the QD-OLEDs, either.

Its massive USB hub has two of its five USB-C ports supporting Thunderbolt 4. This lets you display an image from a compatible laptop and charge it with the same cable. It also has a few handy features, like Picture-in-Picture/Picture-by-Picture modes to display images from two sources simultaneously and a KVM switch that makes it easy to switch between different sources and use the same keyboard and mouse.

If you don't need a high-end display for gaming or an office-oriented monitor like the Dell U4025QW and you're on a budget, check out the Dell S3422DWG. It has the same 34-inch screen size, 1440p resolution, and 1800R curve as the Dell Alienware AW3423DWF, but the main trade-off is that it has worse picture quality, which is what you must expect if you want to save some money. Instead of the QD-OLED panel, it has an LED-backlit LCD panel, so highlights don't pop and HDR colors aren't as vivid, but it has a good contrast ratio and gets bright enough to fight glare in a well-lit room.

It's still an effective, low-cost option for gaming. It has VRR support to reduce screen tearing, but fast-moving objects look somewhat blurry and have smears behind them. Additionally, it has narrow viewing angles that make the screen look washed out from the sides, so it's not a good choice for co-op gaming. Luckily, the curved screen brings the edges closer to you, so the sides of the image don't look too washed out.

If you need a simple and cheap curved monitor, there are a few decent options, although most have a 16:9 aspect ratio and aren't ultrawide like the Dell S3422DWG. If you're interested in that, the Gigabyte GS27QC is a decent choice that works well for gaming. It's a step down in overall performance compared to the Dell because it doesn't get as bright, so it's better to use it in a dark room, and it displays deep blacks in dark rooms.

Besides that, it has a max 170Hz refresh rate that you can achieve over a DisplayPort connection, but like the Dell, fast-moving objects look blurry and have smear behind them. Though it works well with gaming consoles, without HDMI 2.1 bandwidth and a 4k resolution, it can't take full advantage of them. Unfortunately, the monitor isn't very versatile for other uses as it has narrow viewing angles, but this is the case for most curved entry-level displays anyway.