Dell Alienware AW2725Q Monitor Review

The Dell AW2725Q comes with a different design compared to past Alienware monitors, with a blue plastic body and a square-based stand instead of wide-set feet like on the Dell Alienware AW3225QF. The back of the monitor is more simplistic, but it still has branding and lighting elements.

The build quality is excellent. The plastic casing feels solid and premium, and there aren't any obvious issues with how it's made. However, finger smudges easily stay on the casing, and it's susceptible to scratches. On the plus side, it doesn't get as hot as other monitors after long periods of use, and there isn't any audible fan noise or coil whine.

The ergonomics are excellent. It's easy to adjust to your preferred position, and it stays in place well once you do. The stand even features an etched ruler to help with your height adjustment. There's also a cutout in the stand for cable management.

The stand holds the screen well, with minimal wobble, and it has a smaller footprint than previous Alienware monitors.

There's a joystick underneath the center of the bezel to control the on-screen display, and a power button on the right side.

• DisplayPort cable
• HDMI cable
• USB-A to USB-B cable
• Power cable
• Cleaning cloth
• Alienware sticker
• User guides

The Dell AW2725Q has a near-infinite contrast ratio in dark rooms, so it displays deep and inky blacks. However, ambient light in bright rooms causes the black levels to rise, making them look purple and lowering the contrast ratio.

The Dell AW2725Q Monitor doesn't have a backlight, so it doesn't require a local dimming feature. However, with a near-infinite contrast ratio, there isn't any blooming around bright objects, and it's the equivalent of a perfect local dimming feature. We still film these videos on the monitor so you can see how the screen performs and compare it with a monitor that has local dimming.

Settings

• Preset Mode: Custom color (after calibration)
• Brightness: 100

The SDR brightness is okay. It maintains its brightness consistently across different content, which is good if you're constantly maximizing and minimizing windows. However, it doesn't get bright enough to fight a ton of glare, particularly if you place it opposite a sunny window.

Settings

• Smart HDR: HDR Peak 1000
• Dolby Vision: Off
• Console Mode: Off
• Brightness: Locked

The HDR brightness is okay. It's bright enough with most content to fight glare in most bright rooms, and it gets brightest with small highlights so that they pop against the rest of the image. However, like most OLEDs, it can't maintain this high brightness with large highlights.

Its PQ EOTF tracking is off, as most content is brighter than intended, which results in raised blacks in some scenes. Because it has a slow roll-off before the peak brightness, it doesn't let all highlights get the brightest possible. If you prefer a sharper cut-off at the peak brightness, you can enable Console Mode, which you can only do over HDMI, and enable Source Tone Map. You can also see the EOTF in Dolby Vision.

We also measured the brightness in the 'DisplayHDR True Black' Smart HDR mode, which has more consistent brightness between different scenes but is dimmer overall:

• Peak 2%: 442 cd/m²
• Peak 10%: 443 cd/m²
• Peak 100%: 257 cd/m²
• EOTF: Graph

The gray uniformity is amazing. Solid colors are uniform across the screen, with only the edges looking a bit darker. However, like any OLED, there are thin gray vertical lines in dark scenes, but they're hard to see with most content.

The accuracy before calibration is decent with the 'Creator' Preset Mode set to 'sRGB.' It over-clamps colors the sRGB color space, so some colors are undersaturated, resulting in some inaccuracies. While the color temperature is close to the 6500K target, the biggest downsides are with the white balance issues and the fact that gamma is too dark in brighter scenes. This is with Gamma set to '2.4', as it's even worse on '2.2.'

Using the 'Creator' mode locks you out of the Hue, Saturation, and Console Mode settings. You'd have to use another, less-accurate mode with oversaturated colors if you want access to those settings.

The accuracy after calibration is remarkable. Calibrating it in the 'Custom Color' Preset Mode fixes most issues from the 'Creator' mode, but gamma is still too dark.

The SDR color gamut is fantastic. It displays a wide range of colors in the sRGB and Adobe RGB color spaces. While it's accurate in the sRGB color space, it oversaturates reds and magentas and undersaturates cyan in the Adobe RGB color space.

The HDR color gamut is incredible. It displays a wide range of colors in the DCI-P3 color space but aggressively tone maps them, leading to some inaccuracies. It also displays a wide range of colors in the wider Rec. 2020 color space but doesn't cover the entire space.

The HDR color volume is remarkable. It displays bright and dark colors very well in dark rooms, resulting in vivid images. However, dark colors desaturate quickly in bright rooms.

The text clarity is fantastic. Although it has some fringing around letters with ClearType on (top photo), it's very hard to see in person, and text looks as sharp as a 27-inch, 4k LCD display. These photos are in Windows 10, and you can also see them in Windows 11 with ClearType on and with ClearType off.

Like any QD-OLED, it has fringing at the top and bottom edges of windows. However, how much this bothers you changes from person to person.

The reflection handling is remarkable. It reduces glare really well, which is useful if you want to use it in a room with a few lights around.

The gradient handling is excellent for the most part. There's minimal banding with most shades, but there's more visible banding with darker shades, particularly with dark gray.

Your graphics card needs to use Display Stream Compression (DSC) to reach the max refresh over HDMI and DisplayPort. There's no setting to disable DSC either.

On top of supporting FreeSync VRR and G-SYNC compatibility, this monitor also supports HDMI Forum VRR.

The Dell AW2725Q Monitor has remarkable motion handling across its VRR range. There's minimal blur, and any blur you see at low refresh rates is persistence blur.

The refresh rate compliance is fantastic. Although it isn't perfect, its response time is fast enough to complete most full-color transitions before the monitor draws the next frame.

The CAD at the max refresh rate of 240Hz is outstanding. Motion looks sharp, without any noticeable blur.

The CAD at 120Hz is outstanding. Although there's a bit of persistence blur, motion still looks sharp.

The CAD at 60Hz is remarkable. While it has a near-instantaneous response time, it still has persistence blur.

The Dell AW2725Q doesn't have a black frame insertion feature to reduce persistence blur.

The Dell AW2725Q has noticeable VRR flicker with changing frame rates, which is most distracting in dark scenes. While it doesn't have a setting to reduce the flicker, you can try avoiding it by setting a frame rate cap or disabling VRR altogether.

Settings

• Calibrated settings
• Connection: DisplayPort
• Console Mode: Off

The Dell AW2725Q has low input lag regardless of the settings or connection that you use. We also measured it using Console Mode, which is only available over HDMI:

You need to set Smart HDR to any of the modes to get HDR on the PS5, otherwise there aren't any issues.

This monitor works well with an Xbox Series X|S, and supports any signal, including in Dolby Vision. You just need to enable any of the Dolby Vision modes from the monitor's OSD to get it to work properly. Keep in mind that the Xbox doesn't support HDR with 1080p and 1440p signals, so this isn't a limitation of the monitor.

One of the HDMI ports doubles as an eARC port for audio passthrough to a compatible device, including with Dolby Atmos signals.

As the USB-C port doesn't support DisplayPort Alt Mode, you can't display video signals from it, and it's meant for data transfer only.

This monitor doesn't have any compatibility issues with macOS. VRR works well, and HDR looks great, too. If you have a MacBook connected and close the lid, windows move to the monitor's screen. They also return to their original positions when reopening the lid or waking the laptop up from sleep.

The Dell AW2725Q has a few features, including:

• AlienFX Lighting: Allows you to adjust the RGB lighting on the back of the monitor.
• AlienVision: Includes different crosshairs and vision modes that your game's anti-cheat tool won't detect.
• Console Mode: This feature is meant for the best compatibility with consoles. You can also set it to 'Legacy Devices' for older devices, but that limits the refresh rate to 120Hz.
• Dark Stabilizer: Adjusts the black level to make it easier to see opponent in dark scenes.
• Game Enhance Mode
  • Display Alignment: Overlays a grid to help you align it next to another display.
  • Frame Rate: Displays the current frame rate from a source.
  • Timer: Shows a timer on the screen.
• OLED Panel Maintenance: Offers a Pixel Refresh cycle to help reduce the risk of burn-in. You can start it manually or it runs automatically after every four hours of usage when you put the monitor to sleep or turn it off. Dell also offers a three-year warranty, although this can vary between regions.

You can learn more about the monitor's settings in the user guide.