£3,199
dell.comWE’RE IMPRESSED Stunning
design; impressive OLED 4K
panel; 120Hz refresh rate.
WE’D IMPROVE A lot of money;
not an ideal HDR screen; could
buy a TV with gaming features.
THE LAST WORD If you want
a very large, TV-sized gaming
monitor, this is what you should
buy. It will be too much (in size
and price) for many gamers, but
that takes nothing away from its
stunning build and image quality.VERDICT
See more of the world’s best
monitors at: bit.ly/t3monitorsAPRIL 2020 T3 79Alienware 55 OLED
ake this monitor/TV hybrid out of
the box – which is actually quite
hard considering that the top half
is exposed wafer-thin, super-light
OLED and the bottom is weighty chassis stuffed
full of silicon (total weight without stand is
25.5kg) – and the first thing that hits you is
how aesthetically pleasing it is.
A product of the maker’s new Alienware
Legend Industrial Design, the monitor boasts
a series of gentle but pronounced lines, which
are contrasted sharply by the scarily thin,
incredibly flat, near-bezel-free OLED panel,
which at certain angles looks literally pressed
to the monitor’s chassis.
Overall the build quality on this monitor is
absolutely first rate, with everything about it
showcasing an immaculate fit-and-finish
and radiating a sense of dense, well-made
quality. Classy just about sums it up.
But the reason this monitor costs so much
isn’t primarily because of its future-industrial
design; rather it’s that it comes with a simply
stunning 4K OLED panel that boasts a wideThis huge gaming monitor is a thing of true beauty
Alienware 55 OLED
THE BIG GAME
colour gamut of 98.5% DCI-P3 (in layman’s
terms, super strong, vivid and accurate colour
reproduction), and “infinite contrast”. The
latter means it features OLED’s signature
pixel-by-pixel lighting and, as a result, an
incredible contrast ratio (130,000:1 here).
On that point, though, it is necessary to
mention that the peak brightness on this
monitor is 400 nits. Currently the top OLED
TVs and HDR monitors on the market boast
peak brightness ratings of around 1,000 nits,
so if true HDR performance is a must then this
monitor doesn’t quite tick that box.
At this price (and size) this is obviously not
the gaming monitor that the vast majority of
gamers are going to ring up. The 55-inch bulk
means that only those who essentially need a
gaming-focused TV-sized screen in their setup
should apply. And even if you do need that, this
monitor is about to be seriously challenged by a
raft of new cheaper products like the recently
announced LG CX OLED, which will offer the
same sort of features like 120Hz refresh rates
and Nvidia G-Sync, with better brightness.
But, the thing is, the 55 OLED actually
delivers, at least in our opinion, the absolute
best performance in its (admittedly rather niche
right now) product class – it is truly top
technology embedded in a premium design.T