Alienware - AW2725QF 27" IPS LED 4K UHD 180Hz .5-ms G-SYNC Dual-Resolution Gaming Monitor with HDR (HDMI, DisplayPort) - Black

My son loves this monitor. He has commented that there is no lag, bright colors, smooth edges. The monitor fits on his small desk and seems big for the size we bought. He loves it…

The Alienware 4K gaming monitor is an excellent choice for both competitive and casual gaming. Its 4K resolution delivers stunning image quality, and with a refresh rate of 165 Hz, it ensures smooth gameplay. For those focused on competitive play, the monitor also offers a 1080p option that supports a remarkable 360 Hz refresh rate. This higher frame rate provides better timing and improved accuracy during intense gaming sessions. This monitor is versatile enough to fit any setup, whether used as a main monitor or a secondary one. It has a decent size and is easy to assemble; you simply snap in the stand and secure it with one screw. After that, you can connect it to a power source and use an HDMI or DisplayPort cable to link it to your computer. The Alienware monitor performs well with both fast and slower computers, allowing for high frame rates even at lower resolutions. Users with slower systems can enjoy smooth gameplay at 1080p, while still benefiting from a monitor capable of delivering 360 frames per second. For those with powerful systems, the monitor shines at 4K resolution with a 165 Hz refresh rate, providing an outstanding visual experience. Additionally, the monitor offers a standard array of color modes, such as FPS and racing, with the standard mode being my personal favorite for its vibrant colors, which avoid a flat appearance. Overall, the Alienware monitor is a worthwhile investment for anyone seeking an efficient and visually appealing display.

The Alienware AW2725QF 27’’ IPS LED 4K Dual-Resolution Gaming Monitor is a fantastic monitor that comes with an interesting but somewhat niche feature to function either as a UHD 4K monitor capable of running at 180 Hz or as a FHD 1080p monitor capable of running at 360 Hz. At first, I didn’t understand this feature because I have always been able to run my games at a lower resolution (such as 1080p) on any high resolution 4K monitor. Any graphics card can do this. Why is this even considered a feature on a monitor? However, when I investigated this feature a bit more, I began to understand the reasoning for implementing it. If you use the graphics card to run a game at 1080p resolution on a regular 4K monitor, you are limited by that monitor for the refresh rate at 4K. In the case of the new Alienware AW2725QF monitor, if you set the monitor to run as a FHD 1080p monitor, you are able to increase the refresh rate from 180 Hz to 360 Hz. The Alienware AW2725QF uses a true 4K display panel. When running as a FHD monitor, it essentially treats every group of 4 pixels as 1 big pixel and the hardware is able to refresh each big pixel at a faster refresh rate. This technique essentially gives us one affordable monitor that can excel at productivity work and media consumption when running in 4K mode while also excelling in competitive gaming when running in FHD mode where higher refresh rates offer a competitive advantage. Package Contents The Alienware AW2725QF monitor comes packaged with the following items: The monitor itself A monitor base and stand 1x USB-A to USB-B 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) Upstream Cable 1x HDMI 2.1 FRL cable 1x DisplayPort 1.4 cable 1x Power Cable Quick Start Guide and Alienware Sticker Main Specifications 3840 x 2160 (4K mode) up to 180 Hz and 1920 x 1080 (FHD mode) up to 360 Hz 1000:1 native contrast ratio 400 cd/m2 (typical) and 600 cd/m2 (HDR peak) brightness 0.5 to 1.0 millisecond response time 95% DCI-P3 (CIE 1976) color gamut Supports both Dolby Vision and VESA DisplayHDR 600 Supports both NVIDIA® G-SYNC® and VESA AdaptiveSync Supports Picture in Picture (PIP) 178 degrees horizontal and vertical viewing angle 1x DisplayPort 2x HDMI ports (2nd supports eARC) 1x USB-B 3.2 Gen1 upstream port (5 Gbps) 2x USB-A 3.2 Gen1 downstream port (5 Gbps) 1x USB-C 3.2 Gen1 downstream port (5 Gbps) 1x USB-A 3.2 Gen1 downstream port (5 Gbps) with BC1.2 power charging Setup Connecting the neck stand to the base was very simple. You just place the neck stand into the base and tighten the attached screw handle. No tools were needed. I also appreciated the design of the box to allow attaching the completed stand to the monitor while the monitor is still safely in the box. The stand clicks securely into the back of the monitor and once connected you can safely lift the monitor out of the box by the stand. Overall, this was probably the easiest physical setup of a monitor I have ever experienced. The included stand allows for tilt, swivel, and height adjustment along with the ability to rotate the display between landscape and portrait orientations to enable the creation of the perfect workspace environment. The Alienware AW2725QF also offers great connectivity by supporting 3 different source inputs and lots of USB ports. Support for Dolby Vision and HDMI eARC also means this will be a great monitor for gaming consoles. Performance and User Experience The Alienware AW2725QF performs extremely well in UHD 4K mode. Colors were rich, bright and vibrant and text was super sharp. In UHD 4K mode, this monitor excels in productivity and media consumption tasks such as programming, reading/writing emails, web browsing, and watching videos and playing games. While watching videos, I discovered one surprising feature that was missing from this monitor. The Alienware AW2725QF doesn’t have any built-in speakers or any audio/headphone jack. I have a somewhat unusual setup where I have multiple computers sharing a single monitor, keyboard and mouse through a HDMI KVM switch so for my situation, it is very useful to have speakers on the monitor. For audio support, there is an HDMI port that supports eARC so it’s possible to connect a small HDMI soundbar for sound. It should also be possible to use a USB audio adapter or USB digital speaker connected to one of the monitor’s USB ports for sound although I didn’t test this. Luckily, one of the computers I have connected to the KVM switch is a laptop so I was able to use the laptop’s built-in speakers for sound. You can switch operating modes (UHD 4K or FHD 1080p mode) by pressing the joystick menu button for about 2 seconds. When you do that, the connected computer thinks you physically attached a new monitor to it. You can also download the Dell Display Manager application to customize and control the settings of the monitor. I did not get a chance to try this out. I was very curious about how the Alienware AW2725QF would look like when running In FHD 1080p mode and how it compares to using the graphics card to produce a 1080p display when running in UHD 4K mode. Overall, the display running in FHD 1080p mode looks about the same as when using your graphics card to display a 1080p image on a UHD 4K monitor. I didn’t really see any difference when it comes to graphics. However, if you look more closely at text, you can notice the text to be slightly more blocky with slightly better contrast in FHD 1080p mode compared to UHD 4K mode. Using the graphics card to display a 1080p image in UHD 4K mode produces text that is smoother and softer. This is because the graphics card can produce text using anti-aliasing techniques since it has full access to every pixel in the 4K display. I played Black Myth Wukong at 1080p on the monitor and I was very impressed. Image quality was great and the game was very enjoyable on this monitor. At first I noticed some minor tearing but once I enabled nVidia G-Sync on my laptop’s RTX 4060 graphics card, I did not see any more tearing so this feature seems to work really well. I played the game using both FHD 1080p mode and UHD 4K mode (while setting the graphics resolution to 1080p) and didn’t notice any image quality or performance difference. I am not a competitive gamer, so I will probably be mostly using the monitor in UHD 4K mode as the type of games I typically enjoy (X-COM 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, Black Myth Wukong, Marvel Midnight Suns etc.) don’t really need super high refresh rates. Summary The Alienware AW2725QF produces a beautiful image with bright, vibrant, rich colors along with razor sharp text. It offers plenty of connections and the included stand is very flexible for creating the perfect workspace environment. Support for Dolby Vision and HDMI eARC also makes this monitor great for a gaming console. The Alienware AW2725QF has a unique ability to also function as a lower resolution monitor (FHD 1080p) that offers higher refresh rates (up to 360 Hz) for those who are into competitive gaming and need the highest rates possible. Overall, I can easily recommend the Alienware AW2725QF to anyone looking for a new UHD 4K gaming monitor that is also excellent for productivity and media consumption.