Dell was the first company to unveil a large-format gaming display — the Alienware 55 — based on an OLED panel back at CES 2019. It just so happens that Dell appears to be the first maker to slash pricing of such a product, too.
The Alienware 55 uses a 55-inch OLED panel featuring a 4K resolution, 400 nits peak brightness, a 130,000:1 contrast ratio, a 0.5 ms gray-to-gray response time, as well as a 120 Hz maximum refresh rate. This high refresh rate along with support for VESA’s Adaptive-Sync technology in its AMD FreeSync Premium as well as Nvidia G-Sync-compatible implementation makes the monitor a particularly good fit for dynamic PC gaming.
After we did our Alienware AW5520QF OLED review, we just had to put it on our Best 4K Gaming Monitors list.
Originally, the monitor’s MSRP was $3,999 when it was launched last year. But since then Dell has quietly slashed pricing of the device to $3,039.
The Alienware 55 monitor can display 98.5% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which is nearly as accurate as performance of professional IPS LCD displays. For gamers, it means more vivid colors, which, when combined with OLED’s deep blacks, gives more realism, and therefore immersion. Meanwhile, the display also features an anti-reflective coating with 2H hardness for extra clarity when used in bright environments.
While the OLED technology promises a lot, the Alienware 55 monitor is not without caveats. The display does not support HDR transport, a technology that is used by a number of games today. Furthermore, both HDR10 and Dolby Vision are used by countless 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray as well as Netflix movies.