Product Review: The Alienware AW2723DF Is a 280Hz BEAST Gaming Monitor with Surprisingly Good Colors.
This monitor was tested thoroughly as well as used PERSONALLY every day to complete this full in-depth review. Here is what I found after this process...
Pros:
280Hz Refresh Rate
1440p Resolution
Super Low Input Lag
High Brightness
Great Colors & Accuracy Out of the Box
Superior Build Quality
Cons:
1000:1 Contrast Ratio
Size, Resolution, & Panel Type
The AW2723DF has a 27 inch screen size with a resolution of 2560 by 1440p. This brings the PPI, or pixels per inch, to about 109. This means games, images, and movies all appear crisp and clear. Small text will have visible pixelation depending on your viewing distance.
Although, the important thing to note here is very high refresh rate at a 1440p resolution, which is huge. As for the panel type, this is a Nano IPS panel, which is great!
Refresh Rate & Variable Refresh Rate
The Alienware AW2723DF's refresh rate is fantastic hitting 240Hz natively with a factory overclock up to 280Hz! In the menu system, you can choose whether you want a 250Hz, 260Hz, 270Hz, or a 280Hz overclocked refresh rate, nice!
As well, a fantastic thing is that this has Freesync Premium Pro. This means you can have variable refresh rate on with HDR.
This is also Nvidia Certified G-Sync compatible with is great! As you'd expect, this works very well. Now at this price point, which we can all agree is quite reasonable, if you compare this to Asus’s new 1440p 360Hz panel which is priced at a little over a thousand dollars, this monitor's price tag doesn’t seem too shabby at all with only an 80Hz difference.
Brightness & HDR
Brightness in SDR is fantastic here hitting around 580nits of brightness after testing. This is extremely bright and vibrant. Reflections, in most situations, are not an issue at all at full brightness.
Speaking of reflections, let’s talk about the finish here. This is not your average matte finish. The finish is comparable to LG’s 32GQ950 and 32GQ850, which is an almost glossy finish with a touch of matte. This allows for so much more clarity of the image when compared to basically everything else. HUGE PRO!
As for HDR, this has an HDR600 rating. So how is it? The colors in HDR are very vibrant, detail is kept throughout brighter and darker areas of the screen, and overall gaming in HDR is very enjoyable.
So overall, this is just about as good as you could ask for for a traditional IPS panel! One thing to note is that this does have local dimming in the DisplayHDR600 HDR mode, but it is only edge lit with 16 zones, so it really does not do much of anything.
Colors & ACCURACY
The Alienware AW2723DF covers 95% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which is impressive! The wide color gamut paired with the semi gloss finish is something you notice right away; especially in HDR. Color temperature from the factory (uncalibrated) in Creator mode was very good hitting 6386K with a target of 6500K, this is pretty dang close. After calibration, I was able to get this to hit 6547K which is basically perfect, so great overall. I'm very happy with this.
As for Gamma, when this was in the 2.2 setting inside the creator color profile, this hit a 2.3, which totally fine for 99% of users. However, this did exceedingly well after calibration hitting a 2.19 with a target of 2.2, so basically perfect. Overall, this is very vibrant and pretty for gamers, but not just that, it’s also a panel that you can legitimately do some photo and video editing on. This is a huge pro for some of us! Lastly, this was able to output 10 bits of color at full overclocked 280Hz.
Contrast Ratio & Backlight Bleed
The contrast ratio is typical for IPS panels hitting 1000:1.
As for backlight bleed, there was a very small amount in the left corner. That being said, it was not noticeable during typical usage. As well, this was a review unit that I believe came from the UK, so this may have been a very early unit that still had some quality control issues.
This doesn’t bother me too much, as I know Dell has pretty good quality control at this point. If you do have this on your panel, just have them send a replacement, but again, my feeling is that this will probably not be on 99% of these sold.
Response Time, Ghosting, & Input Lag
The AW2723DF hits a claimed 1ms GTG, but that doesn’t matter. How does this preform in terms of ghosting? With VVR on, this does extremely well in all settings, with the fastest and best setting being the Extreme setting. There is still slight amounts of ghosting, but I do mean slight. It’s not crystal clear like other IPS panels we’ve seen, but its damn good! It is not going to be an issue at all during gameplay.
For input lag, this has extraordinarily low input lag, as you would expect with a max refresh rate of 280Hz. This feels very very fast, and it is.
Menu System & Controls
Controls are great here with a single joystick in the middle bottom chin and a dedicated power button that has customizable RGB.
The menu system itself is typical Alienware: it's functional, pretty intuitive, but just not pretty or refined like LG’s. Overall it's good.
VESA Compatibility
VESA compatibility is what you’d expect with a 100mm by 100mm VESA mount. This also isn't super difficult to mount, as this only weighs in at 12.6 lbs without the stand.
Connectivity & Ports
Ports include: two HDMI 2.0, one DisplayPort 1.4, one USB Type-B upstream, four USB Type-A downstreams, and then two 3.5mm audio outs.
Two of the USB Type-As are behind the monitor with the other ports, and then the other two are on the left side of the bottom chin with an additional headphone jack. This is super nice for charging headsets and such.
Stand & Build Quality
The stand on the AW2723DF is absolutely fantastic as you’d expect form Alienware: it looks stunning, it’s well put together, and the matte off-white color is awesome. What’s not to love? Cable management is also fantastic and hides cables incredibly well. As for functionality, this is good having height, tilt, swivel, and full rotation both to the left and right side.
Another thing that they did incredibly well is the exceedingly small bezels. These may be the smallest bezels I’ve ever seen on a monitor before, which make this look absolutely stunning. This does also have RGB lighting, which is nice and customizable, but it doesn’t hit the wall evenly since the 27 is bigger than the Alienware logo.
One last thing to mention is that this does have a headphone stand built into the side of this, and its not great. My Corsair Virtuosos, which I admit are very heavy, made this lean over slightly when resting there, so the stand's resistance for rotation needs to be increased for the headphone stand to be more usable.
Price & Value
The Alienware AW2723DF is at a very competitive price point, and if this is what you’re looking for, then it's incredible. The 280Hz refresh rate, beautiful vibrant image with wide color coverage, bright screen, super fast gaming performance with extremely low input lag, and premium build with micro bezels is truly impressive for the price!
Now, the 360Hz Asus PG259QN is faster than this and still has a resolution of 1440p, however, it only has 80Hz more and a slightly lower input lag, but costs substantially more. I’m just going to say, the AW2723DF is 98% of that experience for a whole lot less money. 1440p at 360Hz is not worth it yet, and right now, this is a fantastic FAST and beautiful display and MY PICK over the Asus!
Overall Verdict
So overall do I recommend the Alienware AW2723DF? Yes, absolutely! The speed, resolution, 280Hz, wide color gamut, high brightness, and fantastic overall gaming performance makes this one of my favorite 27 inch gaming monitors to date!