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All that being said, if gaming is where your priorities lie, then the AW2521HF is a great choice. It’s fast and responsive, and is compatible with both AMD FreeSync Premium and Nvidia’s G-Sync technologies for tear-free gaming, which is a sensible move if you own a card from one manufacturer and think you might switch allegiance sometime in the future.
Alienware 25 Gaming Monitor (AW2521HFL) - PCMag UK Alienware 25 Gaming Monitor (AW2521HFL) - PCMag UK
Similar to above, as with ‘Game 2’ and ‘Game 3’. Greater flexibility offered in the OSD than the ‘Standard’ setting. You will find the latter and two of the USB slots in a hub at the middle of the bottom bezel for easy access. It’s great that you don’t have to flip the monitor or blindly reach for the slots at the rear panel if in case you want to swap between your peripherals.More importantly, though, the colour accuracy of AW2521HFL's IPS panel also leaves a lot to be desired compared to its AOC rival. Whereas my X-Rite DisplayPro i1 colour calibrator showed the AOC C27G2ZU was already showing a near perfect 99% of the sRGB colour gamut straight out of the box on maximum brightness, the AW2521HFL only returned a rather sub-par coverage score of 90.9% when I tested it on its default Standard preset. I'd normally expect an IPS panel to hit around 96% of the sRGB colour gamut, but this was more in line with what I'd expect from a good TN panel. The Lagom text appeared a blended grey throughout, with a slight red hue to the striping of the text. There were no clear flashes of saturated red, orange or green or shifts between these with a bit of head movement. This indicates a low viewing angle dependency to the gamma curve of the monitor, typical for an IPS-type panel.
Dell Alienware AW2521HF Review | PC Monitors
The monitor produced most shades here quite faithfully, accounting for the natural differences related to emissive vs. non-emissive objects noted above. Some shades appear a touch oversaturated due primarily to the slight extension in the gamut, the most noticeable being dark lime green (18) which appeared a touch more ‘neon’. On models with a significantly wider gamut, this shade and candy apple red (14), to name but a few, tend to look significantly more ‘neon’ than they appear here. Candy apple red appeared with a bit of an orange-red tone due to extension in the red to green edge of the gamut. Some shades, such as cerulean (2) and lilac (8), appear somewhat undersaturated. Gamboge (23) verged too much on a mustard yellow without a suitably warm golden hue, too. Medium orange (3), Persian pink (6) and looked slightly undersaturated in person, but they appear much less saturated and overly bright in the image compared to how they actually looked on the monitor. The consistency is also very good in most cases, superior to VA models and far superior to TN models (references here). Aquamarine (4) is particularly good at highlighting this relative strength. Medium chocolate brown (24) is also good for highlighting colour consistency, which like Aquamarine is positioned at the extremities of the screen. Medium chocolate brown and some neighbouring shades appear a touch more saturated and warmer in tone on the AW2521HF when displayed at the bottom vs. top of the screen. But this is due more to uniformity on our sample than viewing angle behaviour. Although this won’t correct uniformity issues, profiling the monitor with your own colorimeter or spectrophotometer is always advised for best results if the strongest colour accuracy is desired. Warmer than factory defaults, but far from ‘Warm’ on our unit with a high colour temperature and cool tint to the image. Strong colour consistency and slight extension beyond sRGB, giving a ‘rich and natural’ image without potentially overbearing saturation The only minor issue is that there’s no support for HDR. This is not yet a must-have feature for gaming monitors but it will be soon and it’s something to bear in mind if you’re considering spending this much on a 24.5in screen.Reasonable contrast, in-line with expectation, strong gamma consistency and a pleasing luminance adjustment range The Alienware AW2521HFL has a distinct design that reflects its branding, but what further emphasizes that is its AlienFX RGB lighting. The full span of the stand’s pillar has an LED ring that glows in any color or preset you like from the OSD or from the AlienFX app. It’s bright enough to cast a bias lighting glow if the monitor sits close to a wall, but what we didn’t like it cannot sync with other RGB ecosystems. A sensitive camera and a utility called SMTT 2.0 was used assess the latency of the Dell Alienware AW2521HF. Over 30 repeat readings were taken to help maximise accuracy. Using this method, we calculated 2.63ms (under 2/3rds of a frame at 240Hz) of input lag. At 60Hz we measured a slightly higher but still reasonable 6.47ms. This figure is influenced both by the element of input lag you ‘see’ (pixel responsiveness) and the element you ‘feel’ (signal delay). It indicates a very low signal delay at 240Hz which even sensitive users shouldn’t find bothersome. Note that we have no way to accurately measure input lag with Adaptive-Sync active in a variable refresh rate and frame rate environment.
Dell India Monitors and Accessories | Dell India
I’ve been PCMag’s home entertainment expert for over 10 years, covering both TVs and everything you might want to connect to them. I’ve reviewed more than a thousand different consumer electronics products including headphones, speakers, TVs, and every major game system and VR headset of the last decade. I’m an ISF-certified TV calibrator and a THX-certified home theater professional, and I’m here to help you understand 4K, HDR, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, and even 8K (and to reassure you that you don’t need to worry about 8K at all for at least a few more years). The high refresh rate and frame rate combination can be particularly attractive for competitive gamers, but also appreciated by fans of less competitive fast-paced action. The Dell Alienware AW2521HF (now designated AW2521HFA in UK and EU) aims to find a nice balance between speed and image quality, combining a 240Hz refresh rate with the superior colour quality of an IPS-type panel. Adaptive-Sync support is included, allowing AMD FreeSync Premium and Nvidia’s ‘G-SYNC Compatible Mode’ to be used. We put this monitor through its paces, seeing how it compares to the more common TN options such as the impressively responsive Acer XN253Q X.The L standards for Premium. So the "HFL" is the Freesync Premium version. The "HF" is the standard Freesync.
Alienware AW2521HF 24.5 inch Full HD (1920x1080) Gaming
On Shadow of the Tomb Raider things were also presented in a rich and natural way. The environments looked in-place, with good variety and some good earthy browns and rich green shades. Some of the deep greens weren’t as lush as they could be, nor were things like bright purple flowers, red painted artifacts and some of Lara’s ornate dresses as eye-catching as we’ve seen. But they were still closer to the ‘vibrant’ vs. ‘washed out’ end of the spectrum in our view. Lara’s skin also appeared much as it should, without the overly tanned appearance that a wider gamut would provide. The strong consistency was also very evident when considering Lara’s glowing and all-too-perfect complexion. Even the best VA performers show quite pronounced shifts in saturation for such pastel shades when they’re shown towards peripheral sections of the screen rather than centrally. TN models show obvious saturation shifts vertically. In this case appropriate richness and saturation was maintained throughout. Input lag is where the Alienware 25 really shines, as it should in a gaming monitor. Using an HDFury Diva HDMI matrix, we measured a 4.1-millisecond input lag on a 60Hz signal, which means an input lag of just over 1ms at 240Hz. That makes the Alienware 25 the fastest gaming monitor we’ve tested to date.
Alienware AW2521HFL Specifications
At 60Hz, above, the UFO appears soft without sharp focus or clear internal detailing. This reflects a moderate amount of perceived blur due to eye movement and is something shared with the reference screen. There is various degrees of trailing behind the UFOs due to pixel response time weaknesses. In this case, overshoot (inverse ghosting) including some colourful bright ‘halo’ trailing due to aggressive pixel overdrive. The ‘Fast’ setting only showed a relatively small amount of this, whilst the ‘Super Fast’ and ‘Extreme’ settings ramped this up. ‘Extreme’ in particular showed very strong and eye-catching overshoot. ‘VRR off’ did not significantly affect the pixel response behaviour at this refresh rate. The ‘Fast’ setting was quite close to the reference here, with slightly stronger but still by no means extreme overshoot. We therefore consider ‘Fast’ the optimal setting at 60Hz. The image below shows how things look with refresh rate bumped up to 144Hz. It's not just colour settings you get on the AW2521HFL, though. There are also specific Sharpness, Response Time and Dark Stabilizer settings, the latter of which artificially brightens the screen to help you spot things in the shadows. It's a feature often touted as a 'must-have' for competitive multiplayer games to give you that extra 'edge' online - especially when said games are often the ones that can make the most of the AW2521HFL's 240Hz refresh rate. However, I found that the screen's regular peak brightness and accompanying contrast ratio from the Gamer preset was more than enough to help me see everything that I needed to in-game. The best thing about the Alienware AW2521HFL is its strong performance in motion handling. The monitor offers excellent control over blurring and ghosting which makes it great for fast-paced competitive titles. This model also has three overdrive settings to further clean up its image output, but we recommend staying with the Fast level. The AW2521HFL has one key advantage over the AOC, and that's the size of its panel. Both monitors have a resolution of 1920x1080, but the Alienware's smaller 25in screen means it looks much sharper than its 27in rival. I've always said that 1920x1080 stretched across a 27in screen isn't ideal, as while it's fine for games, it's just not quite good enough for everyday desktop tasks such as browsing the web or typing up documents. Text looks distinctly hazy and pixellated on a 27in 1920x1080 display, and I always feel like my eyes are having to work harder when I do anything other than playing games on these screens. READ NEXT: The best monitors you can buy today Alienware 25 AW2521HF review: What you get for your money
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