The Alienware OptX is a premium offering from Dell catering towards the gaming crowd clamouring for 3D vision. Alienware has never been cheap and the AW2310 is no exception, so is worth the money? Let?s find out.
We expected the monitor to be huge judging by the size of the packaging, but the truth couldn?t be further away from it. The screen is quite slim and the stand finds the perfect balance between style and functionality. With its ingenious use of black plastic covering the metallic stand, it gives an overall futuristic look to the monitor.
Thanks to the matte finish, the monitor will not turn into a fingerprint magnet. Tilt, swivel and rotate, the monitor does it all with ease. Height adjustment helps with finding the best angle that is required to view all the colours correctly in a TN monitor.
The touch controls present on the right side of the frame control the OSD menu. Interestingly, the menu button glows up when it senses anything in front of it. The OSD has a myriad of options which can be configured without any hassles. This should delight users with a habit of tweaking each and everything. One standout feature was the overdrive response time setting which nearly eliminated any overdrive trailing, the white halo like shimmer present on moving objects in games. The port placement is under the back panel which is fine for the power and DVI, HDMI display ports present there but defeats the purpose of the USB hub.
The dynamic contrast feature holds a lot of potential although at its present stage it needs some tweaking. The brightness of the monitor is adjusted according to the image currently displayed on the screen but it was always too drastic for our taste and during gameplay it turned out to be very distracting so most users would prefer to have it turned off. Other than that, contrast is reasonably good with the whites showing up as white and blacks being slightly gray, another inherent problem in LCDs.
Saturation is kept in check and is overall acceptable with only the cool preset over saturating the bluish hues. Viewing 1080p movie trailers reveal a few more chinks in the alienware armour. Dithering and colour artifacting keep rearing their ugly head ultimately diminishing the viewing experience. The 3ms response time makes for a snappy gaming session and minimises any blur. Maximum benefit is derived by FPS and racing games as displayed by the precise and accurate shooting in crisis not to forget making hairpin turns at breathtaking speeds in split second. Unfortunately the ridiculously expensive price and performance issues do not allow us to recommend this monitor to anyone. At this price range, the Dell U2410 would be an excellent choice with its IPS panel and 1920×1200 resolution. Maybe in the future, Alienware can come up with an IPS gaming panel at a competitive price. Sadly, with the insane price of 3D gaming it will remain a novelty for now.
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