Alienware AW2523HF monitor – Specs, Pros / Cons: The Esports Champ

LaptopMedia.com Reviews and Analysis Alienware AW2523HF monitor - Specs, Pros / Cons: The Esports Champ

From: Severin Kolakov 30 March 2024 / 11:50 0

Alienware has been leading the charge when it comes to refresh rate. Year by year, they keep releasing monitors that reach new heights. Today we have the Alienware AW2523HF, a monitor that lives and breathes gaming. It’s made with the esports crowd in mind, including pro players, esports training facilities (Alienware sponsors two of them already), and even esports tournaments, as these screens pretty much reach the peak of responsiveness.

Specs-wise, the Alienware AW2523HF offers a 24.5-inch Full HD IPS panel. For the screen size, the resolution is perfect, especially once you factor in the 360Hz refresh rate. This means that each pixel needs to be updated 360 times per second, so a higher res panel with the same refresh rate would require much more GPU resources, as well as consume a lot more power, and generate more heat. There’s also a 0.5 ms response time and AMD FreeSync Premium + VESA Adaptive Sync support, which are pretty much identical. How good will the monitor be at content creation though? Today we’ll check that out, so read on.

You can check the current price of the Alienware AW2523HF here: Buy from Amazon.com (#CommissionsEarned)

Specs sheet, Drivers, OSD Menu, Design, Connectivity
Display quality, Buy our profiles, Verdict

Specs sheet, Drivers, OSD Menu, Design, Connectivity

Screen size	24.5 inch (62.23 cm)
Refresh rate	360Hz
Response time	0.5ms
Panel type	IPS
Backlight type	LED
Screen finish	Matte
Resolution	1920 x 1080 (FHD)
Technologies	Contrast ratio: 1000:1 (Static/Dynamic) Brightness: 400 cd/m² Viewing angles: H/V° 178/178 VESA mount: 100 x 100 mm Tilt: -5 to 21° Pivot: -90 to 90° Swivel: -20 to 20° Height Adjustment: 0 – 109.22 mm Measurements (with stand): 556.26 x 243.84 x 391.16 mm Power consumption (Idle): 16.3W Power consumption (Stand-by): 0.30W
I/O	2x HDMI 2.0 1x DisplayPort 1.4 1x USB Type-B 3.2 Gen. 1 Upstream 4x USB Type-A 3.2 Gen. 1 Downstream 1x Audio jack 1x Line-out port for speakers

What’s in the box? Assembly

OSD Menu

Drivers and Software

There are tons of downloads on Dell’s Support Website (Alienware is a Dell subsidiary, for those who don’t know), some of which are labeled critical, like the firmware update tool and the Alienware Command Center. You can also download the Dell Display Manager, which gives you OSD-level control over the monitor through the OS, which includes mouse and keyboard support.

Design and Connectivity

Alienware’s design language has been kept largely the same, with some tweaks throughout its inception. The Alienware AW2523HF features a hexagonal base, giving you a stable platform that won’t get your cables stuck like rectangle bases do. The monitor has a matte black plastic finish with a 25 on the back, along with Alienware logos and wordmarks on the back and front. There’s an integrated headphones hanger, which extends, giving you a neat place to store your headset. The stand is robust and heavy, bringing with it tons of adjustments, including height, Tilt, Pivot, and Swivel.

The port selection here is more than impressive, considering this is a gaming monitor. You’ve got two HDMI 2.0 ports, one DisplayPort 1.4, a total of four USB Type-A 3.2 Gen. 1 ports, along with one Type-B port of the same speed, which is used to connect the rest to your PC. There’s also a headphone jack, as well as a Line-out jack for speakers.

Display quality, Buy our profiles, Verdict

The Alienware AW2523HF brings a 24.5-inch Full HD screen (1920 x 1080), which calculates to a pixel density of 89.91 PPI, a pitch of 0.2825 x 0.2825 mm, and a Retina distance of 38.24 inches or 97.12 cm. From this distance, the human eye can’t distinguish individual pixels.

The correlated color temperature on a white screen after a Factory Reset in sRGB mode is 6320 K (Luminance 150 cd/m2 at 20% Brightness). The average gamma value is 2.18.

Color coverage

Here’s an illustration (Fig. 1). The whole “sail-shaped” map below consists of all the colors we can see, while the black crooked line shows all the colors from real-world scenes and nature around us.

Then, we’ve drawn some of the most important and interesting color spaces, compared to the colors the panel of Alienware AW2523HF can show:

Standard/For Web: sRGB – widely used color space for most consumer devices, ideal for Web design and development
For Print: AdobeRGB – used in professional photo editing, graphic design, and print
For Photographers/Video Editors: DCI-P3 – used in high-end film production, post-production, and digital cinema
Premium HDR: Rec.2020 – the widest consumer ITU color standard, covering a massive 75.8% of the visible spectrum, a benchmark for premium HDR content

Alienware AW2523HF: the yellow dashed triangle (– – – – – –) represents the range of colors this monitor can display. In our tests, we calculated the total color coverage of the monitor at 96% of the sRGB color gamut and 81% of the DCI-P3 color gamut.

(Fig.1) Alienware AW2523HF covers 96% of the Web colors (sRGB)

This means that if the Alienware AW2523HF tries to show any color outside of its triangle, it will show the closest color to it that’s inside the triangle.

Color accuracy

Now let’s see how big is the difference between the real colors and the one you’ll see on the Alienware AW2523HF. We measure that distance in DeltaE – the bigger the number, the more different they look.

For the next illustration, we’ve chosen 24 common colors like dark and light skin, blue sky, green grass, etc.

Values below 2.0 are considered suitable for color-sensitive work. Before our calibration of the Alienware AW2523HF, the Average color accuracy was 2.2 dE (Fig. 2), and with our Web Design and Office Work profile, it lowered to 1.7 dE (Fig. 3). Even without the profile, the monitor is pretty close to being accurate for professional work. Still, the profile brings it that extra punch that it needs, increasing the accuracy by around 30%.

(Fig. 2) Alienware AW2523HF in its factory condition

(Fig. 3) Alienware AW2523HF with our display profiles

Comparison in the sRGB color space (primaries and D65 white point specified in ITU-R BT.709, sRGB encoding curve).

Left: No Profile | Drag the slider to see the difference | Right: Design & Gaming Profile

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom-tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate (they may seem strange at first but after a few minutes our brain will start recognizing them as accurate ones – that’s how Health-Guard differs from alternatives like f.lux).

Pro Tip: As the Health-Guard profile simulates paper and has as accurate as possible colors, it could be a great tool for prepress designers!

Left: No Profile | Drag the slider to see the difference | Right: Health-Guard Profile

Gaming and Movies

We also have a third Gaming and Movies profile, which regulates the black colors, making dark areas in games and movies appear more visible, thus giving you a better viewing experience. Shooting at your opponent first can be a make-or-break moment, so make sure you’re best prepared with our profile.

Left: No Profile | Drag the slider to see the difference | Right: Design & Gaming Profile

BUY OUR DISPLAY PROFILES

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for the Alienware AW2523HF.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$9.90 BUY NOW

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$9.90 BUY NOW

Health-Guard

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$9.90 BUY NOW

Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount

$19.90 BUY NOW

Verdict

The Alienware AW2523HF has a very specific purpose: to give high-level pro gamers the best possible tool for achieving victory in their games and becoming the best in their craft. And let us tell you, the monitor more than fulfills that purpose. The deadly-fast 360Hz refresh rate, 0.5 ms response time, and FreeSync Premium support make it perfect for any fast-paced multiplayer game, where you need to be on your toes at all times.

Moreover, the resolution fits the screen size perfectly, as while the monitor refreshes quickly, you also need a PC suitable for pushing 360+ FPS in all those games. Suddenly, a Full HD monitor feels right in place, as most gaming laptops and PCs can run esports titles at these framerates at this resolution.

For an even bigger edge in games, check out the Gaming and Movies profile, which stabilizes the black colors, thus ensuring better visibility in dark game environments and shadowy scenes in movies.

The design of the monitor is smart, innovative, and modern. The full-black aesthetic looks good, but the more important things are hidden in the construction itself. The stand includes all types of adjustments that you’ll ever need, while the integrated headphones hanger is the first time we’ve seen something like this. There are also tons of ports, so you can include all types of

Outside of the gaming realm, the Alienware AW2523HF can be a pretty good monitor for Creators too, especially if you’re a gamer who likes to edit and upload their gameplay. It covers 96% of the sRGB color gamut, which is enough for pretty much all web-based design and color work. More importantly, it gains a dE value of 1.7, once we include our Web Design and Office Work profile in the picture.

The last profile in our bundle is the most important one of the bunch, as health is always #1. The Health Guard minimizes Blue Light emissions, as well as limits PWM (Flickering), both of which are harmful to your eyes and body in their own way.

You can check the current price of the Alienware AW2523HF: Buy from Amazon.com (#CommissionsEarned)