At CES earlier this year, Alienware was showing off a 55-inch OLED monitor with a 4K resolution and fast 120Hz refresh rate. The allure of gaming on an Ultra HD panel with the kinds of bright and vibrant colors that OLED can produce, and at a fast refresh, was tantalizing to say the least. But will it ever see the light of day? Some recent reports suggested the prototype panel might end up as vaporware, but according to Dell, that is not the case.
The spattering of reports trace back to WCCFTech as the source. Dell had stated at CES that it intended to release the Alienware display in the second half of this year, but more recently at E3, WCCFTech said it was told by an Alienware executive that it is still a "conceptual product" that might never be released.
I reached out to Dell for clarification and was told something very different.
"While this gaming monitor did start out as a 'concept product' back at CES this year, we can confirm that it is definitely going to be available for sale in selected markets sometime in Q4 this year. So, it is definitely going to hit the market ," Dell told me.
Dell underlined that last bit for emphasis. The company also told me that it will be careful not to position the display with current OLED TVs that are available, noting that the "predominant use case for this monitor is PC and console gaming."
That's not to say you wouldn't be able to use one as your TV, provided you plug in a set-top cable or satellite box via HDMI (there's no built-in TV tuner). Nevertheless, Dell is positioning this as one of the best gaming monitors.
It's not clear when exactly the monitor will launch, though Dell told me it will again be showcasing the display at Gamescom in August. Pricing is also a mystery for now. I'm not expecting it to be cheap, though. Its primary competition (at least initially) will likely be LCD monitors that are part of Nvidia BFGD (big format gaming display) initiative, such as HP's 65-inch Omen X Emperium, which sells for $4,999.99.
A full set of finalized specs are not yet available, though Dell notes that the Alienware display supports "variable sync." That hints at either AMD FreeSync or Nvidia G-Sync support, or potentially both. It's also not clear if HDR factors into the equation, though I'd be surprised if it did not.
