Dell Alienware AW2524H Monitor Review

The Dell AW2524H looks like other Alienware monitors with a gamer-oriented design and an all-black plastic body. It has some RGB lighting on the back, and it has a headphone rack that you can pull out from the left side of the monitor.

This monitor isn’t part of our accelerated longevity test.

The build quality is excellent. The plastic feels solid, and even though it flexes a bit, it isn't a big issue. The stand is sturdy, and the display doesn't wobble easily. The headphone rack feels flimsy, but it isn't a problem if you're just leaving your headphones on it.

The Dell AW2524H has impressive ergonomics, as you can easily adjust it in different ways. The back is fairly plain, but the inputs can be hard to reach because they're down-facing and set into the back. The stand features a cut-out for cable management to keep your setup clean.

The stand doesn't take up much space, and it's sturdy.

The housing width measurement includes the headphone rack that sticks out even when closed. When opened, the rack measures 3.7" (9.3 cm).

There's a joystick underneath the center of the display to control the on-screen menu, and there's a power button on the right side.

• DisplayPort cable
• USB-C to DisplayPort cable
• USB-B to USB-A cable
• Power cable
• Alienware sticker
• User guides

The Dell AW2524H has a low contrast ratio making blacks look gray next to bright highlights. Even though it has a local dimming feature, it doesn't do anything to improve the contrast ratio.

The edge-lit local dimming feature is terrible. You can adjust the Variable Backlight setting to 'Mode 0', 'Mode 1', and 'Mode 2', and while 'Mode 2' is the best option, it isn't anything special. It has an array of 32 large edge-lit zones, and any small bright object causes an entire zone to light up. This results in distracting blooming, like when there are subtitles. However, the blooming isn't as bad with content that causes all the zones to turn on, which is the majority of content.

Sadly, it's visible when each zone turns on and off, especially when you have black bars on the top and bottom. The zones are also quick to turn on when a bright object appears on the screen but slow to turn off when it disappears, which can get distracting. When using 'Mode 2', there's black crush that causes a loss of details in dark scenes; however, the details are easier to see if you disable the local dimming feature entirely.

You can see the local dimming video with Variable Backlight set to '0' here and with it off here.

The SDR peak brightness is great. It gets bright enough to fight glare in most well-lit rooms and maintains its brightness consistently across different scenes. These results are from after calibration in the 'Custom Color' Preset Mode with the Brightness at its max and Variable Backlight set to 'Mode 2'.

The Dell Alienware AW2524H has decent peak brightness in HDR. The Brightness is locked to its max, and while it gets bright enough to make some highlights bright, small objects don't stand out against the rest of the image. The EOTF is okay at following the target PQ curve, but some dark scenes are crushed. Also, there's a sharp cut-off at its peak brightness, resulting in a loss of fine details in bright scenes. These results are in the 'Custom Color' Preset Mode and Variable Backlight on 'Mode 2'.

The Dell AW2524H has a decent horizontal viewing angle. Although it has an IPS panel, the image doesn't remain entirely consistent from the sides as it looks darker at wide viewing angles, but it's still fine if you want to share the screen for co-op gaming.

The vertical viewing angle is okay. Colors look washed out if you mount it high above eye level or are standing up and looking down on it, but you won't have issues when sitting directly in front of it.

The gray uniformity is very good. The edges of the screen are a bit darker than the rest, but other than that, the screen looks uniform, and there aren't any distracting issues.

The black uniformity is disappointing. Without local dimming, the screen looks blue due to the low contrast, and there's backlight bleed along the edges. Unfortunately, the uniformity is worse with local dimming because there's a ton of blooming around bright objects.

The accuracy before calibration is decent. It doesn't have a dedicated sRGB mode, so colors look oversaturated, but most colors and the white balance are both still accurate. Gamma also follows the target sRGB curve well, but most scenes are slightly over-brightened. The color temperature is a bit on the cool side, resulting in a slightly blue tint, but it isn't very noticeable either.

The accuracy after calibration is remarkable, and you won't notice any issues with colors, the white balance, color temperature, or gamma.

The SDR color gamut is fantastic. It has perfect coverage of the commonly-used sRGB color space and okay coverage of the Adobe RGB color space, but it isn't wide enough if you need to use it for content creation.

The SDR color volume is incredible. It displays bright colors well but struggles to display darker colors due to its low contrast.

The Dell AW2524H has a good HDR color gamut. It has very good coverage of the DCI-P3 color space used in most web content, and colors look accurate thanks to its fantastic tone mapping. Unfortunately, it has limited coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space, and the tone mapping is worse.

The HDR color volume is great. It displays most colors well but struggles with really bright and really dark colors.

This monitor has very good reflection handling. Combined with its high peak brightness, you won't have issues using it in a well-lit environment.

The text clarity is decent. Due to its low resolution and limited pixel density, letters aren't the sharpest, but at least enabling Windows ClearType (top photo) helps improve text clarity. The photos above are in Windows 10, and you can also see what it looks like in Windows 11 with ClearType on and ClearType off. Compared to other monitors like the Dell Alienware AW2523HF, the matte screen coating is a bit more aggressive, leading to slightly more haziness on the pixels. However, it isn't noticeable unless you place it next to another monitor.

The gradient handling is incredible, and you won't notice any problems with banding.

You can reach this monitor's 500Hz refresh rate only with a DisplayPort connection and by using the monitor's overclock feature. Due to bandwidth limitations, the refresh rate is limited over HDMI.

The native G-SYNC VRR support lets you take full advantage of your NVIDIA graphics card, and FreeSync works on it. Both VRR formats work on DisplayPort and HDMI connections without issue.

The Dell AW2524H has a remarkable response time at its max refresh rate of 500Hz. The recommended overdrive setting is 'Fast', as even though it has a slower response time than 'Super Fast', there's a bit less overshoot. 'Extreme' has the same total response time, but it has more overshoot.

You can also see the results with a 240Hz refresh rate below. The response time is equally as fast, and the recommended overdrive setting is, once again, 'Fast'.

The response time at 120Hz is excellent. Motion looks smooth with minimal blur trail behind fast-moving objects. Like at the max refresh rate, the recommended overdrive setting is 'Fast' because it has the fastest total response time and least amount of overshoot for all three settings.

The Dell Alienware AW2524H has a great response time at 60Hz. While it's slower than at higher refresh rates, you still won't have many problems with blur trail. The recommended overdrive setting of 'Fast' still has the quickest total response time and minimal overshoot. It's great, as you won't have to change the overdrive setting if you switch games or the frame rate drops.

BFI Setting	360Hz	240Hz	120Hz
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The Dell Alienware AW2524H has an optional backlight strobing feature to reduce persistence blur. It's a bit limited as you can't use it with VRR, and it only works with fixed 120Hz, 240Hz, or 360Hz signals, so you can't even use it at its max refresh rate. However, you can control its intensity with the NVIDIA ULMB Pulse Width slider from 10 to 100; you can see examples in the photos above. It creates a bit of image duplication, but it isn't the worst case of it. If you're looking for a monitor with less image duplication when backlight strobing is on, check out the ASUS ROG Swift Pro PG248QP.

The backlight remains flicker-free at all backlight settings, which helps reduce eye strain and image duplication.

The Dell Alienware AW2524H has remarkably low input lag, especially at its max refresh rate. While it's higher than expected with 60Hz signals, you still won't notice any delay. The Backlight Strobing (BFI) input lag was measured with a 360Hz signal; it was 8.3 ms with a 240Hz signal and 15.2 ms at 120Hz.

The Dell AW2524H has limited compatibility with the PS5 because it only supports 1080p signals.

This monitor only supports 1080p signals from the Xbox Series X|S, and because the Xbox requires 4k signals for HDR to work, you can't use HDR either.

There are two additional USB ports underneath the left side, and the one on the right is used for the NVIDIA Reflex Latency Analyzer feature.

This monitor has two audio ports. The one in the back is for speakers with their own volume control, while the one underneath the bottom bezel is for your headphones.

You need to connect the USB-B to USB-A cable to your computer for the USB ports to work.

The Dell Alienware AW2524H works well with macOS, and there aren't any issues like flickering. You can either send a fixed 500Hz refresh rate or use VRR up to 240Hz. HDR works well with either option, but it looks a bit washed out, which is a limitation of the monitor. If you're using a MacBook, windows stay in their place when waking it up from sleep or opening the lid.

This monitor comes with a few extra features, including:

• Dark Stabilizer: Adjusts the gamma in dark scenes so that you see opponents better.
• FPS counter: Displays an overlay showing the current frame rate.
• NVIDIA Reflex Latency Analyzer: This feature measures the latency of your entire setup, letting you see which sources have the highest latency. You need an NVIDIA 900 Series or newer graphics card and a compatible mouse for it to work. You have to connect your mouse to the USB port underneath the bottom bezel with a mouse symbol next to it.
• RGB Lighting: Certain zones on the back panel light up. You get full control over it with the Alien FX software, but some options are also available through the OSD.