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Decided to post this here since I struggled with how flat the colors and contrast looked. Hopefully anyone else experiencing this issue can use these settings and achieve similar results. Let me know if you try these and if you love or hate them. Strong colour consistency and slight extension beyond sRGB, giving a ‘rich and natural’ image without potentially overbearing saturation Full HD resolution is quite limiting in some respects, stand reasonably deep which could be an issue if you have a shallow desk (VESA mounting is an option) READ NEXT: The best monitors you can buy today Alienware 25 AW2521HF review: What you get for your money
An obvious cool (blue) almost icy-looking tint due to very high colour temperature. Some shades brightened up just slightly due to gamma handling, but not by a huge amount. Strong consistency due to IPS-type panel, without the perceived gamma and saturation shifts associated with TN or VA panels.
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.
In terms of design and build, the Alienware 25 is unmistakably a gaming monitor, with its dramatically splayed legs, customisable RGB lighting and Alienware logo at the rear. You can even change the colour of the power button on the bottom right edge if you wish. IPS glow’ eats away at detail, particularly near bottom corners. Screen surface imparts a bit of graininess to lighter content The answer is almost certainly no -- it's not repairable. Dell doesn't repair monitors. If they fail, they're replaced. But not for a fall, that is not part of the Dell monitor warranty. And very few if any repair shops will undertake a monitor repair. Beyond the unavailability of screens, monitors are generally not designed to be disassembled for repair purposes - it's very common for screens to be fixed in place with adhesive. Further, the screen is a majority of the cost of the monitor -- it's not an economic proposition to repair these, even if parts are available. 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. Warmer than factory defaults, but far from ‘Warm’ on our unit with a high colour temperature and cool tint to the image.To test the performance of monitors, I run a DisplayCal verification using an X-Rite i1Display Pro colorimeter, alongside a few by-eye tests using Lagom's LCD test patterns. The AW2521H is not an HDR or wide gamut monitor, instead hitting about 450 nits of maximum brightness and covering 92.8% of the sRGB color space. It is, however, extremely accurate within that sRGB space. The Dell AW2521HF is an excellent gaming monitor for the price. Thanks to its 240Hz refresh rate, 1ms response time, and AMD FreeSync, it ensures buttery-smooth performance while its IPS panel offers vibrant colors and wide viewing angles. 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. Also of equal caliber are the peak brightness levels that these Alienware variants are capable of. Though neither of the two support HDR, both exhibit an impressively high SDR peak brightness level that exceed 400 nits. According to Tom’s Hardware the AW2518HF was able to reach a peak brightness level of 418.6 cd/m 2, while according to Rtings.com the AW2521HF exhibited an SDR Real Scene peak brightness level of 406 cd/m 2.
Regardless, the Fast response time overdrive mode works perfectly well. Although you’re not getting the advertised 1ms speed, nearly all pixels will be able to change in time with the monitor’s 240Hz refresh rate. I've bought the monitor couple of days ago and so far I am enjoying it. I've tried finding the best OSD/calibration settings online but pretty much everywhere I see information about the older TN version of the monitor. I am hoping that other users that have the IPS AW2521HF will share some opinions about the best settings that work for them.The Super Fast and Extreme modes are too aggressive; they push the pixel response time too much, which results in inverse ghosting or pixel overshoot.
Alienware claims 1ms grey-to-grey response time, but there are numerous ways to fudge this spec, so it's mostly meaningless – real-world testing is far more revealing of a monitor's capabilities in this realm. Nvidia also offers its Reflex Analyzer built in to the monitor – we've dug deep into this feature before, so I won't rehash that here, but suffice to say it's a cool feature that helps you cut down on input lag, however marginal the improvements may be. Alienware AW2521H – Testing This is also why TN monitors were almost exclusively used by competitive gamers and tournament organizers alike, as these panels are known to display the least amount of input lag, and have some of the fastest response times when compared to their early IPS or VA counterparts. However, as monitor technology has advanced, these shortcomings have been expiated to a considerable degree with the release of fast IPS, SS IPS, and SVA panels.
Based on an IPS panel, the Dell AW2521HF monitor delivers accurate, consistent, and vivid colors covering the standard and most widespread sRGB color space with 99% sRGB gamut.
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