The Alienware AW3926QW is undoubtedly my favourite monitor of the moment, maybe even ever. It has just one problem that prevented me from giving it an unambiguous buy recommendation. And now it seems Alienware is about to fix it.
The AW3926QW is of course a 39-inch 5K2K OLED masterpiece. It's huge, it has the pixel density of a 32-inch 4K panel and it comes with LG's very latest Tandem WOLED panel tech complete with RGB-stripe subpixels for purists like me. It's even relatively affordable (given its specs) at around $1,100.
There was just one problem. As I explained in my review, "during gaming the edges of the panel gradually dim ever so slightly," an issue generally referred to as "vignetting."
The reason why this happens comes down to a feature called CPC, or Convex Power Control. "It’s an LG Display WOLED panel protection feature and dims all four edges of the display to help prevent burn-in. As far as I am aware, it can't be toggled on or off on this Alienware, but if CPC is causing the vignette issue, it should be easy to address in a firmware update. Broadly, I don't think this is a hardware limitation, but a configuration issue," I explained.
Turns out that was correct, which is precisely why a fix is possible. During a recent AMA on Reddit held by Kris Graft, Alienware's monitor expert, the company revealed that a solution is in the works.
"We hear the feedback on uniformity and are actively testing a potential toggle that could give customers more control over uniformity. We want to make sure we understand the full customer experience implications before we enable anything. More to come soon," Graft said.
Graft appears to be saying that Alienware is planning a firmware update that will add a toggle for CPC in the AW3926QW OSD menu. The possible catch is what Graft was hinting at when he said, "We want to make sure we understand the full customer experience implications before we enable anything."
The implications here likely involve OLED burn-in and its increased likelihood with CPC disabled. I would guesstimate that the CPC feature exists to reduce brightness around the edges during gaming specifically to minimise the extent to which persistent in-game screen furniture and UI elements like status bars, minimaps and so on can be permanently burned into the panel after extended gameplay.
My slight fear is that if Alienware does introduce a toggle to for the CPC feature, it might have an impact on the panel's burn-in warranty. Maybe turning CPC off will void that warranty or maybe there will be a counter recording how many gaming hours with CPC toggled off have accrued, with a trigger point that eventually voids the warranty.
But that's speculation. We'll have to wait and see exactly how Alienware deals with this. For now, it's simply good news that the "vignette" problem has been recognised by Alienware and that it is working on a fix.
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