Amazon has a pretty good deal on a 25-inch Alienware 240Hz gaming monitor: $300, $75 off its current price. This isn’t the lowest price it’s every been: The monitor was about $500 two years ago but saw a couple of pretty big price drops last year, like when it went for a shocking $200 on Black Friday and immediately sold out. One of the best gaming monitors doesn’t last long at that price.
The Alienware 25 AW2521HF is great for competitive gamers who want to maximize their performance in games like League of Legends, Valorant, or Fortnite. This 1080p monitor offers a bright, colorful display with a 1ms response time, and as someone who used this monitor for about six months while gaming on an RTX 3090 graphics card, once you play anything at 240Hz, it’s tough to go lower. Its high, near 400 nit brightness does a good job of fighting glares, too.
Another thing I like about this monitor is that it has USB 3.0 ports. Three, to be exact, which means I can have my phone and wireless earbuds charge without it taking up one of my precious USB ports on my gaming PC.
There are some things you should consider when picking up a high-refresh gaming monitor: You’re going to need a pretty beefy CPU along with a halfway decent graphics card to hit these frames.
Even though it’s called an Alienware 25, it’s technically a 24.5-inch screen which might be a little too small to be a primary gaming monitor. A smaller screen means you don’t have to move your head around during a match and lose precious milliseconds because you have to slightly tilt your head to catch something at the edge of your screen.
There’s also no HDR support which could be a deal-breaker if you want something future-proof. If you spend an extra 120 dollars, you could get the AW2721D, a 27-inch monitor with the same specs. You’re also making a trade-off by going with a 1080p rather than a 1440p display—it’ll be easier to hit that high-refresh rate at the expense of crispness.
The Alienware 25 is one of the best 1080p monitors you can get your hands on right now for anyone strictly focused on getting the smoothest gameplay, and at $300, our existing recommendation becomes stronger.