Gateway FPD2485W - 24" HD LCD

In what way is this better than the BenQ monitor? It seems the Gateway has 8ms response time according to the original post, while the BenQ has 6ms. (Although the video review says the Gateway has 6ms, which is correct?) Also, the BenQ is getting a firmware fix in Decemeber, so 1:1 will now be fixed - not a problem. But I don't know how good the backlight uniformity, color accuracy, how well it shows gradients and other things about this monitor, while those have already been shown to be very good with the BenQ. On what basis are people claiming this will be better than the BenQ? Not to mention that the BenQ has a HDMI port.

In any case, I don't have a clue what DCDi is - what makes it such a great thing?
 
Well, I don't have high hopes for a firmware upgrade implementing 1:1 well. I suspect it'll be glitchy. The BenQ has two HDCP inputs, that's the advantage of HDMI. But the Gateway supports 1080p over component, that's it's advantage. It has a 6 ms response time.
 
Does the BenQ not give 1080p over component? I thought it did.

But in any case, isn't 1080p over component worse than 1080p over DVI or HDMI?
 
December with a new firmware. If you want a Benq wait a few months. I want gateway when it comes out at Futureshop or Best Buy.
 
peTeMelster said:
Does the BenQ not give 1080p over component? I thought it did.

But in any case, isn't 1080p over component worse than 1080p over DVI or HDMI?
I'm not sure if the BenQ can do 1080p over component. I searched the thread and used google but I can't find an answer. Does anyone know? And it won't be necessarily worse than a digital 1080p signal, it'll just be a bit different. Have you ever compared VGA and DVI from your computer? It'll be that kind of difference.
 
Night_Hawk-19 said:
December with a new firmware. If you want a Benq wait a few months. I want gateway when it comes out at Futureshop or Best Buy.
People have emailed BenQ about it and BenQ has officially denied the firmware update. Who knows because they've also confirmed I guess. I'm getting the Gateway. But I want it NOW! >_<
 
Wait and see I guess - reports from BenQ saying it will and it won't do the firmware update.

Anyways, what is DCDi for this Gateway?

Also, I've heard that the difference between VGA and DVI is vastly difference. One user described it as lifting a haze from the picture when he switched from VGA to DVI. So I do expect a worse picture via component.
 
peTeMelster said:
Wait and see I guess - reports from BenQ saying it will and it won't do the firmware update.

Anyways, what is DCDi for this Gateway?

Also, I've heard that the difference between VGA and DVI is vastly difference. One user described it as lifting a haze from the picture when he switched from VGA to DVI. So I do expect a worse picture via component.

DCDi smooths out video over standard def inputs (Composite / S-Video). Depending on the source, VGA can look quite good, but DVI will be better. If you are using component for video (or XBOX) you should be fine because you can pump it up to 1080i.
 
peTeMelster said:
In what way is this better than the BenQ monitor? It seems the Gateway has 8ms response time according to the original post, while the BenQ has 6ms. (Although the video review says the Gateway has 6ms, which is correct?)
Current specs on Gateway's site says 6ms. I think the major advantage for this monitor (aside from the 1:1 pixel mapping) is that it will be widely available in retail stores (in the US, at least), so there's a better chance of getting a good deal.

So still no one with this monitor? There doesn't seem to be much info available online. I hope it starts showing up in BestBuy soon so that I can look at it in person.
 
bootstrap said:
Current specs on Gateway's site says 6ms. I think the major advantage for this monitor (aside from the 1:1 pixel mapping) is that it will be widely available in retail stores (in the US, at least), so there's a better chance of getting a good deal.

So still no one with this monitor? There doesn't seem to be much info available online. I hope it starts showing up in BestBuy soon so that I can look at it in person.
I've purchased it. It'll come within 1 week. I'm looking forward to helping everyone out make a decision.
 
pNin01 said:
I've purchased it. It'll come within 1 week. I'm looking forward to helping everyone out make a decision.
Good to hear! I'm looking forward to your findings.
 
Well, I just bought one from the local Best Buy. I went over there on the second day of our state's no sales tax shopping spree to see what they had left and there it was. There were no specimens up for display but the good price point, no tax and good feature set were too enticing to pass up so I grabbed one.

Let me preface by saying I am in no way an expert on any of this stuff.

I have the monitor connected via DVI to an ATI X850XT. My previous monitor is a Mistubishi Diamond Pro 2060u CRT. I have not done any side by side comparisons of the two as of yet. I bought the FPD2485W because I desired increased sharpness to ease eye strain and also for the extra physical and pixel real estate.

IMO, out of the box the colors look overly saturated and the image is really just too bright in general. I'm guessing most LCD monitors look this way with default settings though.

I used the following web sites to help calibrate the monitor:

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/Calibration/monitor_gradient.htm

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/calibrating.htm

So far I have made the following settings in the monitor's menu:

red color intensity: 83 (defaults to 100)
green color intensity: 80 (defaults to 100)
blue color intensity: 85 (defaults to 100)
brightness: 65 (defaults to 80)
contrast: 55 (defaults to 50)

I also made the following settings in the ATI CATALYST® Control Center:

Gamma: 1.20
Brightness: 20
Contrast: 60

The calibration picture at DryCreekPhoto.com shows some banding. However I also see this same banding on the 23" Apple Cinema display and the Dell 2405.

The grayscale calibration pictures at TFTCentral.com show the darkest squares just barely. Also, the darkest boxes become much easier to see off axis rather than straight ahead. The color calibration pictures do not show very distinct steps at many points. I have not compared the color images to the Dell or the Apple yet.

As for response time I have not noticed any ghosting at all so far. I tested with World of Warcraft and BattleField 2.

The 1:1 mode works but it's a little strange. Xbox360 over component displays just fine with the small black bars at the top and bottom. Any 4:3 aspect ratio resolution I set in the display control panel centers nicely both vertically and horizontally however any widescreen aspect ratio expands horizontally all the way to the edges.

I haven't seen a bad pixel yet and so far I'm really enjoying this monitor. I will try and post further details later on, especially further comparisons to the Dell and the Apple. Feel free to ask any questions or request any other testing.

-JWM
 
cec1l said:
The 1:1 mode works but it's a little strange. Xbox360 over component displays just fine with the small black bars at the top and bottom. Any 4:3 aspect ratio resolution I set in the display control panel centers nicely both vertically and horizontally however any widescreen aspect ratio expands horizontally all the way to the edges.
-JWM

Does it support 1080p over component from the Xbox 360? Also, what do you think of the image quality over component? Finally, could you take pictures of the monitor playing Xbox 360 games?

Thanks a lot :). I am leaning towards this monitor over the BenQ now.
 
cec1l said:
The 1:1 mode works but it's a little strange. Xbox360 over component displays just fine with the small black bars at the top and bottom. Any 4:3 aspect ratio resolution I set in the display control panel centers nicely both vertically and horizontally however any widescreen aspect ratio expands horizontally all the way to the edges.

Thanks for the review. I don't understand what you meant by the "weirdness" for widescreen aspect ratio. It should fill the screen horizontally and add black bars on the top and bottom. Is that not what's happening? For 4:3, it doesn't upscale the image? It displays it at its native resolution?
 
kryptolus said:
For 4:3, it doesn't upscale the image? It displays it at its native resolution?
I believe Gateway's 1:1 refers to the pixel numbers, not the aspect ratio. So, 1280x1024 displays at just that resolution, no upscaling. What is weird (I think) was that the widescreen resolutions actually stretched to the horizontal edges instead of staying at their actual resolution (1280x720 should be displayed in 1280x720, not stretched to 1920x1080).
 
dannyallen34 said:
I believe Gateway's 1:1 refers to the pixel numbers, not the aspect ratio. So, 1280x1024 displays at just that resolution, no upscaling. What is weird (I think) was that the widescreen resolutions actually stretched to the horizontal edges instead of staying at their actual resolution (1280x720 should be displayed in 1280x720, not stretched to 1920x1080).

There are 3 options in the video scaling menu. 1:1 should display pixel for pixel ... Zoom stretches the image vertically but keeps aspect ratio ... this means 4:3 stays 4:3 and 16:10 stays 16:10 The Wide option takes any res and stretches it both horz and vert.
 
Cool, you lucked out. BestBuy must have gotten it in stock within the last 2 days or something because they didn't have it last time I checked. I wonder if I should go down there and get one since I already ordered from Gateway. The monitor should put black bars on the top and bottom for 1080p. That's what it is supposed to do, and I'm glad it's doing it. Do you have a PS3? Can you hook it up via DVI?
 
I just ordered one from Gateway. Not happy with the shipping and tax, but I extended the warrenty. Anyway, do you see any lag in it? That and the qulity of the compnent hookups are what I am worried about.
 
BPini said:
I just ordered one from Gateway. Not happy with the shipping and tax, but I extended the warrenty. Anyway, do you see any lag in it? That and the qulity of the compnent hookups are what I am worried about.
Yep, well, the only choice for avoiding tax is to order from JR.com (unless you live in NY), and who knows when they'll get it. I'm going to ask BestBuy if I can extend the warranty. If so, I'll probably get it there and cancel my Gateway order. Otherwise, I'd rather keep my Gateway order.
 
dannyallen34 said:
I believe Gateway's 1:1 refers to the pixel numbers, not the aspect ratio. So, 1280x1024 displays at just that resolution, no upscaling. What is weird (I think) was that the widescreen resolutions actually stretched to the horizontal edges instead of staying at their actual resolution (1280x720 should be displayed in 1280x720, not stretched to 1920x1080).
If it follows the same pattern as the FPD2185W, then this is not true for component. Component will do 1:1 pixel scaling. But VGA will do 1:1 pixel mapping (meaning pixel for pixel) for most resolutions.

But regardless, you would want the component input to do 1:1 scaling (stretching the image horizontally but maintaing source video aspect ratio) or else if you hooked up a Wii, you would only see exactly 848x480 pixels on the screen!

Do you have the VGA cable for the Xbox 360? How does it handle 1080p over VGA?
 
I too was going to order mine this friday (payday) and I had a cart all ready but then I saw the $60 shipping and tax I was like :( But then from my experience working in at a Gateway store in Berkeley I remembered all the haggling you could do with a phone salesmen, especially towards the end of the month and also getting an extended warrenty. Its very possible that the phone sales person will wave the shipping and do a $20 price break if you opt for the extended warrenty and the TDX sound bar.

But since BestBuy has it "comming soon" then I'll get mine there. Hope they have the soundbar, but I doubt it.
 
The soundbar is extra I believe. Around $40 if I remember correctly.

Don't most of you guys already have speakers? Why would you need a soundbar?
 
I have one of these pre-ordered at JR.com since Gateway.com went ahead and cancelled my order... lamers :mad:

Unfortunately, there's no telling when J&R will get these so it looks we'll have to play the waiting game. Yay.
 
dannyallen34 said:
Does it support 1080p over component from the Xbox 360? Also, what do you think of the image quality over component? Finally, could you take pictures of the monitor playing Xbox 360 games?

Forgive me as I am a noob with the XBox 360 1080p thing. I'm at work right now so I can't check: is 1080p enabled in the system settings on the 360? I hooked the 360 up via component, fired up Gears of War, and the monitor's menu said the resolution was 1080i. I felt the image quality was decent and I didn't notice any ghosting. The monitor has separate configurations for each input so don't forget to redo all the same color/brightness tweaks that you may have done for your PC. I haven't directly compared the Gateway to the Dell 2405 in gaming yet but I do recall that the Dell had noticeable ghosting, which makes sense since it has a 16ms G2G response time vs the Gateway's 6 ms. As far as my inital impressions comparing the 2405 and the Gateway: looking at the same photograph the Dell had more natural color reproduction and the Gateway looked a bit saturated no matter what settings I tried. I will look into the 1080p thing and try and find some time to take a photo of the monitor while playing XBox 360.

kryptolus said:
Thanks for the review. I don't understand what you meant by the "weirdness" for widescreen aspect ratio. It should fill the screen horizontally and add black bars on the top and bottom. Is that not what's happening? For 4:3, it doesn't upscale the image? It displays it at its native resolution?

I guess I'm a bit confused as to what 1:1 should mean then. I assumed that 1:1 should mean that the input image should always center with bars on all 4 sides if both dimensions are smaller than 1920x1200. Yes, with the Gateway set to 1:1 and a 4:3 input image the monitor is nicely centering with black bars all around, but widescreen aspect ratio input images are upscaled to fit the screen preserving aspect ratio. I understand the desire to have this functionality available but I wish they would make it only happen when set to another mode other than 1:1 or add another mode entirely. However, this is NOT a big deal to me. I don't see the need to display smaller than maximum widescreen resolutions without any stretching except to keep framerates up in 3D games while maintaining image sharpness. In that case I'll just buy a more powerful video card that can deliver the desired framerates at maximum resolution. At the moment the only PC game I really play is WoW so I'm not in a big hurry to run out and buy the new nVidia card.

pNin01 said:
Cool, you lucked out. BestBuy must have gotten it in stock within the last 2 days or something because they didn't have it last time I checked. I wonder if I should go down there and get one since I already ordered from Gateway. The monitor should put black bars on the top and bottom for 1080p. That's what it is supposed to do, and I'm glad it's doing it. Do you have a PS3? Can you hook it up via DVI?

You ain't kidding. I never expected to find this monitor sitting there in a box when I walked in after the first day of the shopping spree when everything good should have been snatched up already. My dad said that it took him 20 minutes to get from the interstate exit to the Best Buy (only a 1/3 mile or so) on the previous day to when I went in there. No I don't have a PS3 but I have my monitor connected to the PC via DVI and I have set both 1920x1080 and 1920x1200 resolutions in the display control panel. I forgot to check but I see no reason why it wouldn't be at 60hz when set to 1920x1080 on the PC. Maybe that doesn't tell you anything about how 1080p will be handled from a device other than a PC though.

pNin01 said:
If it follows the same pattern as the FPD2185W, then this is not true for component. Component will do 1:1 pixel scaling. But VGA will do 1:1 pixel mapping (meaning pixel for pixel) for most resolutions.

But regardless, you would want the component input to do 1:1 scaling (stretching the image horizontally but maintaing source video aspect ratio) or else if you hooked up a Wii, you would only see exactly 848x480 pixels on the screen!

Ok I definitely didn't get what 1:1 was supposed to do then. I guess the fact that it doesn't fit 4:3 images to the screen preserving aspect ratio is the strange behavior not the fact that it does this for 16:9 images. I totally agree that it should have the ability to zoom any resolution to fit preserving aspect ratio, especially widescreen images. I just wish that there was a mode you could pick which would guarantee that no upscaling will ever happen. It's just that once you've tasted the ultra sharpness of an LCD you hate to see it ruined by looking at a fuzzy upscaled image. However, this point is pretty much academic for me. I have no intentions of using this monitor for anything but 1920x1080 or 1920x1200.

-JWM
 
Oh hell yes. This will look great as a new primary monitor, with its little brother FPD2185W as a secondary. I've been nothing but impressed with the 2185's image quality and connections, and this monitor promises to be even better yet. I really love Gateway's monitors. :)

Time to tell 'rents to get this monitor instead of a 2407WFP for their computer. :)
 
kuyaglen said:
I too was going to order mine this friday (payday) and I had a cart all ready but then I saw the $60 shipping and tax I was like :( But then from my experience working in at a Gateway store in Berkeley I remembered all the haggling you could do with a phone salesmen, especially towards the end of the month and also getting an extended warrenty. Its very possible that the phone sales person will wave the shipping and do a $20 price break if you opt for the extended warrenty and the TDX sound bar.

But since BestBuy has it "comming soon" then I'll get mine there. Hope they have the soundbar, but I doubt it.
Well, I showed them their shipping policies page where it says monitors weighing between 20-25 pounds should only cost $35 for ground shipping and they lowered the shipping cost.

http://www.gateway.com/dw/policies/homeshipping.shtml
 
"Forgive me as I am a noob with the XBox 360 1080p thing. I'm at work right now so I can't check: is 1080p enabled in the system settings on the 360? I hooked the 360 up via component, fired up Gears of War, and the monitor's menu said the resolution was 1080i. I felt the image quality was decent and I didn't notice any ghosting. The monitor has separate configurations for each input so don't forget to redo all the same color/brightness tweaks that you may have done for your PC. I haven't directly compared the Gateway to the Dell 2405 in gaming yet but I do recall that the Dell had noticeable ghosting, which makes sense since it has a 16ms G2G response time vs the Gateway's 6 ms. As far as my inital impressions comparing the 2405 and the Gateway: looking at the same photograph the Dell had more natural color reproduction and the Gateway looked a bit saturated no matter what settings I tried. I will look into the 1080p thing and try and find some time to take a photo of the monitor while playing XBox 360."

Oh, man, that kind of news is devastating to hear. If this monitor won't do 1080p over component, then what's the point of even buying it? You could just get the Dell for cheaper. To make sure...When you turn on your 360, go to the Settings tab and set the video to 1080p, and tell us what happens. *crosses fingers* If you have the VGA cable, could you also try that?
 
Everybody, you can now purchase it at BestBuy.com. And only $15 for shipping (or none for in-store pick-up).

I cancelled my order at Gateway, and I'm going to BestBuy after work. They offer a $100 3-year warranty and they told me they will give you a brand new monitor if the monitor stops functioning. I think it's worth the cost for this because #1, you can get a replacement immediately and you are guaranteed a new monitor, not a refurb like you will get from Gateway.
 
It better to 1080p over compnent. It says it right in the spec sheet on the gateway website.

• Component Y Pb Pr (supports 480i, 480p, 720p and 1080p)
 
BPini said:
It better to 1080p over compnent. It says it right in the spec sheet on the gateway website.

• Component Y Pb Pr (supports 480i, 480p, 720p and 1080p)
In the manual, however, it says 1080i, though. I'll check it after work with component and VGA, around 5 or 6 PM.
 
pNin01 said:
Everybody, you can now purchase it at BestBuy.com. And only $15 for shipping (or none for in-store pick-up).

OH...local pick available for me!!!

imonthemotherfucker.jpg
 
My Best Buy has one in stock, which they are holding for me, and I'm picking it up after work. Looking forward to it. I'll test with the 360 and let you know how it goes.

This is great; if there are any dead pixels, I can simply return it to Best Buy without hassle.
 
shahidhaque said:
My Best Buy has one in stock, which they are holding for me, and I'm picking it up after work. Looking forward to it. I'll test with the 360 and let you know how it goes.

This is great; if there are any dead pixels, I can simply return it to Best Buy without hassle.
BB has a zero dead pixel policy? Sweet.
 
I used to work at Best Buy (thank God I don't anymore). Unless something has changed, its a no questions asked return policy, which means you can return it if it smells funny, much less if it has dead pixels. (I'm pretty sure there is no restocking fee.)
 
pNin01 said:
Everybody, you can now purchase it at BestBuy.com. And only $15 for shipping (or none for in-store pick-up).

I cancelled my order at Gateway, and I'm going to BestBuy after work. They offer a $100 3-year warranty and they told me they will give you a brand new monitor if the monitor stops functioning. I think it's worth the cost for this because #1, you can get a replacement immediately and you are guaranteed a new monitor, not a refurb like you will get from Gateway.

Hmm Best Buy has it in stock a few miles from where I am now, but I have to have the monitor shipped to Germany. Hmm...very tempted to go get it now and mail it to myself.

Fake edit: With Texas tax, this monitor will cost me about $740 before shipping; the JR order only costs $685 with shipping. :( At any rate, I'm looking forward to more reviews.
 
Wow, I've really been living under a rock playing too much World of Warcraft. I've been reading about the recently added 1080p support for XBox 360 online just now. I'm going to head home for lunch and test it out real quick for you guys.

-JWM
 
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