Gateway FPD2485W: 24" LCD Beauty or Beast?
by Jarred Walton on February 22, 2007 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Displays
Features and Appearance
We've already covered some of the features on the specifications page, but we're going to take a closer look at the display here and provide images from various angles. Assembling the display is extremely simple: after removing the three major pieces from the box (the display as well as the two parts of the base stand), you first attach the circular base to the mounting arm and lock it into place using the provided screw on the bottom of the stand. After that all you have to do is insert the top of the LCD mounting mechanism into the stand and then lower it until it snaps into place.
The base stand provides five inches of vertical travel, which gives you a reasonable amount of height adjustment. The stand also allows you to rotate the LCD and use it in portrait mode. While we can't say using a 24" LCD in portrait mode is something we found to be particularly useful, some people might feel otherwise. One of the great things about having such a large LCD is that it gives you the ability to view two documents (or document pages, web pages, etc.) side-by-side with room to spare, making portrait mode largely unnecessary.
With the display in portrait mode, you don't get quite as much vertical travel, and cable routing can be a bit trickier as well. The display supports auto rotate functionality, so as soon as you rotate the display Windows will automatically recognize the new orientation and change your resolution as appropriate. It is unlikely that this functionality works outside of Windows, due to a lack of native drivers for other operating systems, but we did not actually test this functionality outside of Windows; regardless, as stated already we don't find portrait mode to be particularly necessary on widescreen displays.
Here you can see a shot of the display with the optional speaker bar installed. The speaker bar attaches to the bottom of the LCD and receives power via a short cable that connects to the rear of the main display. The speakers only support stereo audio inputs (standard 1/8" DIN or RCA jacks), but they can try to emulate 3D surround sound if you'd like and the overall quality is pretty good given their size. There are plenty of better sounding speaker options available for $70 or less, but one nice benefit of the attached speaker bar is that you get reasonable quality audio without taking up much desk space. If you're more concerned with eliminating cable clutter than with getting premium quality audio, we would definitely add the speaker bar to a purchase of this display. The speakers also have the potential disadvantage of making portrait mode more difficult to access, so if you do intend to use the portrait mode we would forgo purchasing the speaker attachment.
Here you can see the rear of the unit, with or without the speaker bar. The back of the base stand also includes a small ring that can be used to aid in cable routing. If you would rather do without the base stand, you can of course remove the mounting bracket and use a standard VESA wall mount instead.
All of the input ports are located on the back of the unit, facing downward. One of the advantages of being able to rotate the display is that it makes it easier to install the cables initially. The only ports not located on the bottom of the display are two additional USB ports which are located on the left side. The ability to have the display function as a USB hub can be useful, although personally we prefer the integrated flash memory readers found on competing Dell LCDs. Flash memory readers are cheap, but integrating them into the display is one more way of eliminating cable clutter. If you have a flash reader integrated into your PC, of course, having a second reader on your display is largely superfluous.
We've already covered some of the features on the specifications page, but we're going to take a closer look at the display here and provide images from various angles. Assembling the display is extremely simple: after removing the three major pieces from the box (the display as well as the two parts of the base stand), you first attach the circular base to the mounting arm and lock it into place using the provided screw on the bottom of the stand. After that all you have to do is insert the top of the LCD mounting mechanism into the stand and then lower it until it snaps into place.
 |
 |
| Click to enlarge | |
The base stand provides five inches of vertical travel, which gives you a reasonable amount of height adjustment. The stand also allows you to rotate the LCD and use it in portrait mode. While we can't say using a 24" LCD in portrait mode is something we found to be particularly useful, some people might feel otherwise. One of the great things about having such a large LCD is that it gives you the ability to view two documents (or document pages, web pages, etc.) side-by-side with room to spare, making portrait mode largely unnecessary.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
With the display in portrait mode, you don't get quite as much vertical travel, and cable routing can be a bit trickier as well. The display supports auto rotate functionality, so as soon as you rotate the display Windows will automatically recognize the new orientation and change your resolution as appropriate. It is unlikely that this functionality works outside of Windows, due to a lack of native drivers for other operating systems, but we did not actually test this functionality outside of Windows; regardless, as stated already we don't find portrait mode to be particularly necessary on widescreen displays.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
Here you can see a shot of the display with the optional speaker bar installed. The speaker bar attaches to the bottom of the LCD and receives power via a short cable that connects to the rear of the main display. The speakers only support stereo audio inputs (standard 1/8" DIN or RCA jacks), but they can try to emulate 3D surround sound if you'd like and the overall quality is pretty good given their size. There are plenty of better sounding speaker options available for $70 or less, but one nice benefit of the attached speaker bar is that you get reasonable quality audio without taking up much desk space. If you're more concerned with eliminating cable clutter than with getting premium quality audio, we would definitely add the speaker bar to a purchase of this display. The speakers also have the potential disadvantage of making portrait mode more difficult to access, so if you do intend to use the portrait mode we would forgo purchasing the speaker attachment.
 |
 |
| Click to enlarge | |
Here you can see the rear of the unit, with or without the speaker bar. The back of the base stand also includes a small ring that can be used to aid in cable routing. If you would rather do without the base stand, you can of course remove the mounting bracket and use a standard VESA wall mount instead.
 |
 |
| Click to enlarge | |
All of the input ports are located on the back of the unit, facing downward. One of the advantages of being able to rotate the display is that it makes it easier to install the cables initially. The only ports not located on the bottom of the display are two additional USB ports which are located on the left side. The ability to have the display function as a USB hub can be useful, although personally we prefer the integrated flash memory readers found on competing Dell LCDs. Flash memory readers are cheap, but integrating them into the display is one more way of eliminating cable clutter. If you have a flash reader integrated into your PC, of course, having a second reader on your display is largely superfluous.
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Aquila76 - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
Chizow,Did you run the gradient test from xtknight's website (linked above)? I'm curious to see how yours fares. I handpicked a Dec '06 model from Best Buy, but it still borked that thing badly no matter what bright/cont/R/G/B etc. I had it set to. I got most of my settings from the thread over at , but none seemed to eliminate the transition issues / color accuracy for me. :(
chizow - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
Ok, I applied the color profile Jarred provided (thanks again!) and colors do look much better, a lot more like the 2407WFP out of the box. Ran the gradient tests in full and windowed mode. In windowed, there is no significant banding or gradients although there is some faint gradient lines and banding on the straight color strips at the transition between the corresponding 1st and 2nd blocks. Seem to be uniform vertically through the pattern although they're unnoticeable on the magenta strips.In full screen mode, the banding is more obvious but again, its limited to the lower dark areas and don't extend past the 3rd block. After the 3rd block, the transitions are flawless. I wish I ran these before I calibrated the settings to see if its my panel or the calibrated settings.
Unfortunately, it looks like these settings will only apply under WinXP.
Jarred did you change the OSD/EzTune settings at all? Also, if you're really bored, would you mind calibrating the panel using EzTune or the OSD? Lol, well was worth a shot at least. Thanks again for the help and review.
Aquila76 - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
Heh, somehow clipped the last phrase off....from the thread over at HardForums.
Aquila76 - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
WTF? I used a BRACKET H BRACKET and it hides the text?
Aquila76 - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
Sorry for all the quotes of myself.The first one should have ended with:
...the thread over at HardForums.
chizow - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
I haven't run any extensive tests, but I'll check out Xtknights later when I get home. The few tests I have run were just html-based static images, and I can honestly say I saw very little gradient issues on the 2 panels I had (DEC annd current JAN). Banding was another issue though and pretty severe depending on content, source resolution/quality, and colors etc. I'll have to look over the definitions to make sure they're not mutually exclusive, so I'll have to get back to you on that one.JarredWalton - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
Beware the open-bracket H close-bracket abbreviation used for a certain other site! :DWe use brackets for our pseudo-HTML, and that one just happens to correspond to turning on white text. It comes up now and then, but thankfully you figured it out before the thread was very long. LOL We had a thread a year or two back where about 20 people responded trying to figure out WTF happened to the text. I think a guy had posted a comment where he used {H} five or ten times, which only served to make things more difficult to "fix".
Aquila76 - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
Eeks. I'll have to keep that in mind! Another cool test on xtknight's site (www.lcdresource.com) is a Dark Grayscale test. It's in the same section as the gradient. Mine just showed all black unless I cranked the brightness up to eyeball-melting. Granted, this is difficult for any LCD to display properly due to the issue of backlighting.I think what really pushed me over the edge on this monitor is that the last few bands of the grayscale showed up on my HP L1706 at work and the gradient shows flawlessly on it. A ~$700 display beaten handily by a ~$150 display hurt much more than my wallet. That was the final deciding factor on my returning the Gateway. I don't know how they managed to screw up this panel so badly. AFAIK, the Dell and Samsung 24" (same panels) had this resolved before the Gateway was released.
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
I believe my sample is an earlier run from around November, but I didn't notice any issues with PSU buzzing. Could be that the color banding was a result of the early run - I don't know for sure. As for settings, I set contrast to 60% and ended up with brightness at 61%. The color profile will of course vary somewhat from panel to panel, so I'm not sure how helpful providing my particular profile will be, but if you want to give it a look, here you go:http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/monitor/2007/g...">FPD2485W Calibrated Profile
Caveat Emptor! :)
chizow - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
Wow that was fast! thanks :) A lot of 2485W owners will be happy. I think a lot of people got the brightness/contrast settings similar to yours, but color accuracy is a whole different monster, like whack-a-mole almost. Solve one color problem only to make one much worst. For me, its like tuning a guitar. I know what doesn't sound right, I just don't know how to fix it. :) That profile should help a ton though, thanks again!