Gateway FPD2485W: 24" LCD Beauty or Beast?
by Jarred Walton on February 22, 2007 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Displays
Color Accuracy
Something far more important than contrast ratio or brightness is the accuracy of the colors that are produced. A bright display with a high contrast ratio could still have terrible color reproduction, and it's not always possible to correct this. Most people will simply "eyeball" the display output to try and determine what looks best, and there are various color charts available online that can help. Outside of image professionals, that is often sufficient, and most users will find that their eyes adapt to whatever display they use and it is only when doing side-by-side comparisons that differences become apparent.
Monaco Optix XR Pro was used to generate reports of color accuracy. 24 color patches are sent to the display with the colorimeter measuring the resulting values. The difference between what is requested and what the LCD actually shows is known as Delta E, with lower values being better. Any score less than one is basically "perfect" - the naked eye is not going to be able to tell the difference - and scores less than 2.0 are very good. Ideally, you would want all of the tested colors to have a Delta E of less than 1.0, but few people are likely to have problems with anything scoring below 2.0. From 2.0 to 4.0, most people will be able to detect a slight inaccuracy in the color palette when comparing displays side by side, but it's not too irritating. Anything above 4.0 begins to represent a more significant deviance, and numerous scores above 4.0 will almost certainly be noticeable by just about anyone using the display.
The Gateway FPD2485W includes EZTune software to help users calibrate their displays, although this will at best provide moderately accurate results. We started out with the EZTune software, checked the results, and then proceeded to use the Monaco Optix software to calibrate the display. Unless you have a colorimeter and the necessary software, you can expect your results to be closer to the EZTune values, but outside of image/video editing that is often sufficient.
Both displays perform very well when calibrated by Monaco Optix, but not surprisingly the out of box experience from the Gateway isn't nearly as accurate. Uncalibrated results for the 2405FPW were not recorded because it is only intended as a baseline measurement and is not being reviewed. The Dell 2405FPW is about two years old now, but it still performs about the same as the newer 2407WFP and the Gateway FPD2485W when it comes to reproducing accurate colors. We will be taking a closer look at the 2407WFP in the near future, but outside of the most demanding users any of these three displays will work very well. That's not too surprising, considering all three of them are based off of PVA panels.
The second aspect of color accuracy that we need to address is the color depth. The FPD2485W can produce a resulting color pretty close to the requested value, but how does it do in terms of gradient scales? This was something we neglected initially, and after further investigation there is definitely a lot of banding when viewing gradient scales, to the point that we would almost question whether or not this is a true 8-bit panel or if it's really a 6-bit panel. Attempts to capture the results of the banding with a camera have been unsuccessful so far, but needless to say the Dell 2405FPW shows less banding while the 2407WFP doesn't show any noticeable banding. In normal use, the banding usually isn't a serious problem, but graphics editors are likely to notice the effect. Any gradients created in Photoshop or other similar programs have definite problems in regards to producing a smooth color scale on the FPD2485W, and for some people that is a big enough concern that they will want to look elsewhere.
Note: Our review sample is from the first run of these LCDs and was manufactured in November 2006. Later models have apparently improved on some aspects of the display, but unfortunately we can't say whether the color gradients have gotten any better. Again, if colors are important to you, try to check out a display in person and bring up some gradient images to see whether or not you notice any issues.
Update: Additional information on viewing angles and color calibration for print work with these displays is available in our Acer AL2216W review.
Something far more important than contrast ratio or brightness is the accuracy of the colors that are produced. A bright display with a high contrast ratio could still have terrible color reproduction, and it's not always possible to correct this. Most people will simply "eyeball" the display output to try and determine what looks best, and there are various color charts available online that can help. Outside of image professionals, that is often sufficient, and most users will find that their eyes adapt to whatever display they use and it is only when doing side-by-side comparisons that differences become apparent.
Monaco Optix XR Pro was used to generate reports of color accuracy. 24 color patches are sent to the display with the colorimeter measuring the resulting values. The difference between what is requested and what the LCD actually shows is known as Delta E, with lower values being better. Any score less than one is basically "perfect" - the naked eye is not going to be able to tell the difference - and scores less than 2.0 are very good. Ideally, you would want all of the tested colors to have a Delta E of less than 1.0, but few people are likely to have problems with anything scoring below 2.0. From 2.0 to 4.0, most people will be able to detect a slight inaccuracy in the color palette when comparing displays side by side, but it's not too irritating. Anything above 4.0 begins to represent a more significant deviance, and numerous scores above 4.0 will almost certainly be noticeable by just about anyone using the display.
The Gateway FPD2485W includes EZTune software to help users calibrate their displays, although this will at best provide moderately accurate results. We started out with the EZTune software, checked the results, and then proceeded to use the Monaco Optix software to calibrate the display. Unless you have a colorimeter and the necessary software, you can expect your results to be closer to the EZTune values, but outside of image/video editing that is often sufficient.
Both displays perform very well when calibrated by Monaco Optix, but not surprisingly the out of box experience from the Gateway isn't nearly as accurate. Uncalibrated results for the 2405FPW were not recorded because it is only intended as a baseline measurement and is not being reviewed. The Dell 2405FPW is about two years old now, but it still performs about the same as the newer 2407WFP and the Gateway FPD2485W when it comes to reproducing accurate colors. We will be taking a closer look at the 2407WFP in the near future, but outside of the most demanding users any of these three displays will work very well. That's not too surprising, considering all three of them are based off of PVA panels.
The second aspect of color accuracy that we need to address is the color depth. The FPD2485W can produce a resulting color pretty close to the requested value, but how does it do in terms of gradient scales? This was something we neglected initially, and after further investigation there is definitely a lot of banding when viewing gradient scales, to the point that we would almost question whether or not this is a true 8-bit panel or if it's really a 6-bit panel. Attempts to capture the results of the banding with a camera have been unsuccessful so far, but needless to say the Dell 2405FPW shows less banding while the 2407WFP doesn't show any noticeable banding. In normal use, the banding usually isn't a serious problem, but graphics editors are likely to notice the effect. Any gradients created in Photoshop or other similar programs have definite problems in regards to producing a smooth color scale on the FPD2485W, and for some people that is a big enough concern that they will want to look elsewhere.
Note: Our review sample is from the first run of these LCDs and was manufactured in November 2006. Later models have apparently improved on some aspects of the display, but unfortunately we can't say whether the color gradients have gotten any better. Again, if colors are important to you, try to check out a display in person and bring up some gradient images to see whether or not you notice any issues.
Update: Additional information on viewing angles and color calibration for print work with these displays is available in our Acer AL2216W review.
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anandtech02148 - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
I find the Westinghouse 37 lcdtv eye candies with all the pluggins you could want, for pc, consoles and whatever hi-def format.and it has native resolution as this Gateway 24.
Dell is losing it touches lately, Westinghouse got a niche here they should runaway with it.
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
I'll see if I can get one for review - I'd certainly like to check out some of the LCD-TVs that can function as computer displays. Of course, pixel pitch is going to be a lot larger on a 37" 1080p display, and while that may be fine for HDTV and gaming purposes, it probably isn't the best for close up computer work.Welshtrog - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
I am looking at these displays with interest, however there is nothing in this review that will change my mind regarding retaining my 19" Flat screen CRT just yet, It has good colour accuracy after being set up and no stuck pixelsJarredWalton - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
I've got two decent 19" CRTs still (NEC FE991 and Samsung 997DF), and honestly I can't stand using them after I switched to a 24" LCD 18 months ago. I still get irritated by image tear caused by the 60Hz refresh rate, but in all other areas I'm a lot happier with larger LCDs over CRTs. Part of that is simply the expanded screen size, but the reduced footprint is nice as well. I bailed on CRTs a few years ago and haven't really missed them, although I can certainly understand the hesitation. The $600+ prices doesn't help either. :)Justin Case - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
The review doesn't address this. I know it says "16 million colors", but all manufacturers say that, and 90% of them use 6-bit panels with automatic dithering. The fact that this is an active matrix TFT, coupled with the very low resposne time suggests that this is a 6-bit panel, like the majority.This means more banding and dithered midtones. Which is probably fine for "office" use, but it makes the LCD unusable for photo work (actually, any LCD short of an Eizo CG is pretty much useless for photo work, IMO, and even those just barely manage to match a high-end CRT), and can make games and movies look pretty bad, too.
To test this, just display a smooth gradient (at the monitor's native resolution) and either look at it very closely or take a photograph of a very small area (about 10 pixels wide), and then increase its contrast until the darkest color is black and the brightest color is white. If you see dithering or banding at the pixel level in the intermediate shades, it's a 6-bit panel.
Aquila76 - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
It is an 8 bit S-PVA panel, like the Dell and Samsung 244t. It does 'real' 16.7 million colors, but as I stated previously (and as Jarred can attest) it is nowhere near accurate.Justin Case - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
I'd still like to see a "real" test of the screen (by taking a high-speed photo of a small area). Some panels out there do intermeidate colors by flipping between two shades. The panel _accepts_ 8-bit values, but the LCs don't actually have 256 stable transparency levels.Not that I'm very interested in this particular model, but I think it would be useful if review sites actually did that, rather than trusting what the manufacturers tell them.
Even in high-end professional equipment there's a lot of deception. Consumer stuff is even worse (ex., until about a year ago there were almost no real 1920x1080 HDTV sets out there; apart from Sharp, they were all 1366x768 and below, but they all claimed to "support 1920x1080", because they could take it as an input signal).
strikeback03 - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
meh, the color calibration results aren't great, considering on my laptop I have an average dE of around .6 and only 3 values over 1 (out of the 42 tested by my Eye-One Display 2). I'll probably still pick one up though, as it's the only locally available 24" display.Other reviews I read online spoke of crushed blacks which calibration did not correct when viewing movies. Any comments on this?
Gary Key - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
Jarred is currently reviewing the requests/questions and will have responses later today.
xtknight - Friday, February 23, 2007 - link
When you calibrate using a colorimeter and accompanying software, it only loads the LUT (lookup table) on to the desktop. When you watch a movie, most of the time you're using overlay, which to my knowledge does not allow the fine tuning needed for a lookup table. With VMR you could potentially view videos calibrated, although the last time I tried this I had some odd 16-240 level compression problem.I've been meaning to investigate the overlay "LUT" (or to even find if it exists in the first place). I've seen a function in NVIDIA's control panel API that allows the loading of a LUT onto the overlay surface so I'll see what's up with that.