Gateway FPD2485W: 24" LCD Beauty or Beast?
by Jarred Walton on February 22, 2007 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Displays
Closing Thoughts
The Gateway FPD2485W is one of the more recent LCDs on the market, and it performs very well. Is it the best option currently available? We haven't tested a lot of other displays, so we can't say for certain, but it appears to be competitive with most other options in the same category.
For many users looking at purchasing a new display, one of the overriding factors is going to be price. That's what helped turn Dell into one of the largest display providers in the world, as given the choice between a 24" Dell LCD or a more expensive but higher-quality 20"-21" LCD from someone else, quite a few people have been more than happy to stick with Dell. The fact that Dell's LCDs are actually very good also helped.
Gateway seems to have a good understanding of the market - and well they should considering that they compete in other markets against Dell - and they have produced a product that takes a very similar approach. The FPD2485W isn't a perfect LCD, but it performs very well overall and it is available at a very attractive price. Currently, the FPD2485W is listed for $680 on the Gateway web site, while the regular price of the Dell 2407WFP is $750. Dell routinely runs sales, however, and the 2407WFP is available for $675 right now. You basically end up with two very similar monitors that cost about the same amount, although the Dell comes with a three-year warranty included making it a slightly better deal.
The small difference in price probably isn't enough to sway most people one way or the other, so it's going to come down to performance, features, and any other extras. The bottom line for the consumer is that we're getting more competition in the large LCD market from a major manufacturer, and as the AMD/Intel price wars have shown us, competition is good for the consumer. Two years ago, 24" LCDs cost nearly twice what they do now, and they have now moved from the ultra high-end price range into a more palatable high-end classification. If you're still running a CRT and are finally thinking about upgrading to an LCD, most of the 24" models will impress and the Gateway FPD2485W is one of those you should keep on your short list of options.
About the only real problem we encountered during testing is the inability of the Gateway FPD2485W to reproduce a smooth gradient scale. Banding is very apparent in such cases, and while this won't really affect gaming or to a lesser extent video content, some users and especially graphics artists are likely to be disappointed. We could also hope for a more streamlined OSD interface, but the color gradients are a far bigger concern. Overall color accuracy is good, with a relatively low Delta E score, but it seems that the Faroudja signal processor may not actually be doing as well as we would like. The image processor seems the more likely culprit, as in other areas the panel appears to be the same as that used on Dell's 2407WFP.
One final area that we haven't really talked about is how opinions differ by individuals. Some people are blessed with much better eyesight, and what we find more than acceptable might disappoint. If possible, we always recommend that you try out displays in person, and that is particularly important if you are one of the more discerning viewers of the world. Pixel response times for example are now fast enough that most people don't notice the slight blurring that is still present on nearly all LCDs, but there are individuals out there that have serious issues with pixel smearing. If you're one of those, the new Gateway LCD doesn't appear to be any better or worse in that area than earlier Dell models, so it is unlikely to change your mind in that respect.
As we stated at the outset, it has been a long time since we last performed any display reviews at AnandTech. Our goal is to rectify the situation, and we hope to have numerous display reviews over the coming months. Initially, we're going to be focusing on covering some of the more popular products that are already on the market, as they will help to establish a baseline performance metric. We're also looking for feedback from our readers, so if you have any comments or suggestions please feel free to drop us a line.
The Gateway FPD2485W is one of the more recent LCDs on the market, and it performs very well. Is it the best option currently available? We haven't tested a lot of other displays, so we can't say for certain, but it appears to be competitive with most other options in the same category.
For many users looking at purchasing a new display, one of the overriding factors is going to be price. That's what helped turn Dell into one of the largest display providers in the world, as given the choice between a 24" Dell LCD or a more expensive but higher-quality 20"-21" LCD from someone else, quite a few people have been more than happy to stick with Dell. The fact that Dell's LCDs are actually very good also helped.
Gateway seems to have a good understanding of the market - and well they should considering that they compete in other markets against Dell - and they have produced a product that takes a very similar approach. The FPD2485W isn't a perfect LCD, but it performs very well overall and it is available at a very attractive price. Currently, the FPD2485W is listed for $680 on the Gateway web site, while the regular price of the Dell 2407WFP is $750. Dell routinely runs sales, however, and the 2407WFP is available for $675 right now. You basically end up with two very similar monitors that cost about the same amount, although the Dell comes with a three-year warranty included making it a slightly better deal.
The small difference in price probably isn't enough to sway most people one way or the other, so it's going to come down to performance, features, and any other extras. The bottom line for the consumer is that we're getting more competition in the large LCD market from a major manufacturer, and as the AMD/Intel price wars have shown us, competition is good for the consumer. Two years ago, 24" LCDs cost nearly twice what they do now, and they have now moved from the ultra high-end price range into a more palatable high-end classification. If you're still running a CRT and are finally thinking about upgrading to an LCD, most of the 24" models will impress and the Gateway FPD2485W is one of those you should keep on your short list of options.
About the only real problem we encountered during testing is the inability of the Gateway FPD2485W to reproduce a smooth gradient scale. Banding is very apparent in such cases, and while this won't really affect gaming or to a lesser extent video content, some users and especially graphics artists are likely to be disappointed. We could also hope for a more streamlined OSD interface, but the color gradients are a far bigger concern. Overall color accuracy is good, with a relatively low Delta E score, but it seems that the Faroudja signal processor may not actually be doing as well as we would like. The image processor seems the more likely culprit, as in other areas the panel appears to be the same as that used on Dell's 2407WFP.
One final area that we haven't really talked about is how opinions differ by individuals. Some people are blessed with much better eyesight, and what we find more than acceptable might disappoint. If possible, we always recommend that you try out displays in person, and that is particularly important if you are one of the more discerning viewers of the world. Pixel response times for example are now fast enough that most people don't notice the slight blurring that is still present on nearly all LCDs, but there are individuals out there that have serious issues with pixel smearing. If you're one of those, the new Gateway LCD doesn't appear to be any better or worse in that area than earlier Dell models, so it is unlikely to change your mind in that respect.
As we stated at the outset, it has been a long time since we last performed any display reviews at AnandTech. Our goal is to rectify the situation, and we hope to have numerous display reviews over the coming months. Initially, we're going to be focusing on covering some of the more popular products that are already on the market, as they will help to establish a baseline performance metric. We're also looking for feedback from our readers, so if you have any comments or suggestions please feel free to drop us a line.
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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.