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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Xenoterranos - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
I've been waiting for a site I trust to do some monitor reviews, as I'm getting ready to purchase a new LCD (my first LCD) in a few months. Would it be possible to do some reviews of different-sized lcd's (i'm thinking 20" 24" 30" etc) as most of them are based on the same/similar panels (for their respective sizes).Or just a price range (sub 200 3-400, 5-700 etc...)
Avalon - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
What's with the "long live LCD!" cry? Why would you want such a pitiful technology to have a long life? Most LCDs only eclipse CRTs in weight, power, and size (some might include eye comfort). Picture quality and video performance is at best, equal, and at worst, not as good. I say bring on OLED/SED ASAP so we can get the best of both CRT and LCD.All ranting aside...it's good to see some display reviews on the site again. Keep up the good work!
yyrkoon - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
You, obviously, never used a LCD, or at least a good one, I have a 21" professional Grade CRT, sitting next to a non professional ViewSonic 19" LCD, and all I can say, is I'll never use that CRT again, if I can help it . . .JarredWalton - Friday, February 23, 2007 - link
I would have a bit of difficulty deciding between a 21" CRT and a 19" LCD, at least in terms of resolution, refresh rate, etc. When I ditched my 21" CRT and got a Dell 24", however, it was love (lust?) at first sight and I've never regretted the move. And now I have a 30" Dell sitting on my desk, although even I will admit that can be overkill. :)yyrkoon - Friday, February 23, 2007 - link
Yeah, that CRT is good, crisp (for a CRT), but it does not come close to my ViewSonic VA1912wb. Gaming, it could be a toss up between the two, because: 1) the CRT supports higher resolutions, 2) the refresh rate is higher on the CRT (important if you enable double/triple buffering). That being said, even in non native resolutions (I only do this for games, when the games do not support the monitors native resolution), it still looks great, and for pictures / text, the CRT is terrible by comparrison (especially with ClearType fonts, for text).If there were a complaint, I'd have to say that cleaning said monitors can be 'scary' at times. Pressure marks can completely ruin, an otherwise awesome LCD monitor, but, I for one, try to use a light touch, with antistatic alcohol soaked wipes, you can buy from wal mart for $5(anti static helps keep the dust build up to a minimum).
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
More a tongue-in-cheek comment than anything serious. I guess I've been reading too many high fantasy books lately or something (currently reading the King's Blade books).dukerobillard - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
Nice review; one request, though:A big concern about widescreen monitors in the gaming world is how
they work with games that can't handle widescreen aspect ratios. What
you want is to be able to tell the monitor to behave as a 4:3 display,
and put black bars on the side, so the game still works (albeit at
1600x1200 for a 24" or 1280x1024 for a 20"). I've read that the
24" Dell Widescreen has some issues about this; apparently it doesn't
work with some inputs.
It would be great to hear how the Gateway handles this situation. There's
a paragraph in the "Subjective Evaluation" section that sounds like it
does it right, but I'm not 100% sure.
neogodless - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
Just wanted to point out/remind you that 1280x1024 is actually 5:4. It is, however, pretty widely supported, and when done on an LCD there should be no distortion... but perhaps that is something that could be investigated in these monitor reviews. I used to use 1280x960 on my CRT because I wanted to avoid the skew (however imperceptible it may have been) and I had to read the specs and do the math about ten times before buying my 1280x1024 19" LCDs to make sure it was being done right.Aquila76 - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
It will do sidebars (true 1:1 pixel mapping) thru the OSD. This was great when I didn't have enough graphics power to run at the native 19x12.Phlargo - Thursday, February 22, 2007 - link
I trust Anandtech's reviews a lot and LCD monitors are one of the weakest set of reviews available across the internet hardware review gamut. I really like sites like BeHardware, Toms, and even our own xtknight's (props! Check out his site - www.lcdresource.com) exploration into monitors, but it'll be great to have good ole' Anandtech adding more reviews to the mix.Buying such an important component shouldn't be the mystery it is right now!! As I always say, there's only one part of the computer you look at: the monitor. Never skimp for price on it - get something that makes you feel warm and fuzzy every time you look at it :)
Thanks Jared! Can't wait for more reviews!!!