Gateway 24" widescreen monitor

Recently I've been looking for a monitor with a larger desktop than my current 19" LCD monitor. When I upgraded to an LCD monitor I was used to running high resolutions, typically 1600x1200 on a 19" CRT. On my notebook I also have a slightly higher resolution at 1400x1050, which is great for a 15" screen. The problem I ran into was the standard 19" LCDs where all in a low resolution of 1280x1024. Now this size is great for general use but found in applications with many windows or menus bars, it made the desktop very cluttered.

After the prices started to come down on 19" LCDs I bought a second monitor to run with the first one on my computer. Soon I was able to run an application in full screen while keeping another screen open for web browsing or typing notes. One problem with this configuration is gaming, for some reason most games had a problem running in Windowed mode, and the ones that did run had a much larger performance hit than running on one desktop.

So I switched back to one monitor and decided to wait until the 20" or 22" widescreen monitors dropped in price. In the past few months I saw the price of the of Dell 2407WFP 24" and the Gateway FPD2485W 24" monitors slowly lower to $680. Still too high but saw a web only pricing for the Gateway at a local electronics dealer and thought it was a good price. So hours later I was testing out the monitoring at home.

Just as soon as I got the monitor hooked up I installed the drivers and downloaded a few updated files for World of Warcraft. Running late for a dungeon run I didn't change the default settings on the monitor. After about 2 hours of playing, I was glad to say the monitor was actually very easy to change. I saw little if any decreased video performance jumping from the previous 1280x1024 to the higher 1920x1200. When taking a screenshot I did not a lag longer than before but after I checked the file sizes, each screen shot increased from 2.5mb to 5mb in size.

While it might not seem like a huge differnce in width from 1280 to 1920, it's an amazing amount of added view. Below is a screenshot from the dungeon, if you have played WoW before you know just how cluttered the gaming view can get, you need all of the extra desktop you can get.

One of the biggest selling points for me on this monitor is the ability to use HDTV, component, and composite inputs. Now I can remove my old tube tv and save some space as well as get a better picture. :) Tonight I'll test the monitor with my Playstation 2 using the component cables to see the quality difference on this monitor from my CRT television. I don't own any new game consoles or HD-DVD players so for now the PS2 will have to do.

Of course there are some problems with any item, this monitor not excluding. I found that while the colors were very bright and clear, there was a slight ghosting with very fast gaming movements. Only noticed this when I was actually looking for it, didn't bother me during actual gaming. Also with the overall size of the 24" monitor, the stand to hold it is larger than regular sized monitors. On my small home styled desk space is always an issue and lost some space with the larger stand but it's not a major issue.

Overall for the money, this is a nice monitor. For a multimedia system this monitor would make a nice mix with Media Center version of Windows, or any system with high resolution display. For a business solution, again this is good monitor since you can view two full pages side by side. Just personally but I perfer one larger monitor as to two smaller monitors. For the average pc gamer I think this is a good monitor but some of the faster games might not look as great. It's a trade off for the lower pricing, which I'm willing to accept.

Personal rating 4.5/5

Rob