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Frankenreview - Gateway XHD3000

Last week Wilson Rothman took a look at the new Gateway XHD3000 monitor. You may know it better as the 30-inch, 1600p beast display that has scared the collective crap out of Dell, Apple, and every other competitor on the market. For the full consensus, hit the jump for the Frankenreview: every review that matters in one place (or at least those from Wired, ExtremeTech and PCWorld).

Premise
What they promised seemed unfeasible: a gaming monitor with an upscaling chip capable of over a trillion calculations per second. [1]

Design
The XHD3000's uncluttered design hides a bevy of adjustments...When you press the menu button, menu items appear on screen, and flat, touch-sensitive buttons light up under the glossy black bezel. These blue-lit buttons—which remain invisible until you summon them—change with each of the many menus; only the ones that are needed appear. [3]

Functionality
One of the more striking features—beyond the displays 30-inch size—is the integrated product tour and tutorial. This is actually built into the firmware of the display, and shows you different usage models and points out key features. You can disable this bit of eye candy in the menu. [2]

Gateway's EzTune is a version of Portrait Display's DisplayTune application customized for Gateway displays...Take the PiP feature, for example. Using EzTune, you can move the PiP anywhere on screen—it's not limited to one of the four corners. [2]

Thanks to the XHD3000's HDCP support, you can watch your content-protected video on a suitably equipped Windows Vista machine. [3]

Performance
Console games (even ones on the Wii) look snazzy and PC titles are some of the finest we've seen ... ever. Blu-ray and HD DVDs look so realistic, we took to ducking explosions during our Serenity screening. [1]

...the built-in HQV video processor does a superb job of upscaling 480i content. We ran Silicon Optix's own HQV benchmark on the XHD3000, and garnered a score of 121 (out of a maximum of 130.) That's excellent, especially if you consider that the image was being de-interlaced, then scaled to 2560x1600 pixels. [2]

Most of our judges preferred the Gateway's image over that of the Dell UltraSharp 3007WFP and the Samsung SyncMaster 305T. [3]

Conclusion
As we've seen, the XHD3000 is a competent, if not highly exceptional, desktop display. But simply using this as a desktop display would be a waste. If all you want is a 30-inch desktop display, you'd be better off with the HP LP3065, which offers a wider color gamut at a lower cost...As a multifunction display, though, the XHD3000 excels. [2]

Feature

11:00 AM on Wed Oct 10 2007
By Mark Wilson
11,740 views
17 comments

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