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"Bought Strictly for Gaming." on by spenillo
Pros: Awesome for Gaming, Great response time, no ghosting at all.
Cons: Black isn't truly black, Dark areas of games seem little different. Other then that None Yet. No DVI cable with.
Summary: First thing definitely buy the DVI cable. Just when in windows the difference is 10 times better. I am not an LCD expert, especially cause I am coming from a 19" CRT. But I can tell you that this monitor is a great deal. I bought mine at Staples.com and I ran dead pixel buddy and found no dead pixels on the entire LCD (very happy about that). It is a beautiful looking monitor in general, within Windows XP very stunning colors and brightness seems to be even all over LCD.
I haven’t tested out the PIP(picture in picture) portion of it yet. But I have played some games with it and the DVI portion. I have a x800 XT and it plays the games flawlessly at the native resolution in Widescreen. Games Look awesome! I have played Half-Life 2 Lost Coast demo in HDR, it looks truly amazing. When looking at the Sun(in game), I actually looked away like it was too bright, like the real Sun. I also played Call of Duty 2 another great game with the widescreen native resolution. Game looks amazing.
There is one thing with the monitor and you can read more on the technical side in widescreengamingforum.com reviews(under Gateway FPD2185W) about the Black section of gaming not being true black. I did notice this while in tunnels in Call of Duty 2. The Dark parts of the tunnels were a little too bright, not truly black. I think this is a problem on most LCD’s, this is my first and I am not expert. Other then that it’s a great LCD monitor and no ghosting or anything like that while playing. Looks very very nice.
BTW Staples has no restocking fee and you can return the item within 14 days if you don’t it, right to the store. I have never seen one in public before I bought it. I was a little skeptical at first, but I am very happy with it, especially at this price.
AMD Athlon XP 3000
1Ghz ram
VisionTek X800XT Xtasy AGP 256mb
Windows XP SP2 -
"Daytrader's Delight" on by cassac
Pros: Excellent dual monitor setup
Cons: I don't have any so far.
Summary: The dimensions of this monitor, it's resolution, price, style, and other technical features make this a real winner. I replaced two 21" Dell Trinitron CRTs after one began to show poor image quality. They had both given me good service for the past 5 years. After seeing online reviews here at CNET my interest was peaked. When I saw it on display at Best Buy, my reservations about buying a Gateway product vs the Dell 1905 were set aside. So, I bought 2 and run the desktop across both to display my daytrading charts and other applications simultaneously.
I can't wait to explore the other multimedia features this monitor has. But for now, I'm very pleased with this purchase. -
"Gateway FPD 2185W Excellent except for..." on by gradio
Pros: Lots of real estate on screen, great definition
Cons: Swivel modes only on Windows XP, Mac users left out
Summary: I was using a 19" Samsung CRT for a number of years and while it was reliable, the colors were not very accurate despite numerous tweaks to the settings. I had aquired an iMac G5 recently for another family member and was astonished at how good the 20" mac lcd screen was. My Samsung definitely was not good enough anymore.
After looking around in numerous stores and comparing models and features, I discovered the Gateway FPD2185W at my local Future Shop. In addition to the great screen images, it had a wealth of inputs, USB ports, PIP (you can plug in a tv tuner for example) and resolution up to 1680 by 1050.
I also like the fact it has a dvi port, for direct digital-to-digital transfer of images. However, it is difficult to notice any difference from the analog input compared to the dvi.
Bundled with the monitor is a vga cable, but no dvi cable. This is unfortunate, especially with the high prices of these cables (I had to pay $49.95 Cdn for one).
Additionally, I am annoyed that Mac users do not have a version of the software which gives Windows users easy access to screen controls and other configurations. In an email, the Gateway tech support said it was something that they may look at in the future, but not at the present time.
To navigate the screen controls, you have to press four buttons on the side of the display, which will take some time to get used to. It would have been nice to have direct buttons for the often used brightness and contrast (although these can be accessed through the Mac displays preferences panel or through the Gateway's four buttons).
Although you can set the PIP to four different sizes and several locations on the screen and switch the input fro the main display window to the PIP window, you can't drag the PIP window or resize it with your mouse.
I would have been nice to include a built-in TV tuner (although I don't need one since I can hook up my local DSL cable TV box output to the video ins).
In spite of the limitations to Mac users, I am still happy with the Gateway FPD2185W, and consider it great value for the price.
Perhaps Gateway's next version will have some of the above enhancements. -
"DO NOT BUY THIS MONITOR" on by jamesvb
Pros: Great picture for about a week
Cons: NO SUPPORT AT ALL
Summary: Ddo a search for this monitor for drivers and you will see pages upon pages of problems that Gateway cannot or will not own up too. I have over 7 hours on the telphone and my monitor does not work and they do not know why, terrible support
Customer service. Have you tried using your customer service, I had my new FPD2185W monitor go out on me yesterday. I called at 10:30 am and talked to your service rep Marsha, very nice guy but did not have a clue on how to repair or trouble shoot a damn thing. After 1 hour with him he transferred me to another person, NOT!!! I was put on hold and then disconnected after another 25 minutes of waiting. I returned the call and talked to another rep went through the whole damn process again and Freddie didn’t have a clue after an hour I asked to speak to a supervisor, was put on hold and again after 15 minutes I was disconnected. I called back and reached a person who said I have been calling the wrong number and gave me a new number to call. The number I was given is on the top of my receipt, why give me a number that is the wrong number? I called again, I now have almost 3 hour invested and no luck, I get the next support agent and we spend 2 hours and 35 minutes on the telephone doing the exact same thing I have done with the other customer service reps. He gives me a service number 2-2114833231, I call this morning I wait 14 minutes ask to speak to a supervisor and again I was disconnected, I have been on hold now for 15 minutes and still no service representative. I have 4 of your computers and I can guarantee that my next purchase will not be a Gateway. My company is in the process of ordering three more machines but I just cancelled the PO this morning. Back to my problem about my monitor nobody knows how to reload the monitor to make it work in VGA or DVI. I go on the internet do a search and there are pages of people having the same problem as I am having and yet your support has no idea what is going on, WHY? I am now up to 22 minutes and counting of waiting to speak to a rep. What kind of company are you running? Are you not interested in any customer satisfaction -
"Good monitor with two problems" on by hgozam
Pros: Swivel, adjustable height. I use it in vertical mode most of the time.
Cons: automatic resolution switching does not work all the time
Summary: I really appreciate having a monitor I can use in vertically mode. I use it most of the time in that position for Internet browsing and e-mail. I use it in landscape mode when doing video editing.
I have to return the first one I purchased because the vertical position was not really vertical; it was less that 90 degrees swivel. The current one is.
The resolution (sharpness of fonts) in vertical position is not as good as the resolution of the horizontal position. That could be better. The best screen resolution I have seen out there is that of Apple G5's monitors.
I had to change my computer video card for one capable of rendering 1680x1050. Most of the new video cards would do, as long as the maximum resolution is equal or above 1680x1050.
Few times, for unknown reasons, the resolution changed by itself and I have to reset it to get it back to 1680x1050.
Microsoft's DirectX has not worked for me while the monitor is in vertical mode. That means that I have to swivel it back to landscape to watch TV or play some videos.
It also supposed to automatically switch resolution when it is swivelled. At the beginning it worked most of the time, but latter it stopped working, so now I have to do it manually: right click on the desktop | tune display | options.
Even though it works well, and I love having greater real state, I consider that due to these drawbacks the monitor should be priced much less.Updated
For some reason the monitor is now getting in energy saving mode by itself while I am working on it. The problem hapens from three to six times after the monitor has been in sleeping mode or after the computer was turn-on, after that it gets stable.
I went to Gateway web site to dowload a new driver, but I could not because the site ask for the serial number and does not recognize the SN as valid. I do not know where else to go to get a driver.Updated
For some reason the monitor is now getting in energy saving mode by itself while I am working on it. The problem hapens from three to six times after the monitor has been in sleeping mode or after the computer was turn-on, after that it gets stable. I have to turn it off and then back-on to make it work again.
I went to Gateway web site to dowload a new driver, but I could not because the site ask for the serial number and does not recognize the SN as valid. I do not know where else to go to get a driver.Updated
I finally found out that there is no newer driver for this monitor other that the MS one. Now the new problem is that I get a Microsoft blue screen of dead when using the monitor en vertical mode (long side vertical) when using Photoshop CS2. The video card I am using is an ALL-IN-WONDER 9600. The problem does not happen if I use the monitor in the normal horizontal mode.
I should not have given this monitor a 7, it must be 6, and keeping in mind that cost me about CND$800 dollars it deserves a 5.
If you are not planing to use the Picture-in-picture function to watch TV, then buy yourself a SAMSUNG SyncMaster 960bf, it has more than enough resolution, and swivels as well, I got one like that for my second PC.Updated
I finally found out that there is no newer driver for this monitor other that the MS one. Now the new problem is that I get a Microsoft blue screen of dead when using the monitor en vertical mode (long side vertical) when using Photoshop CS2. The video card I am using is an ALL-IN-WONDER 9600. The problem does not happen if I use the monitor in the normal horizontal mode.
I should not have given this monitor a 7, it must be 6, and keeping in mind that cost me about CND$800 dollars it deserves a 5.
If you are not planing to use the Picture-in-picture function to watch TV, then buy yourself a SAMSUNG SyncMaster 960bf, it has more than enough resolution, and swivels as well, I got one like that for my second PC.
Gateway FPD2185W 21 in Widescreen High Definition LCD user reviews
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