Digital Trends

Gateway 30-inch LCD

March 7th, 2005 | by Ian Bell

Setup and Testing

The Gateway 30-inch LCD TV comes with two manuals, one for the remote control and the other for the TV itself. It also comes with a power cord, S-Video cable and an audio cable. The quality of the cables is pretty good, comparable to what you would get from Acoustic Research or Radio Shack's higher-end line. If you plan on using this set with your PC or any home theater component that uses a DVI cable, than expect to spend another $50 dollars minimum for that cable. The same applies to the component video cable. The manual for the television is fairly detailed and will show you how to setup your new television and use its menu system. Gateway gives you remote control codes so you can operate your other components using the Gateway remote.

If you plan on hooking up a DVD player, than you will want to use the component video input marked DVD player. This input supports both 480i and 480p signals. If you have one of the new HD DVD players which are capable of up converting the signal to 720P, you will have to use the component video input marked HDTV on it. If you have a HDTV set-top box than you can connect it to the Gateway 30-inch LCD TV using three possible inputs. The HDTV component video inputs support 480i, 480P, 720P and 1080i signal sources. You can also connect your set top box using the analog VGA input or the DVI input.

We were told by our Gateway public relations contact that the DVI input is in fact HDCP compatible, but there is no mention of this on Gateway's website. We recommend asking the Gateway representative helping you about HDCP compatibility when inquiring about this TV. What's very odd is that the manual that comes with this television shows the DVI input being used with a computer, and there is no mention of connecting a set top box using the DVI input. Gateway's support section on their website is missing all information regarding this particular television. It mentions the older 30-inch models, but since that unit has completely different specs, we are positive the support information would not apply to this model.

We used Dish Networks HDTV service and the HDTV component video input on this television for our testing. Since this television is a LCD monitor, you will want to calibrate the picture and color settings from where you will be watching TV the most. The picture on a LCD TV can change depending on which angle you are watching it from. Some LCD TVs are better at giving a broad viewing radius than others. We love the picture on the Gateway 30-inch LCD when looking at it from straight on, but it changes dramatically from a 15 to 45-degree viewing angle much in the same way the older CRT rear projection sets looked from different angles. Black levels are adequate for a television in this price range, although nothing spectacular. Even though the specifications say the contrast ratio is 750:1, this unit did not appear any brighter or sharper than the Kreisen LT-30FMP we reviewed which has a 450:1 ratio.