10/04/2007, 9:15am, EDT
Thursday, October 4thGateway intros its first 30-inch LCD with HDMI
Gateway on Thursday hoped to make its late entry into the 30-inch computer display field a unique one with the XHD3000. The LCD is aimed simultaneously at creative pros who can use the greater-than-HD 2560x1600 resolution as well as home theater enthusiasts and gamers. For the latter, the screen not only includes HDMI, component, RCA, and S-video jacks to plug in a Blu-Ray player or a game console but is also powered by a Realta HQV upscaler similar to what might be found on an HDTV. The processor can adapt most any video feed to the display's full resolution without much of the blurring or other artifacts that come with non-native input, Gateway says. All six video connections can work simultaneously and even HD feeds will display in a picture-in-picture window.
Further reinforcing the home theater focus, the XHD3000 also reportedly offers far more powerful built-in sound than most all-in-one LCDs with a chin-mounted, flat-panel DXP speaker system with eight separate transducers. A bundled universal IR remote controls both the display itself and most attached devices that accept the wireless signals. Audio from the speaker bar can reroute to two headphone jacks or an SPDIF port for co-axial or optical audio output. Computers attach to the XHD3000 through DVI and VGA inputs and have access to a six-port USB hub for attaching peripherals, the company notes.
The display reaches its full resolution with any Mac or Windows PC with a dual-link DVI connector and is slated to ship within the next two to three business days for $1,700.
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The best we can hope for is that this may encourage Apple to drop their display prices $100 to match gateway. What's up with gateway posing as an Apple competitor these days?
"...includes HDMI, component, RCA, and S-video jacks to plug in a Blu-Ray player ..."
So the use of a HD-DVD player can not be used on this display?
Heck most video stores barely differentiate between 720 & 1080 - and I can assure you the differences in still images between a 2mp 1080p image & a 4mp 2560x1600 image are profound on my screen...
Maybe Apple will wake up and realize that form over function is not always (not ususally) the best way to go. I for one would love to have the HDMI and VGA inputs on the screen. I would not use the speakers, but they appear to be detachable.
A little lesson on pixels, most of you know this but some don't: 720 and 1080 are not magical. Those are simply the vertical pixel resolutions chosen by the industry to include in the HD spec (among others). Computers have the ability to display any number of pixels in any ratio (provided you have a capable GPU and software driver support). Here at work we are running a data wall at 5760 x 2400 pixels (~3x higher than full HD). No big deal. Not to mention that 2x and 4x HD specs already exist and are being used. It will take a while for mfg to catch up and create average, non-super-special displays to show resolutions that high (right now it takes special equipment or multiple displays).
Lets see - buy Dell's single port for $1600 or the loaded HP with remote and SPDIF for $1700? Hmmm. No contest.
At last we can use our hi-def video cameras, etc etc with the benefits of a big screen. WAY overdue.
The only serious competition here is to Dell and HP. And thats not going to be much or long if this monitor matches clarity and image quality.