17 Lcd Tv

Gateway led the vanguard as computer companies moved toward consumer electronics, posting some impressive hits and forgettable misses along the way. The new 17-inch LCD TV is named for what it is: The display makes a reasonable television but falls short of the mark as a monitor.

The printed documentation that comes with the display is clearly TV-centric. The attractive black-and-silver case tilts and swivels, and the LCD panel is covered with a protective hard-plastic layer that also enhances contrast. A handy headphone jack is located on the front of the panel.

The display has a D-sub VGA connector for analog computer signals and a DVI-D connector for digital signals; but remarkably, no cables for either are included. You'll find cables for composite video and stereo sound, plus both a coax connector and dipole antenna wire with a coax adapter for video, but notably missing are component video connectors. For a display of this cost and quality, this is a surprising shortcoming. Also missing is any setup CD. Windows will identify the unit as a Plug and Play monitor, but it does not recognize its native WXGA resolution. As a result, you have to run it in XGA mode, wasting 20 percent of the display space.

The on-screen menu has a translucent background, and the remote control is easy to use. You can adjust the size, position, and source of the PIP image. The front-panel buttons include volume and mute. The lack of an auto-sync button means you have to dig down through the menus, but the feature worked flawlessly.

Image quality was excellent, with smooth color ramps, good uniformity, and relatively little effect from large viewing angles. The only drawback on the television side was that the tuner was not as good at pulling in weak stations as the others.

If you want to run your display off a video cable connection and only occasionally use it as a computer display, then you may be satisfied with the Gateway offering. It falls short of the competition at the same price, however, and needs to provide better support for the computer side of the equation.

Copyright © 2003 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in PC Magazine.

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