Until recently 30-inch display, while offering high native resolution and excellent image quality, fell short in terms of video processing (the ability to scale videos at other resolutions to fit). All that has changed with the XHD3000, Gateway’s newest 30- inch display.

Although most PC displays have a video processor built in, before the XHD3000, none were able to scale content properly to 2,560-by-1,600 for 30 inch displays. Instead, this function was handled by the PC’s graphics card. The XHD3000 incorporates the Silicon Optix Realta chipset, a high-end video processor, making it capable of scaling, deinterlacing, and reducing noise on both standard-definition (SD) and high-definition (HD) video streams.

The XHD3000 has inputs galore. You can connect up to six devices if you use S-Video and composite connections. You can also hook up a PC, a game console, and an HD disc player and switch easily between them with the included remote control.
One of the XHD3000’s best features is the way it handles picture-in-picture (PiP): You can scale PiP to a variety of resolutions and make it partially transparent. PiP enables you to have a video playing on your desktop yet still have access to all your PC’s desktop functions.

The XHD3000 did an excellent job of displaying games at varying resolutions without graininess. Motion performance was very good, though with a bit of smearing under very high-speed action.

One shortcoming is that the XHD3000’s panel doesn’t show as wide a range of colors as its competition. Gateway used a 72 percent color-gamut panel as opposed to the 92 percent panels that Dell and HP are using. That’s fine for consumer-level photo and video editing, but not for professional graphics work. Another flaw is that its backlighting isn’t uniform, and some backlight bleeding was visible in a darkened room.

Gateway’s 30-inch widescreen flat-panel LCD is pricey, going for a couple hundred dollars more than its competition. But if you want to hook multiple devices up to a big, high-resolution display that you plan to use more for HD video and gaming than for editing still images, this 30-inch display can’t be beat.

Gateway XHD3000 Short Review
Price range: $1,699.99

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