Choosing a “Perfect” 30″ Monitor? Impossible!

If there is one thing I’ve discovered recently, it’s very difficult to find a “perfect” 30-inch display. No matter what one you point your finger at… there will be a nice list of pros and cons, making weighing out your options an arduous chore. Last week, we posted a review of Gateway’s XHD3000, which does a lot right, but is still not perfect.

One thing I’m confident in, is knowing that I am not alone in thinking the process of choosing a 30-inch model is less fun than walking up a massive hill. With iron boots. In the past few weeks, I’ve read through numerous forum threads, and surprisingly, that didn’t help much. There is just no perfect model out there! Though I liked the XHD3000 a lot, (I did give it an Editor’s Choice, after all), Dell’s 3008WFP stood out to me thanks to the higher color gamut. But after much reading around, I am glad I looked the other way.

Though it may be a limited problem, I found many threads with users complaining about their personal 3008WFP units. The largest issue is with bad backlight-bleeding, which seems to be common on IPS panels, although my 24″ Dell 2408WFP exhibits no such issue. Input lag was another common problem, and while the Gateway doesn’t escape that issue, I never found it to be so bad that it would cause someone to not play a game. The absolute deal-breaker for me was seeing many forum posters talking about their second or third RMA for that display… it’s kind of needless for a model in that price-range ($1600 – $2000).

After a whack of pondering, I decided I wanted the Gateway, for many personal and obvious reasons. It offers a superb upscaler, includes plenty of connections and has a nice bright picture, at 400 cd/m2. The problem though, is that since I live in Canada, my options were few. Best Buy and its online web site are the only locations in the entire country that stock them. During the entire time I had Gateway’s review sample, the BB web site didn’t have the display in stock once. Luckily though, I checked last night and it finally happened… so I ordered one right away.

So, if you read the review and needed more proof that the XHD3000 is a great display, this is it. One of the main reasons I needed/wanted it is due to the upscaler. I need an all-in-one display, and because the upscaler chip helps make the Xbox 360 / Playstation 3 / Blu-ray movies look so damn good, it was pretty much a no-brainer. Sure, not everyone needs those secondary features, but I do, so I am glad Gateway has delivered a killer all-in-one. I go further into my thoughts regarding the purchase and also the state of things in our forums, so check out the thread!

I looked around at other competitors, but the main problem there is that none of those have upscalers, which I love. I am confident that no other monitor out there (minus the 3008WFP, perhaps) would make the Playstation/Xbox and Blu-ray movies look so good. The upscaler on the XHD3000 is superb in those regards. It could be better, of course, but at this point in time, I have no complaints. Plus, with those scenarios, I didn’t really notice any input lag, so it could be that it will only be noticeable when playing fast FPS PC games.

Source: Related Forum Thread