question on the gateway FPD2185W

[shhhpark]

so i've been researching a lot of forum threads and such about this monitor. I have the opportunity to buy it for 400 or 350 because my friend has some connections. I've read either really good reviews or really bad ones. I've heard some pixel issues and a lot of banding. I'm a noob to monitors and in no way am i an expert. people would prob notice things that i wouldnt. I use my computer purely for gaming and chatting etc. CS source is an everyday thing for me so yea anyone have any opinions. get it or stick with my 19 inch widescreen viewsonice

offtopic
my viewsonic 19 inch widescreen is at 60 mhz refresh rate. Im using the dvi cable which came with it on my evga 7800gt 256 mb. Is it max 60 mhz? i thought it could run 75. thanks for reading this long post any help is appreciated

 

[MRip]

I've had it for a couple weeks and I have to change my undies every time I turn on my comp. Really, really good. No ghosting that I can see. Bright colors. People complain about that, but you can tweak it in the settings. I say go for it.

 

[SpaceyWilly]

Yeah for $350 it's definitely worth it. I paid $520 and I'm still really really happy with it. A note of caution though, once you see HDTV on it you'll pretty much have to subscribe. I think I'm up to like an $80/mo cable bill now because I downloaded an HDTV movie trailer and as soon as I watched it I went out to Comcast and got an HDTV box :-D. I've never seen a better picture though, it's absolutely amazing to see the difference between this monitor and my old Dell LCD.

 

[roYal]

I paid $599 without tax. I'd go for it. There's a bug where it only shows 60hz in windows but you can just force it at 75hz since it's rated for that. There's some problems where people notice a buzzing sound on the back which can be eliminated by raising your brightness through eztone up to around 95ish while lowering contrast. Alot of people have also had problems with their DVI port completely dying such as mine. I exchanged mine for the same model today, and hopefully my dvi port doesn't die again. Overall, it's a really nice looking monitor and I get no ghosting.

 

[Revivalist]

I'm also not exactly an expert when it comes to monitors, but I can say that this monitor is definitely awesome. The colors are so bright and vivid. And the mount is also so convenient. Overall, I've never had a single complaint with it. I use it for multitasking and for some gaming (BF2 for a few hours a week).

 

[Arctic]

Just as Royal says... BEWARE.... your DVI port gets blown up quiet easily... I had to return the gateway2185 3 times cuz the DVI port kept blowing up.....after the 3rd one went I just said.. the hell with it.... and went to a Dell2005... now I own a samsung 204B....the widescreen was nice on the dell but I love the picture quality on the samsung better.