Gateway PLSM42TV review: Gateway PLSM42TV

Banking on its success selling relatively inexpensive plasmas, Gateway has expanded its lineup. The company introduced a 46-inch and a 50-inch model earlier this summer, and August saw the release of Gateway's first high-resolution 42-inch panel. This latest entry has a native resolution of 1,024x1,024 pixels and definitely performs better than Gateway's same-size GTW-P42M102, which came out late in 2002. While the HD set's black-level performance is only so-so, we've seen worse, and the TV's other capabilities, especially color reproduction, are quite good. And at $3,999, the Gateway 42-inch HD plasma is a solid value.

The 4-inch-thick panel has a color scheme that even adventurous decorators will have a hard time blending into the living room: the finish is light gold, and a black bezel about 1 inch wide frames the screen. The buttons for power, volume, menu navigation, input selection, and other key functions are at the bottom right of the display. The package includes a table stand.

The HD plasma has the same large, comprehensive remote as Gateway's other 42-incher. Keys offering direct access to all inputs are extremely convenient, especially for custom installers and anyone else who programs universal remotes. Most of the functions hide behind a sliding door; after we removed it, the control was much more usable. Our other quibble was with the lack of button illumination.

The difference between HD and regular old SD, whether you're talking about plasmas from Gateway or some other manufacturer, is the number of pixels available to create the image. This 42-incher has 1,024x1,024 pixels, significantly more than an SD panel's 852x480 pixels but not quite enough for true HD resolution.

Unlike the plasma monitors of yore, this Gateway has a full feature package, including single-tuner PIP (picture in picture) and POP (split screen), a built-in NTSC tuner, and a pair of small speakers hidden in the back. You can choose from several color-temperature presets and, of course, multiple aspect ratios. Independent picture memory for each input, another very important feature for the initial setup stage, allows you to optimize the panel for all your different video sources.

This set's connectivity options are comprehensive. For inputs, you get two sets for component video and one each for DVI transmission, 15-pin VGA computer hookup, S-Video, and composite video. All the video ins have their own stereo-audio jacks to feed the internal speakers. You'll also find one set of audio outputs, a subwoofer out, and an RS232 port for touch-panel control systems. Gateway generously included VGA, component, and composite video cables.

The 42-inch HD plasma turned in a good overall score during lab testing. The excellent color decoder didn't produce red rush, an overaccentuation of red that occurs even after you've set color properly with SMPTE color bars. Green was on the limy, neon side, but it wasn't too funky. Before calibration, we measured 8,900K at the low end of the grayscale and 8,650K at the top. Calibration resulted in dead-on 6,500K readings for both the top and the bottom of the scale. Such impressive color decoding and grayscale tracking make the panel capable of highly accurate color reproduction.

While the video processor's 3:2 pull-down circuitry did a fine job removing jagged lines and other artifacts in film-based DVD movies, it tended to introduce some low-level video noise, which appeared in darker images as small, moving motes. They were especially noticeable on the analog video inputs, including the component-video in, but using the DVI connection abated the effect a bit.

This panel treats the DVI input like RGB, so you get control over contrast and brightness but not color, tint, or sharpness. This restriction should not pose a problem with HDTV sources, but it will with NTSC sources such as DVD. We recommend you connect a good progressive-scan DVD player to one of the component-video inputs and reserve the DVI jack for HDTV hookup.

Scenes from Charlotte Gray and Ice Age looked quite good after calibration. Color saturation was excellent, and skin tones appeared exceedingly natural. Black-level performance, while not great, wasn't nearly as bad as what we saw on last year's lower-resolution GTW-P42M102. Low-level noise and false-contouring artifacts, which showed up as gradations (as opposed to smooth fades) between adjacent dark areas, were annoying in very dark sequences but much less so in brighter material.

To evaluate the panel's HD performance, we turned to the 1080i D-Theater version of Joe Kane's Digital Video Essentials. The bright scenes during the montages came out mostly pleasing with a little noise, but the darkest footage was again riddled with false-contouring artifacts. The opening animation looked quite good, but it is extremely bright. The NASA shuttle launch sequence also turned out rather well. Using the DVI input cleans up noise on other digital displays, such as DLP projectors, so taking the same approach with HD material on this Gateway might reduce artifacts. Unfortunately, our JVC D-Theater deck isn't DVI-equipped, and we didn't have any other DVI HD sources with which to check this theory.