Gateway delivers Nicely in 13" Package
Written: Feb 08 '04
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Pros: Great 13" tv in a small footprint for $300.
Cons: You'll need to enhance the audio with your own sound system.
The Bottom Line: Great desktop tv to accentuate your computer room or home office area, especially at a final price of $300.
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| trustmeonthis's Full Review: Gateway LCD13TV 13 in. EDTV-Ready LCD TV |
I've had the Gateway L13M103 13" LCD tv for several weeks now and I really like it -- after I made an adjustment which I'll describe in a bit.
The Package
The tv comes with a the display unit with integrated pedestal, a tv-function-only remote (2 AAAs included), a 3' run of coax, an FM antenna, and a users guide. The display unit is 14-1/8" wide, 2-5/8" deep (thin!), and 10-1/2 high including the side speaker area. The pedestal adds another 1-1/2". The screen's dimensions are 10-1/2" wide, 7-7/8" high, and 13" diagonal. The pedestal's footprint is 5" deep and 9" wide.
The TV's Interfaces
The unit's lower rear is where the power and primary input ports are located. Inputs permitted are coax, s-video, and composite. On the front are located auxiliary composite inputs and a headphone output. Also on the front are small buttons for input selection, menu, volume up/down, channel up/down, ok (for menu), and power. There's a tiny power-on green-led, too.
The Remote
...has tiny round rubber buttons for power, mute, channel numbers, close captioning, sleep, input selection, menu, menu-exit, menu-ok, volume up/down, channel up/down, and last (to flip to last channel viewed). There are six other unlabelled, non-functional buttons.
Why I Got It
I needed a tv in the computer room. And I've got all my deskspace allocated to mouse, speakers, joystick, monitor, scanner, printer, etc. But I did have a small amount of space on my adjacent 2' high filing cabinet. And the small footprint of this unit fit the bill excellently. As for the bill...
The TV's Pricing
It retails for $400 at my local Gateway store in Springfield, VA and there was an extended $100 mail-in rebate in effect. Oddly, Gateway mails the form to me for me to complete and return for a six-week wait.
The TV's Performance
I connected the tv to my Cox Digital Cable. First, I split the signal at the outlet - one to the cable modem, the other to the tv. Cox gave me both the splitter and 6' cable run for the asking. Excellent. It was a relatively easy manner for the tv to auto program itself with the cable channels. I then spent the next 10 minutes deleting all the flotsam channels from the lineup, so now my channel up/down just gets me the preferred channels. The tv's picture is very nice, crisp, and colorful. There's nothing to complain about with it, it's great. However, the audio is rather pitiful. Quality is like that of a cheap am/fm radio -- it's a tinny, thin sound. Fortunately, it's in my computer room, so you know what I did, right ? That's right I split off my 4.1 60-watt PC speaker system, combined it into a stereo headphone cable (from Radio Shack) and connected it via the front panel port. Now I've got wunnerful stereo sound from the tv !
Finally...
For my particular application of this tv and its $300 after rebate cost, it's highly recommended. No regrets.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 300
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Epinions.com ID:
trustmeonthis
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Location: Northern VA/Wash DC
Reviews written: 18
Trusted by: 0 members
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Mission: Sharp, concise, cut-to-the-chase reviews to help you the quickest.
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