How high-def stacks up

We played Xbox 360 games on three high-def displays, including two 32-inch flat-panel HDTV sets of the LCD variety.

Samsung’s bright, sharp LN-R328W makes a swell game screen. Racecars in “Ridge Racer 6” and “Project Gotham Racing 3” look fabulous (no wonder Best Buy uses Samsungs with its Xbox 360 store displays). We like its trim design, and it’s reasonably priced at about $2,200.

Hitachi’s 32HLX61 didn’t take our breath away, but we like its easy setup. Ports are on a separate box, which makes Xbox 360 hook-ups a breeze. Tweaking its display settings with the remote is just as simple. This HDTV model will set you back roughly $3,500, though.

Either the Samsung or Hitachi will connect to a Comcast digital-cable HD feed, but only the Hitachi has an HD tuner for over-the-air broadcasts. The sets have advanced features (such as newfangled HDMi and CableCard ports) along with 16-by-9 “letterbox” screen dimensions and WXGA (1,366-by-768-pixel) resolutions.

We also tried Gateway’s 21-inch Widescreen High-Definition LCD Flat-Panel Display. This is a multipurpose screen for computer and multimedia use, so we hooked up a Windows PC (via a VGA or DVI connection) and an Xbox 360 (via a “component” connection, as with the above HDTV sets). A button on the display let us toggle between the functions.

The Gateway has slick features, including its ability to physically swivel vertically or horizontally while in PC mode. Xbox titles look great, if a bit dark. (A switch on the Xbox display cable must be flipped to high-def mode for best results.)

This display is reasonably priced at about $600, but our loaner’s sometimes-quirky performance suggests Gateway may have taken on a bit too much.