2014 Air or MBP Retina with 2 external monitors?

Hey all,

Are any of you out there running 2 external monitors off of a 2014 Macbook Air or a 2014 Macbook Pro Retina? I'm trying to buy a laptop that can support such a setup and I'm curious if people are using these laptops for that.

I would imagine the MBP is easy because it has 2 Thunderbolt ports so the Air is probably a more difficult option.

Can I connect 2 DisplayPort-enabled Dell U2412M monitors through a single Thunderbolt port and have 2 separate display signals running to them? I don't want to have a extended desktop across both because maximizing a window would result in it spreading across both monitors.

Thanks!

 

For the Air you would use: Amazon.com: Diamond BVU195 HD USB 2.0 to VGA / DVI / HDMI Adapter (DisplayLink DL-195 Chipset): Electronics

 

Thanks!

Is there no option to somehow run 2 non-TB monitors out of the MBA TB port?

 

Not really, and sometimes you still find dropout. I am currently working with one via DP and another by USB to prevent more grey hairs.

possibly at some point in time we may have a decent TB dock with dual outputs but as slow as adoption and issues are happening I am not holding much hope.

also either way do not expect any massive speed of redraw especially for HD video or gaming across multiple screens, the intel IGP still has to render all of the pixels and some find it quite a shock to see framerates drop.

still problematic at times.

 

So is this MBP issue due to limitations with HD 5000? I doubt I'd ever do anything like stream HD videos on 2 monitors. I intend to use it more for productivity tasks.

 

for productivity tasks it works fine. but again I still use DP or USB video cards for stability