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    Can you hook two external displays to the new MacBook or am I missing something?

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by kalibar, Oct 16, 2008.

  1. kalibar

    kalibar Notebook Consultant

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    According to the MB page on Apple's website, the new MacBook's DisplayPort supports dual-link DVI. Does this mean I could buy one and connect two 1680x1050 monitors to it? Does this mean double monitors coming out of a MacBook at last?

    I did some googling around and and found some pictures of the plug, but I'm reserving excitement because these things are never what I think. There's always some silly gotcha that prevents it from happening.

    Can anyone weigh in?
     
    kalibar, Oct 16, 2008
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  2. Lithus

    Lithus NBR Janitor

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    No. Dual-link DVI just means that it can support resolutions of greater than WUXGA for very large monitors.

    I'm sure with some third party equipment such as a Matrox DualHead that you can get the Macbook to run two external monitors, but out of the box, it only supports one.
     
    Lithus, Oct 16, 2008
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  3. kalibar

    kalibar Notebook Consultant

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    Well, that pretty much sucks. You can hook two monitors into dual-link DVI videocards that you stick in PCs, how is this any different? Is it just a software limitation?
     
    kalibar, Oct 16, 2008
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  4. Lithus

    Lithus NBR Janitor

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    Lithus, Oct 16, 2008
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  5. kalibar

    kalibar Notebook Consultant

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    Ah, I get you -- thanks for the clarification. I've had that wiki page open trying to pry an answer out of it for the last half hour or so. :)

    Still, totally sucks. I considered buying a Matrox box for my current MBP awhile ago but decided against it because the MBP only works with the TripleHead2Go Digital, which runs $350 (annoying). I'm interested enough in the new MacBook that I'd be ready to buy one if it were super-easy to connect two monitors to it.
     
    kalibar, Oct 16, 2008
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  6. Xirurg

    Xirurg ORLY???

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    ^other laptop can't do that also ;)
     
    Xirurg, Oct 16, 2008
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  7. davepermen

    davepermen Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    matrox dualhead2go works, but don't know for which adapters it exists.. i thought dvi and vga?
     
    davepermen, Oct 16, 2008
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  8. kalibar

    kalibar Notebook Consultant

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    My ThinkPad connects to two DVI monitors with no problem. I've got the ThinkPad advanced dock, and it lets me connect a cheap PCI-e videocard with two DVI outs.

    Losing that setup has been my biggest pain point about playing Apple's game. I love a handful of Mac apps (Quicksilver, Adium, and Fluid are amazing), VMware Fusion has been really wonderful for my wildly out of control Windows needs (I'm a C# .NET developer-in-training), and I'm generally tolerant of OS X in spite of Finder being a complete abortion.

    Still, I miss my dual DVI monitors. ThinkPads offer LED backlighting and 10-hour battery life now, and I have a friend who gets me Lenovo employee pricing. I priced out a fully-loaded T400 for grins using the discount, and loaded it with the extended battery, a 1440x900 LED display, discrete graphics, 4GB RAM, and a 2.53 GHz C2D, and it was just over $1,400 with free shipping. Meanwhile, the 2.4 GHz MacBook is $1,499 + tax with the student "discount," and for all my irrational justifying, it still won't connect to two DVI monitors. :(
     
    kalibar, Oct 16, 2008
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  9. boypogi

    boypogi Man Beast

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    just get the thinkpad :D
     
    boypogi, Oct 16, 2008
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  10. sulkorp

    sulkorp Notebook Deity

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    Check out Pathfinder if you dont like finder. finder really sucks.
     
    sulkorp, Oct 16, 2008
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  11. kalibar

    kalibar Notebook Consultant

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    I've played with it before and wasn't super impressed. Maybe it's improved.
     
    kalibar, Oct 16, 2008
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  12. gurkburk82

    gurkburk82 Notebook Geek

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    Im gonna bring this slightly old thread back to life instead of creating a new one.

    On the new 13" unibody, afaik, the miniport supports dualDVI?
    Quote from apple shop´s specifications:
    Thus, the 13" unibody should be capable of external resolutions of 2560 x 1600?

    And, in conclusion to that... use a Matrox DualHead2Go Digital and get imbaness with my 2 22" monitors? :)
     
    gurkburk82, Apr 2, 2009
    #12