Multiple Displays on MBP

I'll be getting a new monitor for my MBP soon. What I was wondering is if the MBP can use more than one external monitor at a time? I'd like to get two 20"ers to have side by side, but can the MBP handle this?

 

The MBP only has one single DVI port. You will need additional hardware if you want to connect more than 1 external monitor.

 

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3659

 

I understand that I'll need to get some additional hardware seeing as I only have the one DVI output. But what exactly will I need to do to get two side by side 20" screens, and is the MBP able to deal with that(in the way that if you plug in one monitor you can have move your mouse off the side of your notebook screen and onto the other)?

 

Neither Apple nor ATI intended for that to be done in designing the MBP or the graphics card (the X1600 is built for outputting to two monitors - the internal and the external). So, even if it might be possible to get around, that'd be a third-party thing and might limit functionality. I have seen people using three screens (which you would be doing, unless you're going to use closed lid mode) on a Power Mac G5 (link below), but that's with two graphics cards. I suppose you could duplicate the output with some third-party adapter of some sort, but then you'd have mirror mode, not extended desktop.

The good news, though, is that OS X supports using a lot of monitors at the same time - if you have the graphics cards to handle it.

Read some at http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=91613 and you might find some tips. There's a link in there to a cardbus slot device that allows you to connect another screen, the MBP has an ExpressCard/34 slot though - see http://www.expresscard.org/web/site/cons_wtb.jsp for a list of EC/34 devices. There's one for PCI-X, but do keep in mind that port is only 1x - it certainly won't be the full prestanda of whatever card you would put in it.

In short, if you want full performance on all screens, I don't have an answer for you short of getting a desktop machine with slots for more graphics cards. But at least you have some ideas of what is possible.

 

That's a CardBus device though, not an ExpressCard/34 device. The slot is not backwards compatible, though there are adapters for doing so, so I guess if you want to get an adapter also that's a possibility.

 

Check out Matrox - they have an external device that will allow you to link up to 3 external monitors but I'm not sure if the x1600 will handle it or if it supports macs