MacBook and dual display

[fryke]

Not me. I haven't ever had a situation in which I used an external display, keyboard and mouse but didn't have external power for the MacBook...

[mkoivula]

Thank you Fryke for your posts.. helped me alot. I was about to buy two 19" widescreen monitors and hook them up to my MBP 15" ATI128mb. I was planning to use only those two screens and have laptop lid closed but there is no way to make it work, right?

Then quick question, should I get 20" screen instead of 22", resolution is same in both so does 20" look better because 22" screen has to stretch pixels right? (both screens are widescreen models and resolution is 1680 x 1050)

Thanks again!

[Galley]

Hello,

what I found is that you can work only with the lid closed AND the power adaptor attached. On battery power you cannot use an external monitor with the lid closed.

Has anyone else found this also?

Regards,
Peter

It's designed that way. I'm guessing their reasoning is that no one is going to have a portable monitor.

[eric2006]

It's designed that way. I'm guessing their reasoning is that no one is going to have a portable monitor.

Plus, think heat. With a closed lid, on battery power, things will get hot.

[eric2006]

What about two external monitors as once? Particularly, two external 19" LCDs, both at 1280x1024?

FYI, it is possible to run two displays, using this. It wouldn't be too pretty, because it's VGA, but it would probably work. In PowerBooks, you could get a PC Card video card and plug it in, but the MacBook Pro's use ExpressCard, and the MacBooks lack expansion slots altogether.