[UNTeMac]

I'm looking at replacing my old iMac with a 12in Powerbook and external 17" LCD. My questions are:

1. Is there any loss of quality between DVI to DVI hookups vs. DVI to adapter to VGA hookups?

2. Can you designate either monitor as the main monitor when using both at the same time?

3. Can you use only the external monitor and close the powerbook?

4. Is there any performance loss when using both monitors at the same time?


These may seem like silly questions but I don't know anything about dual-monitor setups. Thanks!

[Phil Quinney]

Hey,

1. Not sure
2. Yes, you can arrange them and move the menu bar / dock between screens using the Display portion of System Preferences
3. Yes - this is called Clamshell Mode. You have to plug in AC Power, the external display and an external keyboard and mouse. The PowerBook Instructions Booklet explains how to do it.
4. Two displays at the same time causes your video ram to be split in half, with half supplying each display. Therefore there will be some slow down.

Hope this helps,

Phil.

[ink]

On a related note, do the latest iBooks still have the "mirror only" limitation with external monitors?

[ibook_steve]

1) I don't know if that means you have a DVI or a VGA adaptor, but both the DVI and VGA are brought out to the connector on the 12" Powerbook (it's a DVI-I port which includes the VGA signals), so there really isn't any difference.

2) Yes.

3) Yes, but you need external keyboard and mouse, obviously.

4) There won't really be slowdown like Phil says, just split video RAM. And when you play a game, most games are smart enough to turn off the other display so all VRAM is used for the main display.

And yes, iBooks still do only video mirroring.

Steve

[escher]

Originally posted by ink:
On a related note, do the latest iBooks still have the "mirror only" limitation with external monitors?

Out of the box, yes. But you can use Screen Spanning Doctor to apply the spanning hack. This will allow you to run the iBook in spanning mode with an external monitor. The hack supports clamshell mode as well, but unfortunately not reliably. That's one of the reasons I opted for a 12-inch PowerBook.

Escher