Anyone using 12 or 15 Powerbooks with external monitors?

Marc the Mac · Oct 14, 2003

HI,

Can anyone give real world feedback on the pro's and con's of using a 12" or 15" Powerbook connected to an LCD? Can the new 12" deal with it? Or is the 15" better at driving a 15" to 20" external LCD? Does working in dual mode make any difference?

Many thanks,

peterjhill · Oct 14, 2003

I have a Powerbook G4 800 DVI. It has no problems driving either my 20 inch dell flatpanel with dvi or my 20 inch trinitron CRT. I always use dual display. As a matter of fact, I have driven the builtin display, a CRT and a very high resolution, and svideo out. It can do all three at once. I am sure that you will have no problems. The new 12" with the minidvi is great. The powerbook should come with a dvi to vga adapter. To drive an apple monitor, you will need a dvi to adc adapter.

Many games will not work with dual displays. They will often play on the primary monitor, which is defined as the one with the menu bar.

In the display control panel, you can drag the mini menu bar from one screen to the other. Mac OS X works perfectly in that when I have an external monitor attached at work, it becomes the primary display, but at home, without the external display, it works happily.

Good luck

Marc the Mac · Oct 14, 2003

Originally posted by peterjhill
I have a Powerbook G4 800 DVI. It has no problems driving either my 20 inch dell flatpanel with dvi or my 20 inch trinitron CRT. I always use dual display. As a matter of fact, I have driven the builtin display, a CRT and a very high resolution, and svideo out. It can do all three at once. I am sure that you will have no problems. The new 12" with the minidvi is great. The powerbook should come with a dvi to vga adapter. To drive an apple monitor, you will need a dvi to adc adapter.

Many games will not work with dual displays. They will often play on the primary monitor, which is defined as the one with the menu bar.

In the display control panel, you can drag the mini menu bar from one screen to the other. Mac OS X works perfectly in that when I have an external monitor attached at work, it becomes the primary display, but at home, without the external display, it works happily.

Good luck

Thanks for the info. by the way what graphics card does your G4 800 have?

peterjhill · Oct 14, 2003

ATY,RageM7:

Type: display
Bus: AGP
Display Type: LCD
Slot: ATI
VRAM (Total): 32 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x4c57
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-XXXXX-119

aphexist · Oct 14, 2003

Re: Anyone using 12 or 15 Powerbooks with external monitors?

Originally posted by Marc the Mac
Does working in dual mode make any difference?

I've heard that while using dual displays does make you more productive, it also makes you cross-eyed.

Just a little FYI...

chickengrease16 · Oct 14, 2003

Re: Re: Anyone using 12 or 15 Powerbooks with external monitors?

Originally posted by aphexist
I've heard that while using dual displays does make you more productive, it also makes you cross-eyed.

Just a little FYI...

lol i hope you werent serious... thats pretty funny.

but yeah, on topic, i dont anymore because i found its easier just to take my oh-so-portable 15" TiBook 1GHz around with me than to tether it to my desk. but i used to use it with a 15" LCD and it worked fine. apple even has this cool feature built into the monitors panel where you can specify EXACTLY where the other monitor is placed in relation to the other one. makes for smooth mouse movement and window movement between screens, as in, if the LCD is a few inches above your laptop, you can arrange it that way. also, the s-video (composite too) output is mindless. hook it up, detect displays, and you're good to go. the only problem i've noticed with running an external monitor is that sometimes the monitor placement resets itself, and you have to go back into system preferences and move it. eh well, if it doesnt bother you, it works fine. what's neat is to watch the "Genie" effect on windows when you minimize it from one to the dock on another screen.

fyi, i have the 1GHz TiBook Superdrive, and i'm not sure, but i think its a Radeon 9000 64MB. might be wrong tho... but i know its a radeon 64MB.

RJay213 · Oct 14, 2003

I currently own a G4 tower hooked up to a cinema display. I am interested in going mobile, with my only hesitation being leaving behind the cinema display.

so, with the converters....

Can the MiniDVI on the 12" hook up to it?

Also, with all the laptops, is the displayed image on the cinema confined to the native resolutions of the laptops?

Marc the Mac · Oct 14, 2003

Originally posted by RJay213
I currently own a G4 tower hooked up to a cinema display. I am interested in going mobile, with my only hesitation being leaving behind the cinema display.

so, with the converters....

Can the MiniDVI on the 12" hook up to it?

Also, with all the laptops, is the displayed image on the cinema confined to the native resolutions of the laptops?

I am in the same boat and wanting to go mobile, keeping my LCD back at base to plug into. According to apple the following is true:

12" Powerbook with GeForce FX Go5200 32MB graphics card.
Simultaneously supports up to 1024 by 768 pixels on the built-in display an dup to 2048 by 1536 pixels oon an external display, both in millions of colours.

15" Powerbook with ATI Mibility Radeon 9600 64MB graphics card.
Simultaneously supports up to 1280 by 854 pixels on the built-in display an dup to 2048 by 1536 pixels oon an external display, both in millions of colours.

PaisanoMan · Oct 14, 2003

For what it's worth, I use an external monitor with my "old" rev. A PowerBook 12". It's very nice to have the extra real estate, and the PowerBook's screen sits directly below the monitor to form a nice, panoramically tall working area.

The GeForce4 MX slows down a little bit with the external monitor (1280 x 1024), but not much; it still easily drives the large screen.

I couldn't tell you about the converters because I use a CRT, but I can tell you that it's great having the best of both worlds -- I carry the computer daily, and bring it back home to use with a full-sized display.

trebblekicked · Oct 14, 2003

FWIW, i use a 15" LCD w/my 15" ti. no slow downs, the LCD runs at 1024, the ti @ 1280. It's a god send. makes a viable editing station out of the tibook. good luck

ejb190 · Oct 15, 2003

I have used my 12" PB with a 17" Compaq CRT in dual mode. Worked fine. I was running iTunes, PowerPoint, and Photoshop Elements at the same time and didn't notice any problems aside from the fact the monitor was on the other end of my workbench and my neck was getting sore...

I don't do that very often because it is another cable to hassle with, I usually don't need the screen space, and it is a pain to pull the monitor off my PC all the time.

technocoy · Oct 15, 2003

get it if you want it...

I use my Ti 1ghz SD with a 22in apple cinema display... works wonderfully.

with everything at the highest rez i have no problems with any of my graphics work and i use the cinema as the primary with the powerbook as the secondary.

Warcraft even plays fine at 1600 x 1280 and that is with the 9000 i would imagine that the new PB could handle it even better.

what is nice about it is that the powerbook remembers to switch to the cinema display as the primary monitor whenever you reconnect.

hope that helps...
technocoy

palott · Oct 15, 2003

technocoy wrote:

I use my Ti 1ghz SD with a 22in apple cinema display... works wonderfully.

with everything at the highest rez i have no problems with any of my graphics work and i use the cinema as the primary with the powerbook as the secondary.

Warcraft even plays fine at 1600 x 1280 and that is with the 9000 i would imagine that the new PB could handle it even better.

what is nice about it is that the powerbook remembers to switch to the cinema display as the primary monitor whenever you reconnect.

hope that helps...
technocoy

Does the toolbar and dock appear on your cinema display? I was thinking of getting a 20 inch display to hookup to my pb when I got home.

Thanks,

Aaron

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Anyone using 12 or 15 Powerbooks with external monitors?

Marc the Mac

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peterjhill

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Marc the Mac

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peterjhill

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aphexist

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chickengrease16

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RJay213

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Marc the Mac

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PaisanoMan

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trebblekicked

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ejb190

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technocoy

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palott

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