Dual screen with MBP mid 2010

[wedebugyou]

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone tried to do dual-screen with a MBP mid 2010. I don't have thunderbolt in it. Is the usb adapter good or are they flaky and using a lot of cpu?

Well I would like to have 2 monitor attach to it without upgrading my MBP to the new technology using thunderbolt.

 

[SinkOrSwim]

I have the same MBP and year. Just get a above average LCD screens and see how it handles your MBP 2010 and see if it works for you. The Apple thunderbolt LCD's are quite expensive to try out.

 

[AdrianK]

I don't know about being flaky, but those USB video cards are very limited by USB bus speed, so the frame rate of the output is very low especially at high resolutions. Whether that's acceptable just depends on what you do with it.

The other option is a Matrox DualHead2Go. Less expensive than upgrading to a 2011 machine, but still expensive.

 

[Kashsystems]

I use to have two monitors hooked up to my macbook. One through usb the other through mini-dvi. The main issues I had some image tearing while moving between the two screens. Basically on the usb side you do not want to do anything that is graphically intense, like gaming or movie watching. My macbook was that great on any 1080p content on mini-dvi side of things, but that could be due to adobe flash more than anything else.

 

[wedebugyou]

Adriank thanks for your reply. It's exactly what I am looking for.

Thanks for sharing your experience.