Some newbie monitor questions

[bluewooster]

Hi - just some questions prior to purchasing a monitor. (I've basically received answers to these thru searching the forums and the apple website but sometimes you just need someone with more experience to say yes or no!)

1. The thunderbolt port and mini display port are the same port, correct?
2. According to the apple website, I should be able to use an adapter to output the mini display port to DVI, DVI dual link, HDMI, or VGA, correct?
3. If the above is true, I could buy a cheap WQHD monitor from Korea via eBay (it only has DVI dual link input) and use this? (In theory, assuming it doesn't arrive in a heap of glass and wires)

Sorry for the basic and seemingly obvious questions but this is my first Mac desktop and I'd hate to order this monitor and get tripped up on something obvious! I'm trying to avoid using my HDMI port because, well,because it doesn't work!
Blue
P. S. this apple obsession of mine is a strange thing - if I had bought this computer from HP, Dell, or anyone else and it had such an obvious flaw (a faulty HDMI port), it would be in the box and back by now! With Apple, I'm instead trying to find another way to spend money (a new monitor and all the necessary adapters) to overcome their issues!

 

[thekev]

Thunderbolt and min displayport share the same connector. The ports function differently. With a thunderbolt port, any display aside from Apple's thunderbolt display should use a mini displayport to whatever output type cable, not the Apple thunderbolt cable. They aren't all perfect in operation. Eizo tested compatibility on some of their displays when Apple switched over to thunderbolt. Here is a matrix of the results. If you look at the notations, some of the combinations worked with caveats. I'm not suggesting one. That would be quite expensive for general use. My point was to show that seamless use is not a guarantee without testing. I use a mini displayport to displayport cable on my notebook when I wish to use it in conjunction with a large display. It works fine for me.