I was recommended this Matrox device by a local shop: http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/gxm/products/th2go/digital/home.php It looks terrific, especially for use with a laptop. Now does this thing deliver ? Anyone has experience with it ?
yea I use it. Matrox has a downloadable tool that checks if your graphics card will work with it. I have a widescreen Vista laptop and I like the way Vista is dual monitor pnp ready so I have a spare 17" that fits neatly in the laptop bag. For more serious trading I have a digital TripleHead2Go running 3 X 22" flats. My main complaint is that it will just lose the screens from time to time and needs the driver repair disk and that means closing laptop and and disconnecting box, installing disk, closing laptop, reconnecting box and rebooting - but it might take several repeats to work. When you close your laptop down there's a good chance when you reboot it will loose one or more of the screens so you need to be early to market. Re trading, you're not left blind because the laptop still has charts etc... just make sure your most important things are on your laptop screen and not one of the others or you're stuffed. If you have the choice between adding a quad card to a PC or adding the box to a laptop go for the PC unless you have other factors to consider. I use both so I can put up with it's quirks but all my important charts are run on the PC. If you have any other questions feel free to PM me.
Thanks , do you use the Matrox Triplehead on the go as well or only at home ? When I saw this device I thought about getting a laptop instead of a new desktop. The problem is I am not sure it will work on the laptop I choose. I can get an Acer TravelMate 5720 , Intel Dual Core T7500, 2GB RAM, 160GB HD with XP Pro. The store people told me I can plug another monitor and have dual screens right out the box, but Acer says no. If I can get dual monitor on a laptop I will take the chance and get a laptop with the Matrocx Triplehead even though from what you say it's not very reliable.
Most notebooks today have dual monitor capability. If the notebook has a VGA port, it almost certainly can run 2 monitors.
Well I wasn't sure if it was true dual monitor support or just two of the same screen. That Acer laptop I mention which is a business laptop listed on their site will not support 2 monitors according to the Acer rep, even though it has a VGA port. The store people told me it would. The Acer rep who wasn't very helpful and was quite rude said NONE of their laptops will support dual monitor . I 've found that it's nearly impossible to get reliable advice from salespeople regarding multi-monitors, it drives me crazy. They probably know everything on gaming cards or widgets that can connect on the PC but don't know sh*t about multi monitors .
That's true. Perhaps you can get to a Best Buy and check out an Acer notebook yourself. If you can open Display/Properties/Settings, and there are two display icons (one grey'd out), you can run 2 monitors in Extended Desktop.
Perhaps he's thinking (wrongly) that "dual monitor support" = "2 monitors in addition to the notebook display".. ??
No I explained to him what I meant by that , saying the store rep told me with his laptop (same config) he could watch a movie and do something else on the other monitor. Thanks for the heads up anyway! I will look at the display properties at a local store. It's not Best Buy here and you would think they would be more helpful and knowledgeable than the average Best Buy dude but at the end of the day they aren't and you are left in the dark. At leats at Best Buy I could return what I buy easily not here in CH.
Well, get to a Frys, Microcenter or Circuit City... and check for dual monitor... I'm betting ALL brands and models have it. It's amazing that Windows has had dual/multi monitor support since W98... that's 10 years, and most reps are still not up to speed on it. (Either that or management makes they SAY, "it won't work" so they don't have to deal with dummy computer users in trying to get multi-card systems running correctly.)