Yeah, it has a separate card (not onboard video), and a VGA output that I use to drive one of my externals.
I prefer laptops for the portability and compactness, not just for trading but general PC usage. They're powerful enough these days to run any apps you need, so the only disadvantage is that its a bit more expensive upfront than a desktop. But it's also a tax deduction...
Considering a laptop comes with a decent (built-in) screen, it's not always more expensive than a matching desktop+monitor combination. I understand the main sacrifice is upgradability.
I have been using the 2 SIIG USB-to-VGA adapters for a couple of weeks now. They seem to work well in general. For $40, I like this solution. Upthread there was a question about the possible display lag. I did an experiment: I run 2 TradeStation desktops with identical chart displays. One displayed on a monitor that is on a PCIe X16 based card, and the other on a SIIG USB-to-VGA adapter. The chart displays on the SIIG get the same update, tick for tick. I did not notice any time lag at all. That said... There is one small thing that I don't like about the SIIG adapter - and I didn't have the same problem with IOGear or Diamond. The Windows software did not seem to know the presence of the SIIG adapters. e.g. when I changed windows resolutions, I saw only 6 monitors - those were on 3 different PCIe X16 adapters. It does not know about the 2 extra SIIG USB-to-VGA adapters. (I have a total of 8 monitors on this computer - Windows 7 64-bit and i7-930 processor) You set your screen resolution through the drive software that comes with the gadget. But each time I reboot Windows, the monitor display orders get messed up and I need to fix it manually. e.g. my intended order from left to right is 6-4-2-3-5-1. But each time Windows reboots, it reset the order to 4-6-2-3-5-1 for some reason. I am sure it is caused by the addition of the 2 SIIG devices (didn't have this issue before). Well... a small nuisance.
Well... I have a different view. The max screen you can have on a laptop these days is 18-inch. About 3 inch more of screen real estate than a smaller laptop. With an add-on monitor, you can have up to 23 to 24-inch of additional screen real estate. I always travel with an external LCD monitor (sometimes 2) to trade in a hotel room. Not terribly inconvenient considering the benefits it brings me.
I read an article once about how Windows assigns the video ports in multi-card rigs... and it's not 1-2-3-4-5-6. I've found it best to arrange my monitors to the way Windows assigns the ports rather than trying to shift the port alignments to my choice. It seems doing so puts a little "strain" on the setup... and every so often, Windows succumbs to it and resets them it ITS liking... to allleviate that strain. My current, "stable" arrangement is 2-3-6-4-1. I'm not using "5". Prior, I tried to use 1-through-5, and that produced the unstable setup... Windows would go along with that for a while, then "rearrange things" on my next boot... it did more than just rearrange the display number... 3 monitors would go dark, portrait rotation would be lost, resolution of the primary would change, and icons would be scattered. Basically, Windows just didn't like my setup.... in spite of the fact it would tolerate if for a while.
Thanks for sharing your experience Scataphagos. You have given me a great tip. All I need to do is to swap some cables... I can do it in a jiff. I am tired of having to go to the Control Panel and fight with Windows every time after a reboot. It is my impression that the 1-2-3-4-5-6 monitor IDs are assigned by Windows. How can you skip a "5"?
Windows assigns the number to the video card ports. It has a scheme, but it's not "first card has ports 1 & 2, second card has ports 3 & 4, etc". I used 5 initially, but Windows kept resetting. So by trial and error, I found that if I used 6 instead of 5, Windows accepted it. (BTW... if you plan to run 5 monitors on dualhead cards, activate #6 even though you don't use it... or, you may end up using 6 and not 5... but in either case, activate both of them. I suspect the same holds true if you run 3 monitors on 2 dualheads... you should also activate #4.)
Sorry I spaced this question. My travel monitors are Hyvision 15" and they collapse and fold flat. They were only available for a short time but you can find a few out there. I bought a bunch when I found them but people have cleaned me out except for the ones I use. Here is the laptop with my two 19" widescreens attached.