Matrox intros Dual/TripleHead2Go for Macs

Mac users looking for a little multi-monitor action now have another option at their disposal, with Matrox announcing that its DualHead2Go and TripleHead2Go are both now compatible with a number of Apple systems. Each unit appears to be otherwise unchanged, letting you drive two or three monitors at combined resolutions up to 2560x1024 or 3840x1024 from a single video card. While the DualHead2Go is compatible with all recent Mac systems, you'll only be able to surround yourself in the wonder that is three monitors if you've got a MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, or 20 or 24-inch iMac. It's not a completely ideal solution, however, requiring a mini-DVI to VGA adapter (and a step back in image quality) for use with some systems and, as impressive as those combined resolutions are, monitors with native resolutions higher than 1280 x 1024 will be too much for either unit to handle. If that's not too much of a compromise to make, you can snag each now for the same price as they were before, $169 for the DualHead2Go and $299 for the TripleHead2Go.

[Via Gizmag]

[Alcaron @ Dec 1st 2006 5:42PM]

Does this just show up as one giant monitor to the PC? If so then no thanks. I've used dual monitors for a few years now and without the ability to "send to desktop" or the ability for the PC to understand that a dialog box spawned by an app on monitor 2 should appear on...well...monitor 2 (or even better, I can decide which monitor it opens on)...it would suck.

Believe me, nothing is lamer and kills more productivity than having to mouse a couple thousand pixels over every time a dialog box pops up.

[Eugene @ Dec 1st 2006 6:28PM]

I know what you mean that is why on my dual monitor set up i use ultra m on it is awesome, great for assigning apps to certain monitors and can have seperate wall papers and screen savers on each monitor

[spil @ Dec 1st 2006 6:54PM]

I am totally going to get this (right after I get a MBP), but I have 1 question: what is the background like, does it stretch out over all three, or do you have the same one repeating on each one?

[Lee Gibson @ Dec 1st 2006 6:59PM]

I guess this might make sense for a laptop, or a SFF machine like a Mac Mini.

But why would you choose this over a second video card for a tower system? That makes no sense.

[Bhaughbb @ Dec 1st 2006 7:02PM]

I've not used the 2go models but have been a user of matrox dual head video cards sine the first G400 and each monitor always acted as an independant display by default unless that was changed by the user so I doubt they removed that capability in these. From what I've seen they still do dual head/screen better than anyone elses offerings I've seen. The ability to define which screen alerts and messages pop up on, primary screen, secondary, or screen of the app is just one of the nice features that was always easy to set up or change.

[bobartig @ Dec 1st 2006 8:05PM]

This is really pointless for mac desktop users. Mac towers since some iteration of G4 have supported dual displays out of the box. For $149, you can put an nvidia pci-e card into the Mac Pro which allows you to attach two more DVI displays (bringing you to 4 displays) at much more impressive resolutions than this device. You can even do it again for 6 displays.

[Pancake @ Dec 2nd 2006 12:04AM]

I was all ready to get this and then i read it is VGA instead of DVI.

Why would they do this????? Ugh

[SD @ Dec 2nd 2006 9:02AM]

I bought the DualHead2Go this past August and promptly returned it after a week. The video quality was extremely degaded when compared to the VGA output on my laptop. Colors were off and everything was blurred to the point of being very distracting. While it may be a cool idea, Matrox's execution leaves a lot to be desired. I would not recommend this product at this point.

[deslock @ Dec 2nd 2006 10:19AM]

It doesn't use DVI? WTF!

[Pseudo @ Dec 2nd 2006 2:39PM]

All of Apple's systems already support this feature... I'm a little confused. I mean, I get the point with a laptop, and maybe even with an iMac, but for example, why not just put another graphics card in the Mac Pro? It can already do dual monitor out, just put another card in and you got 4 displays, or another for 6, it's probably about the same price, and you're getting a true multi-display setup.

[BurrittoJuan @ Dec 3rd 2006 3:43PM]

Hmm that's cool but I like this one much better. http://tinyurl.com/yxw2ps