Comments on: Mac Setups: MacBook Pro with Dual Cinema Displays

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:53:54 +0000

You are right. I have a 52″ LED TV that I attempted to use as an external monitor and it was WAY too close for practical use as a monitor. More than 30″ is a bad idea in my experience. You’ll have severe eye strain issues over time due to the brightness.

By: Maasdf

Maasdf — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:38:24 +0000

I’d say there is a big difference in real estate compared to two 27″ cinema displays. 2x(2560×1440) is much more usable screen than 1360×768+1440×900. And I’d say you need a lot of distance between you and your 42″LCD, cause otherwise its completely unergonomic

By: Theo Vavas

Theo Vavas — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 13:49:33 +0000

I don’t see the need for two 24″ displays when you can have almost as much real estate on a single 42″ LCD, or larger, as the primary display and the MBP as your secondary, thereby avoiding the split screen issue and all the other paraphernalia.
I have been running a 2007 Samsung 42″ LCD at 1360 x 768 dpi ( and 1440 x 900 on the MBP) on my 2008 15″ MBP 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo with 3 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM and a ATI Radeon X1600 Graphic Card. It has performed without any problems for years, and I work heavily in Photoshop and other graphic programs.
Snow Leopard set it up automatically as soon as I plugged in the Sumsung, I just had to choose from the available resolutions for each display and choose the primary display. The set up pictured above ‘looks nice’ and impressive, but ‘it doesn’t cut the cake’.

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 07:57:23 +0000

Unless you have a newer MacBook Pro with Thunderbolt, you would need a USB video adapter like this:

http://www.amazon.com/Diamond-BVU195-USB-Display-Adapter/dp/B002GHBW4S?tag=oxd-20

iPad with AirDisplay or similar also works.

By: Baloot

Baloot — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 05:30:22 +0000

How to setup macbook pro with dual cinema display ? Got any tutorial ? What type of extension do i need to use ?

By: santiago

santiago — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 22:41:59 +0000

I really doubt the mbp would be able to handle 5 monitors. there is nothing stopping you from adding more and more usb adapters, but i don’t think you will have much success

By: Matthew

Matthew — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 11:58:31 +0000

I have a Mac Book Pro 2011 model. I would like to use only the external monitor whilst at home. I can not find the option to do that in the System Preferences of OSX.

Please advise me on what to do or which site to go to thanks.

By: wayne

wayne — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 00:09:04 +0000

I am a sports photographer and am looking to have photos available for people to view and purchase on site at events. I have a mac book pro and would like to be able to run 5 monitors off it at one time and be able to show different galleries on each monitor at the same time to different customers. Is this at all possible?
Thank you in advance for any help.

By: Ciaran

Ciaran — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 13:37:46 +0000

Are those Dell monitors in the 2nd set up? I’m looking for an cheaper alternative to the crazily expensive apple cinema displays. Anyone know of any good LED alternatives.

I have to admit those silver dell monitors do suit the apple set up.

By: Mike H

Mike H — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 08:50:21 +0000

You may also wish to consider this stand, I have it and it’s amazing…not cheap but the build quality is flawless and raises my MB Pro 15″ to the same eye level as my external editing monitor.

http://www.amazon.com/Just-Mobile-Xtand-Pro-macbook/dp/B001NEJZIA

By: Rex

Rex — Thu, 26 May 2011 20:31:53 +0000

Hi @all
Is there now a possibiltiy to run two 27″ apple cinema displays with a macbook pro? Can somebody help? I thought of using the atlona mini display converter in combination with the diamond bvu195, but the problem is, that the max. resolution could be only set to 2048×1154 by the second screen. Any other ideas?

Thanks a lot in advance.

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 01:51:15 +0000

I am looking to get (2) x 27″ dual monitor display to run with a macbook pro. Can can someone tell me if I can do this with the macbook pro laptop computer below?
Do I need the diamond adaptor?

13″ macbook Pro
-Intel dual core 2.4 GHz processor
-4GB DDr RAM
-NVidia GForce 330M processor

By: Eduardo M

Eduardo M — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 05:11:24 +0000

I think that is the mStand Laptop Stand by Rain Design http://www.raindesigninc.com/mstand.html

By: Savaot

Savaot — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 21:44:17 +0000

Thank you so much!

By: Manuel Rios

Manuel Rios — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 16:55:01 +0000

Hi Savaot, you can either use the Diamond BVU195 or the EVGA UV19+, both at a $70 range. They both work great.