Question about Mac Laptops and monitors

guavaball

guavaball

Extremely [H]
Joined
Apr 16, 2008
Messages
46,893
Hey Guys,

A friend of mine is thinking about getting some extra monitors for a Macbook Air 2013.

2 Questions. Can you hook up 2 monitors and are you limited on connections?
 
guavaball said:
Hey Guys,

A friend of mine is thinking about getting some extra monitors for a Macbook Air 2013.

2 Questions. Can you hook up 2 monitors and are you limited on connections?
Click to expand...


It only has one Thunderbolt Port. So it only supports a maximum of one external display up to 2560 x 1600 (Thunderbolt 1).

Is it limited on connections? Facetiously isn't everything? I don't know of any device that has unlimited ports. I assume the question is: "does the 2013 Macbook Air have enough connections (Ports)?"

The 2013 MBA has 1x Thunderbolt, 2x USB 3, 1x SDHC Slot, 1x Magsafe 2.
I'll leave it up to you and your judgement on whether or not that is a limitation as that is a subject rather than objective question. However for most users that buy MBAs as a daily travel, go everywhere laptop, the amount it has is generally enough.

https://support.apple.com/kb/sp678?locale=en_US
 
UnknownSouljer said:
It only has one Thunderbolt Port. So it only supports a maximum of one external display up to 2560 x 1600 (Thunderbolt 1).

Is it limited on connections? Facetiously isn't everything? I don't know of any device that has unlimited ports. I assume the question is: "does the 2013 Macbook Air have enough connections (Ports)?"

The 2013 MBA has 1x Thunderbolt, 2x USB 3, 1x SDHC Slot, 1x Magsafe 2.
I'll leave it up to you and your judgement on whether or not that is a limitation as that is a subject rather than objective question. However for most users that buy MBAs as a daily travel, go everywhere laptop, the amount it has is generally enough.

https://support.apple.com/kb/sp678?locale=en_US
Click to expand...

He was just wondering if its strong enough for 2 24 inch monitors. 1 through thunderbolt and I guess 1 through the usb 3 with adapters would be the better way to go.
 
guavaball said:
He was just wondering if its strong enough for 2 24 inch monitors. 1 through thunderbolt and I guess 1 through the usb 3 with adapters would be the better way to go.
Click to expand...

Then it is 1 question that should have been phrased as an "either/or", which is fine.

I would say that if the OP wants a machine that's going to be stationary a lot, enough to want/necessitate multi-monitors, he'll want something with more horsepower.

The 2014 Air does have dual Thunderbolt 2, and it can drive two external monitors, but anything other than light browsing and Office work would be taxing (with 3 displays up I mean of course). With low clocked processors, only dual-cores, and integrated graphics, this sort of workload would be much better suited to an MBP (if it must be a laptop). For these reasons, I wouldn't recommend driving another display via USB either. Although of course you could.

The MBA is much better suited as a frequent travel machine for minimalists that don't want or need a lot of extra peripherals.
 
Last edited:
The Air has one Thunderbolt port. It's always had just one.

We've done the Tbolt+USB Adapter (DisplayLink something) on Airs and it works to a point, up to 1920x1200 it's ok. Just be aware the USB display won't be super fast, tho it's usable for like spreadsheets or typical browsing or whatever. Movies.. maybe iffy.
 
Another option:

http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-thunderbolt-dock/

Thunderbolt daisy chains. Most of the options in the link above may be overkill, as they are full port replicators/docking solutions.

Can the Air drive multiple monitors? Sure. Is it a good idea? Depends on what you are doing. If it's just OS X UI stuff (web browsers, text, etc) then no problem, it will probably lag a bit but be usable.
 
Thunderbolt is based on DisplayPort.

DispayPort can daisy chain peripherals, but many monitor vendors - especially on cheaper monitors - don't support it.

Your best bet are Dell monitors. Dell is as big a proponent as Apple on DisplayPort and they have several models that you can daisychain together. Some of the Dell monitors have the Mini DisplayPort/Thunderbolt connection, but there are plenty of Mini DisplayPort/thunderbolt to full size display port cables out there (mono price.com for example).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top