Laptop w/2 monitors - exact material list

I have a 4-month old Dell Studio 15 laptop with the quad core processor. I want to use the laptop’s monitor, but I also want to add a 24" monitor (HP w2408) and a new Samsung SyncMaster P2570HD monitor. I want them to act like 1 desktop (and with excellent resolution) so I can have lots of documents up at the same time and drag between them. What exactly do I need to make that happen?..the UG-2K-A? Do I need two of them? Thanks! Joe

PS I’m a bit frustrated and wary because I bought a Toshiba docking station which said it would work but hasn’t (lost too much resolution with the 3rd monitor), and then there are tech people at some manufacturers who say “it’s impossible with a laptop.”

Finally, a confident factual answer! Thanks, Bernie! U da man! Joseph

Hi Joseph - Thanks for the question.

It looks like your model of Dell Studio 15 has an HDMI port and a VGA port - but I assume only one of those can be used at a time. The SyncMaster’s native res is 1920 x 1080. The HP monitor is 1920 x 1200.

The Plugable UGA-2K-A supports modes up to 2048x1152 (16:9) or 1920x1200 ). So it can drive either monitor at its full native resolution (whereas the Toshiba docking station can’t). Just note that USB graphics of is great for normal desktop apps - but especially at the highest resolutions, it’s not recommended for 3D gaming or DVD-quality video (the USB 2.0 bus simply can’t handle that many pixels changing per screen refresh).

So I’d test your external VGA connector on the laptop to make sure it can drive one or both of the monitors at full resolution. If it can, then you just need a single UGA-2K-A adapter, nothing more. If it can’t, then you need two. Either way will work for you.

Note in Windows 7, the monitors come up as Mirrored by default – you just need to change the display settings in the Windows UI to set them to extend.

Let us know if you have any other questions. Again, thanks for asking.

Bernie