Matrox Dual Head 2 Go DP Edition D2G-DP-IF - Retail

 (10 customer reviews)

I have been migrating from a Windows box here at work to a Macbook Pro. Love the Macbook Pro, but I ran a dual-head (2x 21" screens at 1600x1200 each) setup on the Windows box (rather easily, really), and wanted a similar setup here for the Mac. Unfortunately, there's only one video output on the Macbook Pro (mini-display port), and that would have left me with the really substandard one laptop screen and one external screen. That's not what I was looking for. I wanted to run on the two identical external screens, and gain back my much-needed resolution.

Unfortunately, Apple doesn't make a solution for this problem. Their solution is simply a much bigger monitor (which doesn't have the same resolution as two high-res screens side by side). Enter the Matrox DualHead2Go devices, which are supposed to give the Mac the ability to run 2 external screens. And they do... sort-of.

There are, however, serious caveats that make this solution no more than a half-useful...Read more

Fellow Mac lovers - I purchased this device so I could run two monitors from my MacBook Pro. As other reviewers mentioned, the MacBook Pro has a single mini-DisplayPort rather than the mini-dual link DVI adapter from prior MacBook models that supported dual DVI monitors. I purchased this Matrox device so I could have similar functionality on my Mac as I do on my HP 6910P notebook which supports one monitor on DVI and a second on VGA at 1900x1200. Unfortunately, Matrox advertises two monitors at 1900x1200, but they do not mention that this device requires you to purchase two DisplayPort-to-DVI adapters for $20 each! This is very sneaky! If you have a MacBookPro, you also have to purchase a mini-DisplayPort to male-DisplayPort adapter if you do not purchase the DualHead2Go DP Edition for a MAC edition(D2G-DP-MIF). I called Matrox Technical Support about my dissatisfaction that they did not include 2 male DisplayPort-to-DVI adapters in the box as all their marketing materials and...Read more

Returned Item. Very disappointed. While the front showed a display port input, the output was assumed to be DVI. Maybe I read something wrong. I couldn't tell from pictures, none showed the back. Adapters from the 2 DP to DVI cost $20 each, so if you don't have DP on your monitors, add $50 to the cost. Never got that far, returned item. I couldn't justify spending $300 on getting a 3rd monitor going on my Macbook Pro i7.

Also, since the Matrox uses the hardware box to stretch a screen over 2 screens, but with my Video card I had...apparently the max resolution it would do was less than 1080 x 2, it was more like 2880x900 or something. Bottom line, two monitors @ 1920x1080 wouldn't be native, and in addition, since it treats it as one long monitor, you can't put your laptop in between and have a display on each side.

Another solution was a USB video card, but I didn't like the refresh lag and no video.

My Discovered Solution for this problem:...Read more