USB Monitors? DisplayLink's Technology, Examined

[acku]

Would you like to add another monitor, but find yourself out of display outputs? DisplayLink's technology employs the USB bus to extend your screen. The current implementation isn't perfect; we're more excited about the USB 3.0 hardware it has planned.

USB Monitors? DisplayLink's Technology, Examined : Read more

 

[vdr369]

looking good, and pretty useful too, it is very useful for notebook users, does this product released in India.

 

[soccerdocks]

My notebook has 3 extra outputs. VGA, HDMI, and Display Port. That's plenty for me. I don't see too much of a use for this.

 

[nevertell]

When are we going to see DP connectors on most mainstream graphics cards and monitors ?

 

[SteelCity1981]

So when USB 3.0 ports goes to 100w this will eliminate the need for a display link i'd imagine.

 

[mister g]

[citation][nom]nevertell[/nom]When are we going to see DP connectors on most mainstream graphics cards and monitors ?[/citation]
When Nvidia does so on all their graphics cards, and when manufacterer's finally get the big idea and choose between paying for Displayport or to the DVI Consortium. IGPs also need to switchover or else it won't work.

 

[WyomingKnott]

[citation][nom]soccerdocks[/nom]My notebook has 3 extra outputs. VGA, HDMI, and Display Port. That's plenty for me. I don't see too much of a use for this.[/citation]
For you, no. Other people might find it useful, though. Especially with ultra-portables or other compact devices that tend to have only USB and headphone ports.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

I didn't know modern laptops, notebooks, and ultra notebooks might not come with with connections for an external display. I would have thought a connection for an external display would have been standard. Way back in 1993 I purchased a Sony laptop that had an extra video connection. I used it to connect a 21 inch flat screen CRT monitor.

 

[jamie_1318]

I don't think I've ever seen a laptop without at least one external monitor plug. I don't see that being useful to me at least because I don't see needing three screens on a laptop in the immediate future. (I can already dual screen by using the Notebook's display).

[citation][nom]SteelCity1981[/nom]So when USB 3.0 ports goes to 100w this will eliminate the need for a display link i'd imagine.[/citation]

laptops don't have 100w of power to output to a external GPU, they are probably not going to be on board with this technology. Besides which USB3 is nowhere near fast enough to feed data to a Graphics card in real time, without ever bothering to talk about latency or data-loss. It might be useful if they put very low end Graphics card and powered them off of the USB port, I don't see it becoming common enough to obsolete display port for some time.

 

[soccerdocks]

[citation][nom]WyomingKnott[/nom]For you, no. Other people might find it useful, though. Especially with ultra-portables or other compact devices that tend to have only USB and headphone ports.[/citation]
My point wasn't that there was no use for this. Merely that there was a small market for this product.

 

[ram1009]

I find myself disagreeing with the whole premise of this topic. Why would anyone want to use a portable while there was a more powerful desktop nearby? It just doesn't compute. IMHO, portables are only to be used for those things you can't do on a desktop.

 

[SteelCity1981]

[citation][nom]
laptops don't have 100w of power to output to a external GPU, they are probably not going to be on board with this technology. Besides which USB3 is nowhere near fast enough to feed data to a Graphics card in real time, without ever bothering to talk about latency or data-loss. It might be useful if they put very low end Graphics card and powered them off of the USB port, I don't see it becoming common enough to obsolete display port for some time.[/citation]


They could use a cycle mode when the laptop is plugged in the usb 3.0 goes to 100w's when it's not it stays at 4.5w

 

[Guest]

I like that you show a HP monitor! haha
Poor HP i will miss them. On the device market.

 

[palladin9479]

This technology is actually being used right now to "far throw" a system's display to other rooms. We have several specialized systems that drive display's across a large command center and running RGB cables everywhere lead to a distorted image.

 

[joshyboy82]

So this device could be potentially useful to even a desktop crowd, the group that has only one Nvidia card and would like to run three monitors for productivity. It'd be nice if a USB3 version would come out.

 

[Guest]

I got one of these around christmas time (2010) for my work pc. Unfortunately, the particular model of my work pc wasn't compatible with the DisplayLink product. Their support and assistance was terrific however. Eventually, I decided to bring my laptop to work and use that instead (it is much more powerful anyway). My laptop has one extra output, so I figured I would use the displayLink product for a third monitor. I have been using it ever since. It is excellent, I generally use the displayLink attached monitor for having my Outlook open and my database management studio if I need reference to data while I am programming. The resources used are never noticeable and it has worked reliably and effortlessly every day. A very excellent product in my opinion. My only suggestion is to research what you plan on using it with/for and ensure that it is compatible.

 

[jamie_1318]

@ steel city, Laptop power adapters are rarely even 60w, so the 100w standard could never really be feasible without changing the circuitry. you could theoretically (and in practice) drain the battery life to provide 100w of power, but that's not even the main issue here. you could use an external adapter to power an external GPU, but USB 3 is no where near fast enough to power anything but a very low end Graphics card. Essentially USB 3 is as fast as a single pci-e 2.0 lane, plus added latency to deal with and signal deterioration.

 

[DrgnRebrn]

I have been working with a 3 monitor setup for over a year now, utilizing the VGA & DVI connections on my HP docking station in conjunction with a USB-to-DVI adapter. Two of my LCDs are 23" set at 1920x1080 and the third LCD is a 24" set at 1080x1920 (portrait). This has become my favorite monitor for viewing PDF & Word files as well as for browsing the internet on. This is the monitor I have connected through the USB2DVI adapter. The other 2 are landscape monitors and are primarily used for viewing spreadsheets, email (one on each monitor), and database programs. I cannot work any other way now! I have never experienced any issue whatsoever in using the USB2DVI adapter, although I did spring for the "Pro" version which supported resolutions beyond 1024x768. I am running an HP EliteBook 6930P with 4GB RAM. The 2x 23" LCDs are identical Acers, model S231HL, and the 24" LCD is an HP LA2405wg.

 

[upgrade_1977]

Why not just get a Matrox TripleHead2Go instead of killing the cpu with compression decompression?
Haven't seen a laptop in a long time that doesn't come with a vga, dvi, or hdmi out.

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/th2go/

 

[alidan]

i read nothing but the first lines so far.

you want a more accurate poll, make it on toms, because many of us despise facebook.

 

[abdussamad]

@palladin9479: You do know that you can run VGA over Cat5 cabling, don't you? I am sure you have lots of that in your data centre.

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

[citation][nom]jamie_1318[/nom]I don't think I've ever seen a laptop without at least one external monitor plug. I don't see that being useful to me at least because I don't see needing three screens on a laptop in the immediate future. (I can already dual screen by using the Notebook's display).laptops don't have 100w of power to output to a external GPU, they are probably not going to be on board with this technology. Besides which USB3 is nowhere near fast enough to feed data to a Graphics card in real time, without ever bothering to talk about latency or data-loss. It might be useful if they put very low end Graphics card and powered them off of the USB port, I don't see it becoming common enough to obsolete display port for some time.[/citation]

I've seen some old slim Sony mini-netbooks without a display output, it had one of these adapters bundled; nothing new.

Doesn't mean the laptop without an external display output isn't ridiculous, though... I'm so glad my netbook has one; plug it into my 23'' screen, and voila - Full HD...

 

[Guest]

For a while now, I've been running through one HP EliteBook 6930p:
1 x 24" monitor at 1920x1080 through VGA
3 x 24" monitors at 1920x1080 through DisplayLink USB Adapters
2 x 22" monitors at 1680x1050 through DisplayLink USB Adapters

The 24's are in a 2x2 stack while the 22's are side by side. I keep my laptop screen on as well.

I absolutely LOVE this setup. I work in Excel primarily, so it is amazing to be able view all relevant data all at once, as opposed to constantly minimizing/maximizing/alt-tabbing, etc. On top of that, I like to use WinSplit to further take advantage of all of my screen real estate.

The only downside to all of this is being called the Office Weirdo. Oh well.

 

[Guest]

The Matrox products do not support independent resolutions per monitor that are different like DisplayLink does. So I have a 2048x1152 and 1680x1050 monitor running on my desk using DisplayLink, but that will not work at the highest resolution using Matrox products. Also Matrox requires that my laptop support a single large resolution so the Matrox hardware can break it up in to smaller resolutions to fit on the monitor. This means that dialog-boxes and Windows notifications show up in between the bezels of the monitors. That does not happen with my DisplayLink adaptors. Lastly what is use of your CPU if it's not utilized! I don't care of my CPU has at 50% under heavy graphics applications. I only care if my user experience is compromised, which it is not!

 

[ghnader hsmithot]

My gtx580 is way cooler and way lighter!