I’ve owned a Mac now since late 2008. Soon after I bought it, I discovered how cool multi-monitor support is. Oddly, this discovery didn’t quench more thirst for more screen real estate, it simply made me want more and more. On my MacBook Pro, there is only one monitor output. I would have assumed that was that and there would be no way to add more screens but then I found the Sewell Minideck SW-22857.
This ingenious device allows you to hook up to 5 extra monitors to a computer even as underpowered as a Atom-based netbook. That is a testament to the fact that it doesn’t consume a lot of overhead. On my system which is a 2.53GHz dual core, it seems to only take 1.2-2.2% of one of the CPU’s at idle and it spikes to 2.6% when I’m pushing it with window scrolling, etc. Works for me.
Now personally I would have assumed that a USB-based graphics card would be kind of a gimmick. Surprisingly enough though, I think this adapter will work well enough to be useful. I did try full motion video on it and it sucks. Totally useless and choppy. I would estimate I’m getting 15-20fps on it. To me, this is pretty much unacceptable, YMMV.
I did a lot of research before I bought this device. One thing surprised me. It’s smaller than it looks in the picture. Probably half the size of a standard external 2.5″ drive but a touch thicker. Another thing worth mentioning is that you should just go to the website to get the latest driver. From my understanding, the bundled one doesn’t work too well.
Supposedly this is one of the only USB-VGA/DVI/HDMI adapters that actually works properly with the Mac. I’d believe that. The bummer is that they know it and charge dearly for it. I tried and tried to wait them out but the price never dropped. I could not find this device ANYWHERE legitimately cheaper than $100.
The only problem I could find with the whole setup is that my monitor does not seem to properly sleep with this adapter. The screen goes black but the back light stays on. If I figure out what is going on with this, I’ll post an update.
Update 6/30/2010 – Still haven’t figured out the sleep mode on the screen but I have found that you cannot take a screenshot of anything running on USB-connected screen under Mac OS X
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Like the idea of one of these adapters – but do you know, I can’t find any site that will ship to where I live in Australia.
Weird!
They seem to be sold directly by Sewell only. Your best bet might be to wait for one to pop up on eBay or have a friend in the States ship one to you.
Hey thanks for the post… I stumbled upon while really digging deep for a used one of these and I’m going to take your word for it.. $100 it is.
I plan to hook up to my mac mini that is supposed to be my media center (running plex) and it’s hooked up to the tv with the dvi to vga for that. Now it turns out that guests are always wanting to use internet browsers and such and sometimes find their way onto my macbook pro which is NOT ideal. So.. I figure i’ll hook up an 18 inch monitor with this USB adapter that mirrors… that should give my guests a decent enough internet station for their facebook needs.
I’ll try and see if I can help find some setting or solution to the whole sleep mode issue. Thanks again.
If you figure something out for the sleep issue, please let me know. I’m using a pretty old NEC AccuSync LCD72VX with my adapter so perhaps something on the monitor doesn’t quite conform to spec. Yes, this adapter should be perfect for you use. Sometimes I leave PDF’s open on it so I can read them while perform operations on the other screens but lately it has been used for keeping my email open all the time. I’ve really liked having three monitors and it would be hard for me to go back even to two.