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Suggestions on finding notebooks capable of driving a 30" display

H

Hubb1e

Senior member
I'm looking to find a notebook that can drive a 30" Apple display. The display takes dual link DVI.

I have been told DisplayPort will handle this, but it seems pretty rare on notebooks. I'm looking for a 15" notebook with a mid level dedicated graphics card capable of playing the occasional game of Diablo 3 (no, not at the 30" native resolution). This will be mainly a productivity machine and will probably spend most of its time tethered to the 30" display. Price I an willing to spend is up to $1400.

Anyone have any suggestions on where to start looking?
 
Im a little confused on why you want a notebook if its going to spend most of its time linked to your 30inch display? I mean its your money so your the one who gets to decide how to spend it but why not just build a desktop?

In fact after thinking about it even more you could pick up a pretty basic i5 sandy bridge laptop for your occasional use away from the 30" and still have more than enough money to build a great desktop that could just always stay connected to the 30
 
elitejp said:
Im a little confused on why you want a notebook if its going to spend most of its time linked to your 30inch display? I mean its your money so your the one who gets to decide how to spend it but why not just build a desktop?

In fact after thinking about it even more you could pick up a pretty basic i5 sandy bridge laptop for your occasional use away from the 30" and still have more than enough money to build a great desktop that could just always stay connected to the 30
Click to expand...


It's very common these days. Last company I worked for (a very large engineering company) passed out quality laptops and everyone has large external monitors at their desks. It lets us go to the field and bring our laptops home and still log into the WAN (non company assets not allowed).

Personally I run U2711's at home and the office with my laptops. I ran a pair of them off my M6600 for a short period.

OP - I use my dell M6600 and M4500 on a eport replicator that has no problem driving my u2711's at naitive res. I've even put my cheapo dell E6520 (I think that's the number) with a NVS video on the same replicator without issue.
 
the alienware m11x r3 has displayport

the m14x and many other notebooks have mini-displayport
edit: nvm a lot of mini-displayports have issues with 30" high res screens (google turned up some hp envy 14s and wiki says some macbooks)

the alienwares are capable gaming notebooks and provide a good balanced notebook, though if using it in a business setting they're aesthetics might appear garish
 
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Most if not all Thinkpads that have a [mini]displayport should be able to drive a 30" display.

For example the Thinkpad x220[from[1]]:
Graphic Controller

Intel HD Graphics 3000 in processor
External analog monitor support via VGA DB-15 connector and digital monitor support via DisplayPort (supports single-link DVI-D via cable 45J7915)
Supports dual independent display
Maximum external resolution:
2560x1600 (DisplayPort)@60Hz
2048x1536 (VGA)@75Hz
1920x1200@60Hz (single-link DVI-D via cable 45J7915)
Click to expand...

[1] http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/product-and-parts/detail.page?DocID=PD015812#vid

Edit: Note that is an older model. But you can look for the specs of any Thinkpad on that site.
 
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Minor warning on the displayport-- for some unknown reason, not all displayports will work properly with the active displayport->DL-DVI adapter that you'll need in order to hook up the 30" display. After going through a couple laptops trying to find one that would work with the adapter (but confirming the adapter and display ports were working independently) I gave up and went with an external desktop GPU connected to a laptop's expresscard slot, which ended up being a better solution for me anyway.

Also, if you are getting one, those adapters are around $100 by themselves, which kind of sucks.
 
I don't have a 30 inch display to test a DP => DP connection. But an x220 has no issues with a 24 inch display at 1920x1200 using DP => DP.

What Seggybop said could be an issue using DP => DL-DVI or the other way around. But any of these should be negated using a DP => DP connection.

Legend: DP = displayport
 
It's definitely only an issue with DP -> DL-DVI (2560*) but the 30" Apple display the OP mentioned only has a DL-DVI connection.
 
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