Dual monitors for laptop with limited amounts of ports

cloudslayer

Honorable
Jun 17, 2012
7
0
10,510
Hi,

I recently bought a new laptop (Samsung series 9 13" ultraportable). I would like to somehow connect two external monitors (full HD) to the laptop to increase the amount of available screen real estate.

There is however a connectivity issue: external screens obviously have to be connected in some way. The laptop only has a limited number of ports:
- 1 x Micro VGA (requires dongle to regular VGA)
- 1 x Micro HDMI
- 1 x USB3
- 1 x USB2

HDMI is the obvious choice for one of the screens which leaves the question how the second screen can be connected.

Would the VGA be capable of providing a good image quality for the second full hd display? While there are solutions to connect external screens using USB2 and 3 (http://www.displaylink.com/) both appear to stress the CPU and only the USB2 variety appears to work with Linux as of yet. Would USB perform better or worse than VGA quality-wise?

Thanks,
 

cloudslayer

Honorable
Jun 17, 2012
7
0
10,510
Hmm, didn't think of that possibility...

Would the issue being the graphics card (intel hd graphics 4000) or the connectors themselves?

Would this be an issue for any external screen (regardless of resolution) or show up for specific screens. If it is the former I could test by connecting a TV and an old screen to see whether it works as soon as i have tracked down the micro VGA -> VGA dongle.