Run 2 External Monitors via Laptop Thunderbolt, DisplayPort, or HDMI?

[decrescendo]

Hey all,

I'm looking to buy a laptop in the near future that will be able to drive 2 external Dell U2412M monitors (1920 x 1200, 1 x DisplayPort, 1 x VGA, 1 x DVI) with the lid closed. In order to narrow down my laptop options, I'm trying to determine which laptops can even support this given typical laptop port limitations.

1 x HDMI
Based on what I can tell, I do not think it's possible to run 2 different external monitors via 1 HDMI port. It appears all that is possible is splitting the signal out of that 1 HDMI port and producing the same output on 2 external monitors and there is no point to that. Is this correct or am I missing something here?

Sources: Tom's Hardware Forum

1 x DisplayPort / 1 x Mini-DisplayPort
It appears DisplayPort presents slightly better options than HDMI. I gather that, if a DisplayPort and its laptop drivers are, at least, v1.2 and support Multi-Stream Transport (MST), I have the ability to either daisy chain 2 external monitors (if the monitors support this) or split the DisplayPort output with an MST hub to drive the 2 external monitors. Is this true? I don't think I can daisy chain 2 Dell U2412Ms but the MST hub option may work if I can find a laptop that supports MST via DisplayPort v1.2.

Sources: PC Advisor and DisplayPort.org

1 x Thunderbolt
Is there a way to split a single Thunderbolt signal into 2 different signals to support my 2 external monitors? Would having a single Thunderbolt output out of a MacBook Air run through a Thunderbolt dock (like Belkin's new one) result in 2 different signals or the same signal repeated to each monitor (like with HDMI)?

Any help would be great! I'm trying to decide between the following laptops:

Acer Aspire S7 (1 x HDMI, 2 x USB 3.0)
Apple Macbook Air (1 x Thunderbolt, 2 x USB 3.0)
Apple Macbook Pro (2 x Thunderbolt, 1 x HDMI, 2 x USB 3.0)
Dell XPS 13 (1 x Mini-DisplayPort, 2 x USB 3.0)
Lenovo X1 Carbon (1 x Mini-DisplayPort, 1 x HDMI, 2 x USB 3.0)
Lenovo T430s (1 x Mini-DisplayPort, 1 x VGA, 3 x USB 3.0)

Thanks for the help, everyone!

 

[k1114]

Tb technically uses dp protocols and does support mst. But you forgot 1 important factor, if the gpu supports it. Different gpus also support a different number of monitors so you may not have to have 2 monitors on 1 port. You could do 1 monitor on each port and use dp + hdmi or another combo. You can also run monitors off usb that don't count towards the gpu's max. Otherwise I can't get too specific on daisy chaining without knowing specs.