I started a new job this week and since I'll be working from home 2 days per week they are talking about buying me a laptop. I was wondering if anyone knows of any laptops that support multiple external monitors. I also need it to be able to run Windows. (no macs)

Thanks in advance.

I have a laptop that can support VGA and HDMI. I haven't seen many with multiple VGA/DVI ports.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220577

Similar to mine, but newer hardware.

I use a Dell Latitude D630 with a docking station and a DVI to dual VGA cable. I'm sure there are more elegant solutions out there though.

I assume you don't need S-video, right?

I guess I don't care. All the monitors I know of or would buy have either vga or dvi or both.

Can you use them to run two external monitors at the same time? Not "mirrored" mode but rather extend your desktop to cover both monitors?

Dell Latitude E-Series and Precision laptops support docks with dual DVI out and dual DisplayPort out.

I believe so. I have not tried it, but I can test it later if it would help. I don't see why it wouldn't work; unless for some reason Vista is incapable of reasonable tasks...

Macbook pro.

fixed.

Oh good point

I'm currently on a macbook and it has a single-link dvi so can only drive one external monitor. I heard the macbook pro can do it but I don't want another mac, these things suck.

Macbooks are awesome >.>

That said, I had never even heard of a laptop that can do two external displays, since that is effectively a 3 monitor setup, something that's rare enough on desktops, even more rare on laptops.

Why not look into one of those USB display adapters instead?

It doesn't sound like he wants to output to 3 displays at once. It sounds like to me that he just wants to use two external monitors, with the laptop display turned off. At least that's how I interpreted it. And if that's what he wants, that's pretty easy, since there are laptops with 2 video outputs, or at least dock connectors that expose two video outputs, and any decent video card can handle that.

I was expecting laptop screen in the middle, and two LCD/TFT/whatevers either side for QUAKE PERIPHERAL VISION

Generally speaking, you won't be able to have a laptop open and two monitors attached to have three monitors to view on. Also, you won't be able to close the laptop lid without it going into sleep or hibernation mode, unless you use a docking station (port replicator).

My recommendation, is a Dell Latitude E6500 with a an E-Port replicator (make sure you get the extended that comes with two DVI ports). Dell has really come off of their prices lately. You could probably get by with an E5400, or the smaller netbook sized E4000 series laptops.

(since you specified Windows) Any laptop, and a couple of these.

I don't want to use the laptop screen, just two external ones. Essentially, I want to use it as my work machine and laptop screens suck (hard to position comfortably for 8 hours of programming, plus the resolution is high which makes the text small). Right now I'm using macbook with a single external screen. I may be able to get by with just buying a new monitor (bigger, wide-screen) instead of using two, it's just that they have an abundance of smaller, non-widescreen ones sitting around collecting dust.

When I plug in a usb keyboard and use an external monitor, then run linux in a vm, it's almost possible to forget I'm using a mac

I seriously recommend looking at Dell Latitude E-Series. For work I use a Precision M4400 (same dock connector as the E-Series, but a little more powerful and expensive) with an E-Port Plus Dock hooked up to two 20" widescreen Dell monitors via DVI. A quick snap-in and I've got dual external monitors no problem.

Any USB or ExpressCard solution will be severely inferior to a real DVI/VGA connection because those busses can't handle near the amount of data that's required for smooth video, so you'll get very jumpy, low refresh rate video from them. They've basically got really crappy video adapters in them, and they can't process video nearly as fast as integrated video cards (since they get their video data from a slow bus).

The thing is, any laptop I know of will not let you simply disable the laptop screen and enable a second output from it. The laptop's adapter always exists, even if you "disable" it.

Thus, it is 3 monitors, even if you intend to only use 2.

Uhh, no. It's simple to disable the laptop display and only output to 1 or 2 (if the laptop supports it) external monitors... I've had multiple setups over the years this way, including what I use now at work and home... If you're unable to do it with a laptop with two video outputs, then you've probably just got some super crappy drivers.

And you generally cannot output to 3 monitors, because laptop video cards are generally only able to output video signals to 2 monitors (this includes their built-in display), and 3 generally won't even work.

I've never seen a laptop with 2 outputs to even allow such a setup, being my point. (Unless you count S-Video, and I don't)