How to use two monitors with a laptop in 2022: Anyone who has worked on a multi-monitor setup knows how claustrophobic working on a single monitor can be, particularly on a laptop or notebook. We’ll show you how to bring the workplace desktop PC experience home by connecting extra displays to any business laptop PC.
The good news is that Thunderbolt 3 USB-C technology can swiftly turn a laptop into a desktop productivity workstation, right in time for COVID-19 work from home arrangements. There are more solutions for connecting displays to older PCs for those who have legacy laptops.
Thunderbolt 3 USB-C is the most recent technology.
Thunderbolt 3 USB-C is a single-cable solution for high-speed data transfers, high-resolution video output, and battery charging. In 2018, laptop manufacturers began producing business laptops with Thunderbolt 3 connection, which is now more or less typical for new business notebooks.
A Thunderbolt 3 laptop can send video to two 4K displays daisy-chained together or one 5K screen. The monitor to which you are connected, however, must have a Thunderbolt 3 input. If your computer supports Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C but your display does not, a simple solution is to use a video adapter (USB-C to HDMI or USB-C to VGA).
In terms of deployment, Thunderbolt 3 provides the cleanest, simplest setup accessible. To get started, just connect a Thunderbolt 3 cable to a Thunderbolt 3 display. Because energy is transmitted via the USB-C connection, this configuration may charge a laptop while it is in use.
Laptop manufacturers provide a range of tiny portable monitors designed to allow dual screen operation wherever your laptop travels.
ASUS ZenScreen Go docking docks
A laptop docking system allows remote workers to connect a laptop to a variety of external displays and other devices. The newest USB-C docking stations link to a laptop’s USB-C connection and provide critical backwards compatibility for connecting to older displays with HDMI and DisplayPort inputs that new laptops may not support.
Laptop OEMs provide branded USB-C docking stations for their business lines, such as Belkin’s Thunderbolt 3 Dock Plus (see: Lenovo ThinkPad, Dell Latitude and MacBook 2015 and later). Third-party solutions are intended to mimic brand performance at a reduced cost. (Also see Belkin Thunderbolt 3 docks, which are compatible with both Windows and Mac computers.)
Workarounds for laptops that don’t have USB-C connection
Don’t be concerned if you don’t have the most up-to-date equipment—quite it’s easy to cobble together a solution utilizing technology you may already have on hand.
Even though a laptop only has a VGA connector, it may support a dual monitor arrangement provided it also has a USB port. To connect with a computer display, you’ll need a USB cable to VGA or DVI external video card and the proper cable.
HDMI video output is standard in laptops manufactured in the past eight years. Simply connect an HDMI connection to a computer that supports HDMI to add an extra monitor. You can connect to a display that does not have an HDMI cable input by using a low-cost HDMI-DVI cable adaptor.
In addition to the laptop display, laptops with just one HDMI video output will benefit from a USB 3.0 docking station for a twin monitor arrangement. The HDMI protocol forbids daisy chaining monitor combinations. If you do not want to buy a docking station, you may attach a second monitor to your laptop using a USB-to-HDMI converter. It’s worth noting that utilizing a USB connection for video output may tax your computer’s resources and create performance difficulties, particularly if you’re doing anything more than browsing the web or word processing.
DisplayPort video output can daisy link two monitors without the usage of a docking station, providing features that HDMI cannot. Due to the incompatibility of HDMI and DisplayPort, you must use monitors with a DisplayPort input. It is possible to convert a DisplayPort signal to HDMI using a passive adapter connection, however this is not recommended.
