7 ms·

Still only supports one display. Also they increased the prices across the board.. Quite happy with my M1 Pro, a beat and a hell of a purchase.

top_sigrid 4y ago
This is disappointing. It has 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports but can only drive one external display. So unnecessary, this would be the perfect machine for my home and work setup, but I have 2 external displays in both cases.
- ttul 4y ago
  They are 100% doing this intentionally. They want to drive power users toward spending more and they know that many of us will…
dougmwne 4y ago
Wait, you can't extend the display to a second screen?
- msh 4y ago
  Yes but only one external display plus the build in display.
  - conductr 4y ago
    Does the 13" MBP support multiple displays? Sorry- I'm horrible at reading Apple Specs and inferring the capabilities
    - ccouzens 4y ago
      just the one external screen (two screens total including internal). https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-13/specs/ https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-13/specs/ People have gotten round it by connecting additional screens using display link adapters.
      - conductr 4y ago
        Awesome thanks for the assist! That page makes it clear, I guess I'm actually just horrible at sifting through the marketing to find the spec page :)
      - ig-88ms 4y ago
        Display Link is alrightish for light office work or coding. But not much else.
      - opan 4y ago
        Can you use two external screens if you disable the internal screen? That's what I do now with a ThinkPad.
        yulaow 4y ago
        No sadly you can't
    - freewizard 4y ago
      My 13" 2014 MBP supports 2 mDP + 1 HDMI = total 3 external displays. Running external display at 4k@60Hz is possible but not straight forward, it requires patch core graphic framework, or using 3rd party boot loader. Newer models do not have this limitation afaik.
      - hda111 4y ago
        Intel != Apple Silicon
  - caycep 4y ago
    There was some dock from a 3rd party vendor that let you do more screens, but I can't remember which one...
    - imposterr 4y ago
      There are a few. They are able to do this by using something called Display Stream Compression. While it may be find for some, a lot of us would prefer not to have a diminished experience with a compressed stream.
      - coder543 4y ago
        Display Stream Compression (DSC) is fine. It is not a "diminished experience". DSC is visually lossless. Instead, those docks use a technology called DisplayLink which has nothing to do with DSC. DisplayLink means that external monitors are basically "software" displays that are tremendously slower and often very limited in resolutions and frame rates. Having any DisplayLink display connected also breaks HDCP and can cause other problems.
        mrob 4y ago
        The relevant standard is proprietary, but Wikipedia quotes it, confirming that "visually lossless" is marketing lies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#Display_Stream_Compression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#Display_Stream_Com...
        coder543 4y ago
        "Marketing lies" is unnecessarily inflammatory. I googled before posting to see if I could find anyone legitimately complaining about DSC, and it really seemed like pretty much everyone was happy with it. There are always people like "audiophiles" who claim to be able to distinguish impossibly small differences, and there is perhaps a very small number of people with exceptional hearing who actually do... but 320kbps compressed audio is "audibly lossless" for most of the population. The exact same thing applies here, by all appearances. I'm sure there are mp3 test cases where the compression does something terrible, just like with DSC... that just isn't what people actually encounter day to day. I can't see the second study linked which is on IEEE, but if you look at the fist one, Figure 4 shows that DSC was "visually lossless" in almost all test cases. Let me quote one thing from that study: > As described above, the HDR content was selected to challenge the codecs, in spite of this both DSC 1.2a and VDC-M performed very well. This finding is consistent with previous series of experiments using SDR images. So, this testing was done with samples that would challenge the codecs... and they still did great. It doesn't appear to be "marketing lies" at all. It appears to be a genuine attempt to describe a technology that enables new capabilities while dealing with the imperfect limitation in bandwidth of the available hardware. Do you have some terrible personal experience with DSC to share? Did you do a blind test so that you weren't aware of whether DSC was enabled or not when making your judgments? Are you aware that almost all non-OLED monitors (especially high refresh rate) always have artifacts around motion, even without DSC? I haven't personally had a chance to test out DSC other than perhaps some short experiences, which is why I based my initial comment on googling what other people experienced and how Wikipedia describes it. You pointed me to a study which seems to confirm that DSC is perfectly fine.
  - ryanmcbride 4y ago
    Wait really? I was using 2 external displays alongside the built in desplay on my m1 just a few days ago. Or is it a limitation only with m1 mb airs?
    - coder543 4y ago
      > on my m1 just a few days ago M1 != M1 Pro/Max/Ultra. If you have an M1 Pro or M1 Max or M1 Ultra, that is not "[your] m1". Each chip has significantly different capabilities in a number of aspects. As far as display support goes, M1 = 1 external display[0] M1 Pro = 2 external displays M1 Max = 4 external displays (3 USB-C + 1 HDMI)[1] [0]: the exception is the M1 Mac Mini, which doesn't have an internal display, so it can use two external displays. [1]: once again, the desktop version without a built-in monitor can support one additional monitor, so the Mac Studio with M1 Max can support 5 displays.
      - imwillofficial 4y ago
        M1 Ultra = Every display known to man.
        coder543 4y ago
        Apple probably could support 10 displays off of M1 Ultra, but I guess they decided to leave some displays for the rest of us.
      - dumpsterdiver 4y ago
        Is there a technical reason that the M1 only supports a single external monitor (optimized intended experience), or is just market segmentation?
        coder543 4y ago
        Every GPU on the market supports a limited number of monitors. There are fixed-function (not programmable in a traditional sense) blocks of silicon that are used to support each monitor. M1’s GPU came equipped to only support the internal monitor and one external monitor… a very slim configuration, but that’s likely influenced by its smartphone processor ancestry. Smartphones don’t need to power a bunch of displays. The larger M1 chips have bigger GPUs with more of those fixed function blocks. It isn’t artificial market segmentation at a software level, but it is certainly market segmentation at a hardware level, and something they knew would happen when they designed these chips. In the end, they were pretty spot on about the market segments. Most people want/need external display support… but one external display is plenty for most people. People who need more are likely to also want more in general, and the higher end options satisfy that. It still would have been nice for them to upgrade things for M2.
- fumar 4y ago
  14 and 16 inch Macbook Pro's support multiple external screens up to 6K. https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-14-and-16/specs/ https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-14-and-16/specs/
  - zydex 4y ago
    That's the case for the M1 Pro and M1 Ultra. The regular M1 only supports a single external display.
    - seppel 4y ago
      The M2 as well, unfortunately.
- pdpi 4y ago
  Only supports one external display, as opposed to the 14"/16" machines that can do maybe 3 or 4?
pishpash 4y ago
They did? Seems to be the same price as M1 MacBook Pro.
supergeek 4y ago
Really disappointing considering they now support up to a 6k external display. Yet you can't do 2x 1080p, or 2x 4k. I think Apple knows a lot of customers care about this and want it to be a barrier getting them into a pro machine. The cheapest laptop they sell with multi-external-monitor support is $1k more than their cheapest laptop overall ($2k vs $1k).

top_sigrid 4y ago

This is disappointing. It has 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports but can only drive one external display. So unnecessary, this would be the perfect machine for my home and work setup, but I have 2 external displays in both cases.

ttul 4y ago
They are 100% doing this intentionally. They want to drive power users toward spending more and they know that many of us will…

dougmwne 4y ago

Wait, you can't extend the display to a second screen?

msh 4y ago
Yes but only one external display plus the build in display.
- conductr 4y ago
  Does the 13" MBP support multiple displays? Sorry- I'm horrible at reading Apple Specs and inferring the capabilities
  - ccouzens 4y ago
    just the one external screen (two screens total including internal). https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-13/specs/ https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-13/specs/ People have gotten round it by connecting additional screens using display link adapters.
    - conductr 4y ago
      Awesome thanks for the assist! That page makes it clear, I guess I'm actually just horrible at sifting through the marketing to find the spec page :)
    - ig-88ms 4y ago
      Display Link is alrightish for light office work or coding. But not much else.
    - opan 4y ago
      Can you use two external screens if you disable the internal screen? That's what I do now with a ThinkPad.
      - yulaow 4y ago
        No sadly you can't
  - freewizard 4y ago
    My 13" 2014 MBP supports 2 mDP + 1 HDMI = total 3 external displays. Running external display at 4k@60Hz is possible but not straight forward, it requires patch core graphic framework, or using 3rd party boot loader. Newer models do not have this limitation afaik.
    - hda111 4y ago
      Intel != Apple Silicon
- caycep 4y ago
  There was some dock from a 3rd party vendor that let you do more screens, but I can't remember which one...
  - imposterr 4y ago
    There are a few. They are able to do this by using something called Display Stream Compression. While it may be find for some, a lot of us would prefer not to have a diminished experience with a compressed stream.
    - coder543 4y ago
      Display Stream Compression (DSC) is fine. It is not a "diminished experience". DSC is visually lossless. Instead, those docks use a technology called DisplayLink which has nothing to do with DSC. DisplayLink means that external monitors are basically "software" displays that are tremendously slower and often very limited in resolutions and frame rates. Having any DisplayLink display connected also breaks HDCP and can cause other problems.
      - mrob 4y ago
        The relevant standard is proprietary, but Wikipedia quotes it, confirming that "visually lossless" is marketing lies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#Display_Stream_Compression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#Display_Stream_Com...
        coder543 4y ago
        "Marketing lies" is unnecessarily inflammatory. I googled before posting to see if I could find anyone legitimately complaining about DSC, and it really seemed like pretty much everyone was happy with it. There are always people like "audiophiles" who claim to be able to distinguish impossibly small differences, and there is perhaps a very small number of people with exceptional hearing who actually do... but 320kbps compressed audio is "audibly lossless" for most of the population. The exact same thing applies here, by all appearances. I'm sure there are mp3 test cases where the compression does something terrible, just like with DSC... that just isn't what people actually encounter day to day. I can't see the second study linked which is on IEEE, but if you look at the fist one, Figure 4 shows that DSC was "visually lossless" in almost all test cases. Let me quote one thing from that study: > As described above, the HDR content was selected to challenge the codecs, in spite of this both DSC 1.2a and VDC-M performed very well. This finding is consistent with previous series of experiments using SDR images. So, this testing was done with samples that would challenge the codecs... and they still did great. It doesn't appear to be "marketing lies" at all. It appears to be a genuine attempt to describe a technology that enables new capabilities while dealing with the imperfect limitation in bandwidth of the available hardware. Do you have some terrible personal experience with DSC to share? Did you do a blind test so that you weren't aware of whether DSC was enabled or not when making your judgments? Are you aware that almost all non-OLED monitors (especially high refresh rate) always have artifacts around motion, even without DSC? I haven't personally had a chance to test out DSC other than perhaps some short experiences, which is why I based my initial comment on googling what other people experienced and how Wikipedia describes it. You pointed me to a study which seems to confirm that DSC is perfectly fine.
- ryanmcbride 4y ago
  Wait really? I was using 2 external displays alongside the built in desplay on my m1 just a few days ago. Or is it a limitation only with m1 mb airs?
  - coder543 4y ago
    > on my m1 just a few days ago M1 != M1 Pro/Max/Ultra. If you have an M1 Pro or M1 Max or M1 Ultra, that is not "[your] m1". Each chip has significantly different capabilities in a number of aspects. As far as display support goes, M1 = 1 external display[0] M1 Pro = 2 external displays M1 Max = 4 external displays (3 USB-C + 1 HDMI)[1] [0]: the exception is the M1 Mac Mini, which doesn't have an internal display, so it can use two external displays. [1]: once again, the desktop version without a built-in monitor can support one additional monitor, so the Mac Studio with M1 Max can support 5 displays.
    - imwillofficial 4y ago
      M1 Ultra = Every display known to man.
      - coder543 4y ago
        Apple probably could support 10 displays off of M1 Ultra, but I guess they decided to leave some displays for the rest of us.
    - dumpsterdiver 4y ago
      Is there a technical reason that the M1 only supports a single external monitor (optimized intended experience), or is just market segmentation?
      - coder543 4y ago
        Every GPU on the market supports a limited number of monitors. There are fixed-function (not programmable in a traditional sense) blocks of silicon that are used to support each monitor. M1’s GPU came equipped to only support the internal monitor and one external monitor… a very slim configuration, but that’s likely influenced by its smartphone processor ancestry. Smartphones don’t need to power a bunch of displays. The larger M1 chips have bigger GPUs with more of those fixed function blocks. It isn’t artificial market segmentation at a software level, but it is certainly market segmentation at a hardware level, and something they knew would happen when they designed these chips. In the end, they were pretty spot on about the market segments. Most people want/need external display support… but one external display is plenty for most people. People who need more are likely to also want more in general, and the higher end options satisfy that. It still would have been nice for them to upgrade things for M2.
fumar 4y ago
14 and 16 inch Macbook Pro's support multiple external screens up to 6K. https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-14-and-16/specs/ https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-14-and-16/specs/
- zydex 4y ago
  That's the case for the M1 Pro and M1 Ultra. The regular M1 only supports a single external display.
  - seppel 4y ago
    The M2 as well, unfortunately.
pdpi 4y ago
Only supports one external display, as opposed to the 14"/16" machines that can do maybe 3 or 4?

pishpash 4y ago

They did? Seems to be the same price as M1 MacBook Pro.

supergeek 4y ago

Really disappointing considering they now support up to a 6k external display. Yet you can't do 2x 1080p, or 2x 4k. I think Apple knows a lot of customers care about this and want it to be a barrier getting them into a pro machine. The cheapest laptop they sell with multi-external-monitor support is $1k more than their cheapest laptop overall ($2k vs $1k).