This would potentially be very useful in a server environment, I would think.

You couldn't find a decent-powered XP desktop to test it on? Makes the review somewhat incomplete to only test it on an operating system for which it's obviously not optimized. Testing XP on the laptop is one thing, but for comparison purposes it'd be nice to see how it does in XP with more powerful hardware. (And XP isn't going away anytime soon. I've tried using Vista on my new laptop and I really just don't like it, even when I switch it to "Classic" theme.)

They're on the verge of fraudulent advertising if they're claiming this will be great for gaming. I suppose technically "most" games, meaning the majority, don't need high resolution or 3D hardware acceleration, but that's because there are vast numbers of churned-out clones and puzzle games that sell for 5 dollars as bargain games in nothing but a jewel case. No gamer's game made in the last 5+ years looks good under 1024x768, and that's still a bare minimum.

If office applications run okay on the thing, then that'd make it nice for some uses, obviously particularly if you need to swap displays between machines.

There have been devices like this on the market for along time, incidentally, although this is the first I've seen with DVI instead of VGA. At the resolutions this can really handle though, that makes no difference.

Could it be that your desktop PC has a crappy USB adapter? Something like this will surely stress a USB controller, and since those things rely on the CPU...

If only Firewire had become more popular.

I just noticed the horrendously long USB cable they include. How long is that thing, 6 feet? Then you've got the usual 6 feet of a DVI cable to throw in, or at least a 3 foot cable, so you've got all this cable hanging off a USB port from your laptop or coiled up near your desktop. I guess USB cabling is cheap so they just threw in enough to look impressive.

This would be perfect at work. We use Matrox f1400 (fiber connected remote graphic units) which makes a keyboard worthless until the drivers are running. This would solve a lot of headaches.

seriously, what is the point of this thing? incase you REALLY need a second monitor on some PC that doesn't have a spare PCI or PCI Express slot to put a cheap ass video card in? what a niche product.

You know, seeing this device makes me want external PCIe become a reality very quickly. I can only imagine the innovation we will see.

Well, it's one way to get a DVI output from the myriad of PC laptops with VGA connectors on them *still*. It's a nice idea, and great for multiscreen setups in the office.

I imagine that the graphics setup is highly configurable. It might even be possible to add graphical output to a device with USB output only (all those wireless routers with USB, anyone?), with a software driven framebuffer internally. Of course, this is worthless when the device costs so much currently. Get it down to $50 and then we're talking.

Sounds like a great way to add more screen real-estate for office use - I've already got 2 LCD's on my desk, and it isn't really that easy to add a third, until this. Knowing if it has any linux support at all would be nice to know though.

Surely it would just be cheaper to use one of Matrox's Dual Head2Go (or even the triple head)?

So, I'm confused about how this claims to work (and their site doesn't help). It sounds like it works by having the video card render the full screen (both displays) and then uses the CPU to copy the framebuffer for the second screen to the USB port (where the DisplayLink hardware converts it to TMDS signals for DVI). I suppose they could be doing the whole thing on the CPU, but that just seems way too slow, and I have a hard time believing there's any kind of GPU and RAM inside that little box (or that it could run on USB power).

It certainly would be interesting to monitor CPU and IO usage with perfmon while this is doing its business. I'd be even more tempted to just open the thing up and see what's inside.

Ultimately, DisplayPort should be the right answer for this kind of problem most of the time.

Looks like a good pickup for EEEXP users... which brings the next obligitory question

will it run (on) linux?

w00t, I think I spot an IBM Model M keyboard.

This strikes me as having the same problem inherent to USB speakers, which bypass any discrete sound card acceleration you might have. I suspect the subpar performance in anything other than general office use might be due to the USB link bypassing the video card (and any hardware acceleration you get out of it) altogether?

Maybe they're just having problems working with nVidia GPUs in general. Do you have an ATI one laying around anywhere? Of course, if DVD playback on a Radeon 9000 had dropped frames, I'm sure Vista gaming won't be much better.