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Macs With M3 Chip Still Officially Support Only a Single External Display
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I bought the very last generation MBP with intel for that specific reason. The salesperson at the apple store didn't know the M1 couldn't accommodate two external screens until I told him. My MBP is starting to age, but I won't upgrade until the base MBP model with apple silicon can handle at least two external screens.
Some people in this thread are absolutely embarassing "I don't know WHY ANYONE would use another monitor, much less two, so this is not an issue, HEIL APPLE!"
You people know that this kind of thinking is why they're artificially crippling things like these? This is ridiculous and highly detrimental to the vast majority of users even if they're not aware of it, because when they are it's too late and you have to sell your base M chip to get another one and pay more, there's absolutely no positive thing you could come up when defending/justifying this.
I seriously think that some of you wouldn't defend/justify your own family as much as you defend apple.
You people know that this kind of thinking is why they're artificially crippling things like these? This is ridiculous and highly detrimental to the vast majority of users even if they're not aware of it, because when they are it's too late and you have to sell your base M chip to get another one and pay more, there's absolutely no positive thing you could come up when defending/justifying this.
I seriously think that some of you wouldn't defend/justify your own family as much as you defend apple.
Have you heard of working remotely? My company is based in a different state, they have an office in my city but that is hybrid. Thus, I work from home, hybrid office and HQ on a monthly basis. For that, I need to have a laptop that I travel with but I don't want to spend 10-12 hours working from home on a 14 laptop screen. Also, when you use Excel and other software, having 2 screens makes your life so much easier to move things from one screen to another or simply keep Outlook open in one and other software in the other. Having 2 monitors is mandatory to me.
I use my 16” Pro mostly in desktop mode, with an extended keyboard, trackball, magic trackpad and 2.5k monitor as the main display with the laptop off to the side as a secondary display.
Bad argument, there are already laptops with much better OLED screens, Promotion is just a buzzword for high refresh (reminder that there are laptops out there with 2x the refresh rate of the macbooks), much better keyboards, and at least on par speakers and trackpad, and they usually cost less! and in some you can even upgrade the SSD and RAM for peanuts.
It is not about money but for most it is about following corporate guidelines. I have a set up at my home office paid by the company with 2 monitors, external camera, external microphone, external speaker, mouse and external keyboard. Problem is that those are all connected into a Microsoft Surface that I hate. I am allowed to ge a new computer now after 3 years with my Surface and I can buy a MacBook Air or equivalent in price which is $1,200. Well, the basic M3 Pro that would allow me to run my current external monitors is $2,000. Add to that that my current Surface docking station which allows me to plug all the external stuff won't be compatible with the MacBook and with the lack of ports on it (mic, speaker and camera are all USB A) I have to find a dongle that allows me to plug all that stuff on the Mac.
You need to have imagination. That's all.
Think about ... hmm .. M2 Pro perhaps? There should be many deals for it. People just complaining in other thread that M3 isn't any faster than M2 Pro so you'll lose nothing.
Really, think outside the box.
Or wait a bit for when Apple launch M3 Pro Mac mini and buy used M2 Pro one instead. The solutions are out there.
Couple questions...
- How do you explain not being able to use two displays when the MBP is docked in clamshell mode? That second display buffer probably isn't doing anything when the internal display is off.
- Before M1 was released, how would Apple have known those buying the base "M" equipped laptops don't use external displays? It has been that way since the beginning of Apple Silicon, so of course no one wouldn't be. I seem to remember there was quite a bit of confusion/frustration when the M1 came out. Many people learned the hard way that the base M1 Macs could no longer do what they've been used to with their previous Macs in terms of multi-display support.
Couldn't they have given the option of two external displays while in clamshell mode?
Beat me to it.
The M3 mini will support two external displays like the M1 and M2 minis do now. What those people are talking about is that the base model M chips have two display controllers and each can connect to a monitor. For the laptops, one of those monitors is internal and the other is external. At least so far, the the M1/2/3 laptops do not have the ability to disable the internal display and connect that display controller to a second external display. That would be nice and would help some people but that is not how they are setup currently. I don’t know if that could be done in software or if it would require hardware support.
For the Mini both are external. It doesn’t really matter if the display is internal or external. As long people are clear about which computer that are discussing then the number of external displays supported should be clear.
It’s not the thunderbolt bus that is the limiting factor but the display controller. There are two and one is dedicated to the internal display on the MBA and low end MBP.According to this article from OWC, the two TB ports on the M1 Mini each have their own bus, and thus don't share bandwidth (at least not with each other; I don't know if the HDMI port shares bandwidth with one of them).
Thunderbolt on the M1 Mac mini – When 2 Actually Does Equal 4
I have read a lot of complaints about the new M1 based Macs only having two Thunderbolt ports. Having only two ports doesn't seem like enough for professional use. Both my 2019 16 inch MacBook Pro and my 2018 Mac mini have four Thunderbolt ports, and I can't imagine using a Mac with only two...eshop.macsales.com
It might be possible but it seems that was not how these were built. The display controller for the internal display appears to not be able to dynamically connect to an external port. It seems to be hard wired to the internal display.
That means the added manufacturing cost of enabling the base-M chips to drive >2 displays would be marginal, right?
Maybe, but it seems that Apple had to balance the amount of chip space dedicated to things like display controllers and decided that two was enough for the base chips. That calculation could change in later designs, but it seems to be where they are now.
What might be easier would be for them to make a change to recognize clamshell mode and reroute the unused display controller to a thunderbolt port so there could be two external monitors. That probably would take less hardware changes.
I think to answer this we need to know just how much extra chip space would have been needed, which is not info. that I have. It could indeed be marginal.
They are not necessarily wrong. Just because something is a hardware limitation doesn't mean it's not also artificial. Apple makes the decision whether to include it in the hardware or not during the design stage, and if the added manufacturing cost is marginal, the decision could have been based purely on marketing, to enforce an added product differentiation between the base and Pro/Max devices, rather than what would give optimum price/performance for the base device. That's exactly what's meant by an "artificial" limitation.
You're forgetting the business market. Walk into any office these days, and 2 displays is a pretty standard setup. Most office workers don't need any more power than the Air provides, and are certainly not power users, but will need to drive 2 displays if they are going to use an Air as their work laptop. I know of one poster who said his boss wanted to change to a Mac shop when Apple Silicon came out, but their budget would only allow for Airs, and they all use two monitors, so they had to stick with PCs.
If you are willing to change hardware, you can do all sorts of things.
The Asahi Linux folk are probably the best to ask the feasibility of accomplishing that in software on current hardware.
We just want two external monitors at $1600. That's not an unreasonable ask. But Apple knows people would lap it up.
It's still a $1600 pro laptop that can only do one external monitor. That's just pure profit.
Yeah, I'm still trying to figure it out
For instance, the M2 Mac mini has 2 TB4, 2 5Gbps USB-A. The M2 Pro mini has 4 TB4 and 2 5Gbps USB-C
The M2 Air, MBP both have two USB4.
The M2 Pro and Max MBP had 3 TB4.
The M2 Max Studio has 4 TB4, 2 10Gbps USB-C and 2 5Gbps USB-A
The M2 Ultra Studio changes those front ports to TB4 for a total of six.
The Mac Pro has 8 TB4, one internal and two external 5 Gbps USB-A ports - but also serial ATA and six free PCIe gen 4 slots, albeit supposedly bandwidth-constrained.
I think the M3 iMac is the same as the M2 model - two USB4 ports, and two optional USB 3 ports when you get the binned processor upgrade.
My working model has been that the M2 could power two USB4 ports, the M2 Pro and Max could power four, The Ultra 6. The M2 devices with screens can't be TB4 certified because they can't put two displays out over the wire.
But the collection of USB-C/A ports in general is really odd. If the mini can have two USB-A ports, why didn't they put them on the back of the iMac? Why the heck is the ability to have two 10Gbps USB-C ports on the iMac require you to buy the model with the higher-binned M3? If the M3 can support extra 10Gbps USB-C ports, why not put that port on the M3 MBP?
And the Pro throws a huge monkey wrench into the model - it has eight thunderbolt 4 ports plus SATA and PCIe. If the ultra can power eight thunderbolt 4 ports normally, why not have six TB4 ports on back of the studio rather than 4 and two weak USB-A ports? Even if it was a space constraint, losing two thunderbolt 4 ports so you don't need to spend a $5 for two dongles seems like a big loss.
If that's the case, they could have routed the built-in buffer to an external monitor when the laptop screen is folded. This already exist in PC world, but again, Apple is trying to maximize profits because its users will gladly pay $1600 for 8 GB and one external monitor support. And they love all the defenders. It's as-if the MacBook Pro with base M3 is not pro enough.