Dual Monitors and a Mac Mini

February 22nd, 2010

Best Buy allowed an exchange of the dead Blu-Ray player for a new monitor, a Samsung 23″ widescreen. I was planning to replace the existing 19″ Samsung, until I remembered: our 2009 Mac Mini can drive two monitors.

This wasn’t the case with the old Mac Mini now delegated to the television. But the 2009 Mac Mini has a Mini-DVI and Mini DisplayPort, and enough oomph to drive two screens. I just had to purchase a Mini DisplayPort to DVI adapter.

Running two monitors on a Mac is very straightforward. In System Preferences, the 23″ widescreen appears as 1080p (1920 x 1080). The smaller 19″ monitor is off on the left running at a slightly lesser resolution of 1440 x 900. Using Displays in System Preferences, you can tweak the color profiles, background image, and resolution, for each monitor. While in Arrangement, you can even drag the standard Mac menu bar to whichever monitor you like.

Anyhow, glad I remembered the dual monitor ability of the Mac Mini before putting the old monitor on Craigslist, turning it into a MAME cabinet, or setting it face-down as a cat bed warmer. Which is what I had in mind for the dead Blu-Ray player, if Best Buy had not been so kind.