Is it possible to connect a MacBook to two monitors?

Question

My friend has a MacBook from around when OS X Leopard came out. It's one of the white plastic ones. Can he connect this to two monitors? If not, what does he need to do so?

Moderator Edit:

Similar, but not exact duplicate:
Connecting two external monitors to a laptop?

Answer 1

Yes, such is possible. There exist USB to VGA adapters that will allow two or more monitors on a MacBook. Here's a link to a blog post that reviews one such product:

REVIEW: EVGA USB VGA Adapter Adds Two or MORE Monitors to MacBook Pro

And here's another such product: TRITTON Technologies TRI-UV200 SEE2 Xtreme

I use a Tritton USB to VGA adapter with my PC at work, and I am generally satisfied. It works fine for most applications, but don't expect good refresh rates for video playback or video games. YMMV.

UPDATE: There's also a product from Matrox called DualHead2Go which will expand your VGA port to support two monitors. It shows Macbook support. Read up at Matrox finally adds Mac compatibility to DualHead2Go and TripleHead2Go. I expect this may perform better than the USB adapters.

Answer 2

Adding to cwrea's answer:

The tritton solution seems to be the only one that can do DVI. I'd look into that one.

If this were a MacBook Pro with an Express Card slot, there are Express Card solutions with DVI output out there. But I cannot recommend any particular product.

Honestly, the two displays on a MacBook situation is a bit dire.

Answer 3

Get an external video adapter - if you don't need a lot of rendering performance, a USB-to-DVI video adapter should work fine. You can use these to add a bunch of outputs (again, as long as raw performance isn't an issue).

I wouldn't be shocked to see a native Thunderbolt solution by year end, though. (I'm not sure if these comply to the latest DisplayPort spec, but if they do they support daisy-chaining natively using DP rather than DVI...at least once monitors start shipping that support it.)