Matrox DualHead2Go review

Once in a while, we see a product that's designed to do something straightforward, and which does it very well, but nonetheless leaves us a little perplexed as to why anyone wanted to do it in the first place.

That was the feeling we were left with after looking at Matrox's DualHead2Go display adapter. In essence, it's very simple. Like the dual-head graphics cards that have become common in desktop PCs, it allows you to connect two monitors to your PC at once and span the Windows desktop across both to provide more working space.

The device plugs into a D-Sub monitor port on your graphics card and provides two monitor connections of its own. If your graphics card lacks two monitor ports, all well and good, but almost all graphics cards already support two monitors, and new cards with the same cost half the price.

In its defence, it doesn't require you to open your PC's case - but even technophobes shouldn't find fitting an internal card too traumatic. Fitting a new graphics card to a laptop is also out of the question and it's at these that the Matrox is aimed.

To use the adapter, you'll need a notebook with a D-Sub output - but if you already have one, you'll find that in most cases, the software that comes with your laptop can be used to span your desktop across the notebook screen and the external monitor. The adapter allows you to span the desktop across the notebook screen as well as those of the two external monitors, but in practice, using three screens becomes a fairly disorientating experience.

Other than that, it offers more flexible options over where windows open and maximize. Setup is simple, but the device is only guaranteed to work with Intel integrated graphics, as well as a number of ATI chipsets. Not that nVidia users should be too concerned: the nView software supplied with nVidia graphics devices offer desktop-spanning capabilities that are every bit as flexible. Overall, an unnecessary purchase.