I’m extremely surprised that there hasn’t been any mid-range work done on this for laptops with either USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt. I know from personal and work experience that a dual-out box that can push the GUI around better than the DualHead2Go would be fantastic, similar to a USB-based video card but with a less bandwidth-constrained environment. Right now, there’s only certain Dell laptops using an E-port that do anything similar.
Seems like the manufacturers are doing really high-end stuff, like Magma’s 3-port 220w beast, which is overkill and over-priced ($700 for the enclosure) for pushing two externals.
Sony VAIO Z [1] does exactly this - it uses Thunderbolt-over-USB-plug to connect external Radeon 6650M and Blu-Ray Burner.
But I'm also waiting for cheap ($200 max) Apple-compatible PCIe enclosure, so I could play newer games on my 13" MBP. I don't really want bigger screen and more weight and don't really need more power that 15" gives, but playing some game from time to time would be nice.
How many with macbooks are up with paying $500 dollars for everything (including the thunderbolt cable?) and $300 for normal people with expresscard slotted laptops (mpcie is tricky, but same price)?
Seems like the manufacturers are doing really high-end stuff, like Magma’s 3-port 220w beast, which is overkill and over-priced ($700 for the enclosure) for pushing two externals.