October 14th, 2008
More on Apple's new Mini DisplayPort (updated)
One of the announcements coming out of Cupertino is that their MacBooks now ship with a new video out port called the Mini DisplayPort (complete with funny capitalization and lack of space between the words). It means that you’ll have to remember to bring a US$30 dongle/adapter with you everywhere you go.
Part of the next-generation DisplayPort industry standard, the new Mini DisplayPort can drive up to a 30-inch widescreen display and is designed to complement HDMI. The Mini DisplayPort is just 10 percent the size of a full DVI connector.
From Wikipedia:
DisplayPort is a digital display interface standard (approved May 2006, current version 1.1 approved on April 2, 2007) put forth by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA). It defines a new license-free, royalty-free, digital audio/video interconnect, intended to be used primarily between a computer and its display monitor, or a computer and a home-theater system.
DisplayPort has an advantage over HDMI in that it is royalty free which makes it cheaper to implement (the HDMI royalty is 4 cents per device). DisplayPort’s largest supporter is Dell which has released two computer monitors that support DisplayPort and HDMI.
Adapters are available from Apple for using the MacBook’s Mini DisplayPort with older generation VGA ($29), DVI/HDMI ($29) and Dual-Link DVI displays.
Update: Ann R. Thryft wrote a detailed comparison of DisplayPort and HDMI for Electronics Design News (EDN) last month.
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Jason D. O'Grady is the editor of PowerPage.org, which has been publishing daily mobile technology news since December 1995. For disclosures on Jason's industry affiliations, click here or to view Jason's full profile click here.
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