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DisplayPort 101

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Yesterday, I noted the differences between Lenovo’s X200 docking station and Dell’s Latitude XT docking station. One of the main differences is their support of different video interfaces: the Dell Latitude supports DVI and VGA, while the Lenovo dock supports VGA and a DisplayPort.

As DisplayPorts are slowly making their way to the mobile world, many people, like myself, don’t know the difference between a DisplayPort and the ignition switch in your car. Thankfully, Lenovo’s Matt Kohut has penned a great article introducing us to the benefits of a DisplayPort and why we see that port there instead of a DVI. Head over and check it out.

5 Comments

5 Comments

  1. Frank

    10/21/2008 at 7:44 am

    Thanks for the link. I already wondered why they usea display port and not HDMI, but well, now it makes more sense for me and I really like the idea of the display port. Great.

  2. Joe

    10/21/2008 at 9:10 am

    I think DisplayPort is the stupidest standard out there. The consumer electronics sector and the computing sector had finally decided on a common standard with HDMI, which a few HDCP handshake issues aside, works pretty well. Now, for the main reason being that computer companies are too cheap to pay licensing fees to the HDMI group, they want to switch to something entirely new, that almost no displays have yet.

    … Yeah, that seems smart to me.

  3. wickedpheonix

    10/21/2008 at 9:32 am

    Yeah Joe, it is smart because it a) drives the cost of equipment down and b) is easy to use with legacy devices through a dongle. I mean how hard is it to put a dongle on the port and keep it there (we are talking about a docking station here)?

  4. Sumocat

    10/21/2008 at 9:38 am

    Joe: If you read the article, it’s pretty apparent DisplayPort has strong advantages over HDMI for computer displays. DisplayPort supports potential daisy-chaining for multiple displays, offers simpler backward compatibility with current displays, and includes an auxiliary channel for data. HDMI is great and probably better for A/V, particularly on high-end systems, but DisplayPort looks more useful for computers.

  5. whoismoses

    12/10/2008 at 2:53 pm

    HDMI also does not support turning the monitor on or off. So for example, if you turn your computer on without turning the monitor on and your computer boots into your OS and then turn the monitor/TV on you won’t get a image. Your OS can also not tell your monitor to turn off when it should fall asleep. On the other side of things, it is very confusing to have both. I don’t like how I can’t just plug my HDMI cable into a display port.

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