Developer's Journal: Cinema Displays are not for developers

KvmConfused I don't usually spend time blogging "personal stories", but I feel this story has a few lessons that will benefit all developers. Let me set the scene and see if it sounds familiar: Like most programming geeks, I have more than one computer at my desk. One is a powerful, easy to upgrade custom built desktop PC connected to a beautiful 23" Apple Cinema Display; the other is a top of the line ThinkPad T60. I love both machines, but I tend to only use my desktop for occasional gaming (though Bioshock and soon Halo 3 make that even more occasional) and I end up using my ThinkPad for all of my work (including this very post). That means I spend 50+ hours a week staring at a 15" screen using a travel sized mouse when there is a giant 23" Cinema Display behind me connected to a PC with countless "top of the line" peripherals.

That made me stop and say to myself, "Self- if you have a huge screen sitting behind you, why don't you spend more time using it?!" "That's a good idea," I thought. "Surely I can run to my local Fry's Electronics and find a KVM switch to solve my problem and then develop in bliss." That was one of my last positive thoughts for the day.

As it turns out, connecting a VGA equipped ThinkPad to a DVI Cinema Display is not an easy cheap task. If you go to your local big box electronics store, you're probably going to find a slew of KVM switches equipped with DVI, VGA, USB and (yes) PS/2. "PS/2?" you say. "Do they even include those ports on computers these days?" Apparently they do, and KVM manufactures are still spitting out switches that primarily cater to VGA and PS/2 setups. If you wade through the sea of Iogear devices, though, you'll find a few on the shelves equipped for DVI. But there's a catch. Almost all retail KVM switches limit DVI connections to 1600 x 1200 max resolutions. How many power users looking for a KVM switch with DVI really have a monitor with a max resolution of 1600 x 1200? Not this one.

To connect your VGA source to your already expensive Cinema Display, you're left with a couple of equally expensive options:

  1. If your laptop maker produces a docking station for your machine that provides a DVI-D connection (and the "-D" is important- digital DVI is required for the Cinema Display to work), buy it. For a couple hundred dollars, that will be your cheapest option. You can then connect your laptop directly to the Cinema Display or to a DVI KVM switch.
  2. If that's not available (or if you're not dealing with a laptop), you're going to have to buy a VGA to DVI-D converter. Expect to spend upwards of $250 for that pleasure. The $10 adapters at Fry's will not solve your problem. Adapters will pass through DVI-A (or analog) signal, which will not work with the Cinema Display.

Once you've found a way to get your VGA traveling in digital DVI format, you now need a high-end DVI KVM switch to handle the resolutions of the Cinema Display. Don't waste your time with the Iogear and Belkin brands in the stores- I've tried them all and returned them all. They do not work with the Cinema Display. Instead, look for a Gefen or Avocent KVM switch online to handle your WUXGA (1920 x 1200) resolutions. It'll set you back another couple hundred dollars, but that's life with the Cinema Display.

So let's total it up. To use your 23" Cinema Display with your VGA equipped laptop, first you'll drop about $900 on the monitor, then $250 on the docking station, then $200 on the KVM switch, for a grand total of $1350. For half that, you can buy a Dell 24" monitor that comes with DVI and VGA connectors. And thus my conclusion: Cinema Displays are not for developers. They may be pretty on your desk, but they're not nearly flexible enough to handle the demands of your average .NET developer.

10 Comments

  • What about using the VGA port on the Cinema Display?

  • any reason why you couldn't just use remote desktop to connect to your laptop? you'd then be able to do all the work on your laptop using your big monitor, fullsize keyboard/mouse, etc w/o the other investments.

  • I find myself doing the same: I do most of my "business" work on my T60 while my extremely powerful workstation sits idle quite a bit. I have been making more of an effort to utilize the WS though, especially for development where compile times take a fraction of the time.

    The Cinema displays are indeed pretty, but my 20" 1600x1200 LCD has been serving me well for a few years now.

  • Wow, what a generic and over the top conclusion to draw from a single experience. How about we re-title the blog post: "Developer's Journal: Cinema Displays are not for developers who have laptops with VGA output". My MacBook Pro has a DVI output, so I'm not in that boat. I suspect that there are quite a few people getting laptops with DVI output these days for specifically the reason you have mentioned. Instead of writing off Cinema Displays, how about we emphasize the importance of getting a laptop with DVI on our future purchases?

    Just my two cents :)

  • anything that makes a developer more productive is good - mouse, keyboard & big monitors, to name a few..

  • I'm sorry, but you're a masochist. Unless you're on the road 24/7 I don't see any reason why you would have to use a notebook for developing instead of desktop. Those laptops have the slowest hard drives and if you use VS you can't get a fast enough hard drive. I have two Raptors raided just so I can squeeze the last bit out of them and you're using a laptop?! So yeah, you know where I stand on this :-)

  • Tony- Are you being sarcastic? :) As far as I know, all of the Aluminum Cinema Displays only have DVI-D inputs.

  • @Blair and Along- Good suggestions about using Remote Desktop (or similar) programs as an alternative. I'm not sure the refresh rate is fast enough for some of the work I do (like recording web casts), but it could work for some people. Thanks for the feedback.

    @Brent- Thanks for bringing a little realism to my sensational headline. :) Clearly, the Cinema Display is not all bad; I bought one, after all. But as long as ThinkPads- which still ship with VGA- are (unofficially) the machine of choice for .NET developers, Apple's displays will remain harder to use than most.

    @PBZ- I must be a masochist. I just love my ThinkPad. I'm try to get therapy, though, and the KVM is the first step. ;)

    -Todd

  • The point with Synergy is that you use both monitors, so the screen refresh is not a concern as that's not shared. Only the keyboard and mouse are shared.

    Synergy is nothing like remote desktop.

  • @Blair- Thanks for clarifying. I've never worked with Synergy and made a bad assumption in my reply. Either way, my goal (obviously) was to get the laptop on my larger monitor, so this wouldn't quite solve my problem. Good resource nonetheless for others!

    -Todd

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