Netbook, also called mini notebook, is getting popular nowadays. It is small, light and inexpensive laptop. Many people like Netbook or laptop over desktop because of the mobility.
The trade off for small laptop is it has small LCD screen. For Netbook, the screen is about 8-10 inch. While for laptop, it can goes as small as 12 inch. So, home users would buy another larger LCD monitor when they use it at home.With the laptop’s external connector, we can extend our display to dual display with both laptop’s LCD screen and external monitor as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Extend laptop display with external monitor
It is very simple to configure:
- Connect the laptop or Netbook’s VGA connector to the external monitor
- Press Function (Fn) + Video Out (normally is F4) key on the laptop’s keyboard. Refer to Figure 2.
Laptop's Video Out Function Key Location
You can repeat this step for multiple times to toggle the settings.
- Or you can use the Windows desktop display property (Right click Windows desktop | Property | Settings), then change the Display to second monitor, and check the “Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor” option. Refer to Figure 3.
Windows desktop dual display property setup
You can extend the display to TV with S-Video or LCD TV with the similar setup.
What is the application for dual display setting? Some users likes to use the extended display to watch video or monitor their stock trading software while they use the primary screen for their normal work. While some programmers use the dual monitor to ease their coding activity.