TripleHead2Go
Review

TripleHead2Go
Company: Matrox
Price: $299
www.matrox.com

The TripleHead2Go by Matrox is a small (1.25″ x 3″ x 6″) box, that splits one video signal into 2 or 3. So if you are looking to add more monitors, is it the right tool for you?

Well, if you have 3 of the same digital monitors just laying around this devise does work, but I must say I wasn’t very impressed with the results I got.

The TripleHead2Go originally retailed for $399, but in recent weeks the price has dropped about $100. Nice, right? Maybe not.

As a Mac user I’m used to being able to just plug things in and have them work. The TripleHead2Go wasn’t that easy. In fact it took me multiple calls to Matrox tech support to figure out why I was getting such wacky results.

The TripleHead2Go requires a 3rd party system preference plug-in that doesn’t ship on the CD included with the unit. But that’s no big deal just be sure you download and install the software before you hook up the TripleHead2Go. Some explanation would be nice, documentation stating that fact. But why not include it on the CD?

The first few times I tried to set up my three monitors, my screens didn’t align or were out of sequence. In other words my center monitor was on my right or my right monitor was on my left as I scrolled around my desktop with my mouse. This was extremely frustrating because I plugged in the monitors in the order they should have appeared on my desktop.

The worst part was once I finally got all of the monitors in the right order the resolution was incredibly low and the image quality was very blurry. Throughout all of my testing I never achieved the resolutions I thought I should have. I was later told by Matrox tech support that it may be because the hardware I was testing the TripleHead2Go with had an insufficient video card.

I my opinion if you have a G5 tower or a MacPro the TripleHead2Go is not for you. You could easily add a faster and more powerful video card for half of the cost of the TripleHead2Go and be able to attached 4 monitors to your system rather then just three.

However, if you have a MacBook or a MacBook Pro and need to add more then one monitor to your setup then the TripleHead2Go just may be an option. The TripleHead2Go is small enough to take with you when you are on the road but are you really going to carry around 3 extra monitors with you?

Needless to say the TripleHead2Go is not something I highly recommend and I only give it a MyMac rating of 1 out of 5.

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