Many if not all recent Mac or Macbook computers have the ability to drive a 30″ display to its maximum 2560×1600 resolution. However, the plain vanilla DisplayPort to DVI adapter won’t let you do that. Instead you have to buy Apple’s $99 adapter that uses USB to bring extra juice and a Dual-DVI port to handle the extra bandwidth. I’ve never tried Apple’s version, but if you’re looking for an alternative supplier, I got my hands on the Kanex iAdapt C30 and I tested it with my Dell 3007WFP 30″ monitor and a Macbook Pro 13” 2009. The combination worked perfectly and there was no issues at all: the image was pristine as I would expect from a digital source. The Kanex C30 seems to work exactly like the Apple adapter is supposed to (I didread bad things about it), so it’s a drop-in replacement. Actually, even the $99 price is the same – I wish that Kanex would have given a financial incentive to buy its product, but at this point this is not the case.
This is how the iAdapt C30 works
iAdapt C30 in action with a Macbook Pro 13” 2009 and a Dell 3007WFP
Filed in . Read more about Hands-On, iMac, Mac Mini and Macbook.