Apple’s M1 MacBooks Will Only Support Single External Displays

A popular setup used by MacBook owners is to dock their laptops on a stand and attach one or two monitors to it. However, with the new M1 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, users can still attach external displays to the laptops, but unfortunately the number of displays have been reduced to just one.

According to Apple, the new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro will only support a single 6K 60Hz display like the Apple Pro Display XDR. This means that if you wanted to use more monitors, you’d be out of luck, although we guess your laptop’s display could double up as the second display, albeit at a much smaller size.

To give you some context, the Intel-based MacBook Air and MacBook Pros could support either up to two 4K external displays, one 5K display, or one 6K display. Presumably this is a limitation of the M1 chipset, although for those who prefer having more displays, then the M1 Mac mini might be a better option because it comes with a HDMI port, so you can connect one monitor to the Thunderbolt 3 port, and one more through HDMI.

It is a bit of a pity that more monitors aren’t supported, but maybe that could change in the future. In the meantime, maybe those buying the new MacBook Air or MacBook Pro could consider an ultrawide display if they want more screen real estate.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Computers
Tags: displays, m1, macbook air, Macbook Pro, monitors