Thinkpads Forum

I have a Thinkpad X200 Tablet in an Ultrabase doc. I'd like to be able to use two external monitors when docked (disabling the X200 built in display).

Right now I have:

a Planar 22" PL2210MW 1680 x 1050 pluged into the VGA port on the dock and serving as my primary monitor.
a Samsung SyncMaster 245t 24" 1920 x 1080 plugged into the display port on the dock and the HDMI in on the monitor (using a DisplayPort to HDMI cable).

With the laptop closed both monitors work, I'm able to extend my desktop amongst both monitors. But text on the Samsung looks horrible. (it defaulted to 30 Hz, and I switched it to 60 Hz which helped a bit), but the Intel Graphics Media driver seems to force me to designate one monitor as the "Monitor" and one monitor as the "Digital Television", and the Digital Televison just doesn't have crisp text. It looks quite blurry/jaggy like it was poorly scaled.

Any thoughts about how to configure both monitors to be crisp?

Thanks.

Try to send 1920x1200 to the Samsung... the 245T is 16:10, not 16:9. Everything but native (except half-native, etc.) will look horrible if stretched fullscreen on a LCD.

Interestingly, that wasn't an option using the DisplayPort to HDMI cable. I switched to a DisplayPort to DVI cable and was able to select (in fact it defaulted to) 1920 x 1200 and looks much better. Text still looks more crisp on the Planar, which is funny because I'd have expected the Samsung to be the better panel and it's using a digital interface, but they are both quite usable now.

Also, the Intel Graphics driver see the Samsung as a "Digital Display" vs. seeing it as a "Digital TV" with the HDMI cable.

Thanks.

If the Thinkpad only identifies them as generic LCD display or TV display, see if you can find the actual monitor driver for both of the displays from Planar and Samsung.