Back in May I reviewed my top 10 favorite features of Mac OS X. One of my Mac OS X Top X was pertaining to the connection to external projectors, monitors, or TVs. Back then I did not have the opportunity to try this feature with a widescreen Mac. Now I am in that fortunate position.
In particular, I am talking about item #8, quoted below for reference:
8. Connections to Projectors, TVs and External Monitors
Do you have a wide-screen Windows laptop? If yes, then you probably more than once ran into the problem of your laptop screen’s resolution changing when you connect it to a projector. I do not know why it is set up that way, but I see it every day at work. Typically the laptop screen switches to 4:3 aspect ratio to match the projector’s aspect ratio. You can then switch it back to widescreen afterwards, but why should you have to? To be fair, my PowerBook is not a widescreen display, so I do not really know that Mac’s do not have this problem but based on my experience of connecting various TVs, monitors and projectors to it I have just come to believe that it always works well. I would appreciate if anyone in the know could comment on this.
Well, I am pleased to be able to report, that the Macbook works just as well with a projector as my PowerBook. Upon first connecting the MacBook to a TV and to a projector it switched to mirrored mode, i.e., the laptop screen and the external screen showed the same content. That resulted in some streching on the laptop screen. This was quickly resolved by going to System Preferences/Display, and disabling the mirroring. After disconnecting and then reconnecting, the MacBook remembered the previous setting. Interestingly, when connected to an external monitor, it directly went to nonmirrored mode.
At this point I do not remember any more whether the first time I connected a projector to my PowerBook it went to mirrored mode or not, but this is of little concern. It is a fact that after once configuring the display settings with a projector it now goes back to the same setting without further ado.