
In both PCs and Macs, you can opt whether you want the second screen to mirror your laptop screen or to act as an extension of the first.

Set up the orientation of the monitors.On Macs, the connection of an external monitor is automatically recognized. It’s easy to do this in Windows* 11 by going to your Desktop, right click your mouse and go to Display Settings. Tell your operating system you’re using a second screen.Make sure that you get a monitor cable that matches the sockets on your laptop and monitor. When you connect an external monitor to a laptop computer, you have to run a cable between the two devices. Three Things You’ll Need to Do When Connecting Your Laptop to a Monitor But when you connect your laptop to a second desktop screen, you can actually have your proverbial cake and eat it too by running both at the same time. Extra options in Windows* 11: With Windows* 11, you can choose between a traditional desktop view or the new metro menu.This type of setup is ideal for a number of scenarios, from leisure activities like video chatting while you’re on Facebook to updating a work spreadsheet while you’re referencing facts on another platform. Functions can be moved from one screen to the other so that you don’t have to shrink windows down or toggle to see two programs at the same time.

More screen real estate: By connecting your laptop to a monitor, you can literally double the size of your available screen space.This gives you a cool setup that prevents you from having to keep toggling back and forth between applications.

