[People_Eater]

MacGod said:

What's the advantage of DisplayPort (mini or full-size) over HDMI? It seems that HDMI was rapidly emerging as the de facto connector for HDTVs, projectors, etc. It had started to appear on some PC laptops and computer monitors as well. I'm not pooh-poohing DisplayPort, just curious if it offers an advantage over HDMI.

HDMI has less bandwidth than DVI, so you're not going to be able to use 30" monitors and the like. Also, DisplayPort is a much more flexible standard. It also allows repeaters for a longer cable length. It allows the transmission of various video formats.

Besides, the HDMI connector is horrible. Not something I'd want to be plugging in and out of a portable.

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And People_Eater: I think the concern is that with previous MacBook Pros, you at least had a bog-standard DVI port, which exists on the majority of projectors and monitors. Yes, the MacBook still required a mini-DVI adapter, but the MBPs didn't for the majority of setups.

Not in my experience. Newer projectors might have the DVI port - but think about your typical usage scenario - a lecture theater. Even if the projector has a DVI port, the building only has VGA cabling installed in it - so you don't get a DVI connector at the podium.

There's a reason for this - DVI (and HDMI) have very restricted cable lengths. Once you exceed that cable length, you don't get a signal. And that length is shorter than distance required by most lecture theaters. But VGA works over much larger distances.

So, in every lecture theater I've been in, even Macbook Pro and powerbook users are required to use a dongle to plug into the VGA connection.