5 Things to Know About Running Dual Monitors on an M1 MacBook Air

You need a DisplayLink adapter or dock The M1 chip physically supports only one external display through its built-in ports. A DisplayLink adapter tricks the Mac into treating two monitors as a single video stream.

It works well for productivity tasks Code, writing, browsing, and spreadsheets run fine. The DisplayLink chip compresses video slightly and adds a tiny amount of latency, but it’s unnoticeable for everyday work.

Avoid it for video editing or gaming The compression and latency make it unsuitable for graphics-intensive work. Stick to the single built-in display port for those tasks.

HDMI splitters and mirrored displays won’t help Those just duplicate one screen. You want extended desktops, which only DisplayLink provides.

Buy a reputable dock Stick with brands like Plugable, Dell, or Anker. The MacBook Air driver is free and stable.