Might be a dumb question...bear with me.
Does the MacBook, with its integrated graphics (not a standalone, dedicated ATi or nVidia card), work well in spanning/extended desktop situations?
I think I'll be getting one (the white $1,299 SuperDrive model) after the Core 2 Duo switch coming soon, and I was just curious...I'd be going a couple of inches smaller than the 15" PowerBook I'm accustomed to. If that got to be a bit small and cramped for me, how well does the MacBook do connected to an external display? Does its lack of a graphics card show up as a negative in any way in this type of scenario?
Does it operate in "closed lid" mode, and fling all its resources to the main, connected display? Or do you keep the MacBook open, and the resources and memory are split between the two? I've never done this before, and certainly not with a machine without beefy, dedicated graphics, so it's all new to me...
Beyond theory and "it should..." stuff, is anyone here currently doing this? Any real-life tidbits and experiences you want to share? I know Apple's site touts this on their MacBook section, but I was wondering how well (how smooth, responsive, etc.) it was...if there was any sort of hit or downside? Or does it work as well as any Mac with a graphics card?
I was all set to get an iMac, but I simply love having a notebook too much (and no, I don't want both...having two computers sucks, and I couldn't afford to anyway).
So what's the story on all this? And I don't game, so that doesn't factor in at all (I know gaming is one of those things the integrated graphics of the Mac mini and MacBook don't excel at). I'm Safari, Mail, iTunes, iLife and Adobe CS...