How to use a laptop as a monitor?
If you have seen those graphic designers who use multiple monitors, you would definitely be wondering how to use your laptop as the second monitor. Well, if you really have a laptop, there are several ways you can use your laptop as the second monitor.
Can you use your laptop as the second monitor? Like we already stated, you can do so, but it isn't actually as easy as might appear to be. The culture of Work From Home is taking a massive leap of late (whether due to the impending pandemic or otherwise). Working on the small screen of laptops is not always the best option. Your eyes will thank you for the rest they will get when you work with a bigger font and well-optimized screens.
Laptops come with some big advantages. One such advantage is that a laptop provides high-end portability. That makes it one of the flexible options as a second monitor. Why use a laptop as the second monitor?
There are several advantages that come associated with the use of a laptop as a monitor. You would only need to have access to a working operating system and a perfectly working screen. Using another laptop as a monitor is useful if you don't have another monitor and is a great workaround to use existing resources intelligently. It will also help you save on the battery life of your laptop since displaying visuals also consume a considerable amount of energy.
A second monitor can be useful in many ways, a few of which can include the following options -
Toggling between two different applications, browser windows and other details can be handled efficiently with a second monitor. Why not begin using your existing old laptop as a second monitor? You can perhaps come across better use cases. How to use a Laptop as monitor?
For the sake of this tutorial, we will use the Windows operating system. We will divide the steps into 2 parts. First, we will enable your laptop to stream content from it to the other display. Then, we will configure the secondary laptop that you want to use as a screen. Enable your laptop
The steps here involve setting up the laptop that you want to use as a monitor. The settings here will help you make your laptop stream the content from the source that you want to connect it to.
Here we go with the settings - Connect with your main Desktop or Laptop
Now that you have configured your laptop to work as a monitor, the next step would be to stream content from your primary or main device to this laptop.
Follow the steps as indicated here below -
That does it. You should now be able to use your laptop as the second monitor for your main device.
Do note that Extend is one of the options you can use for extending your main device display to another laptop. You would also have access to a few other options as well -
The method above uses the Miracast feature on Windows operating system. You can even use a third-party tool such as Space Deck for connecting your laptop as the secondary monitor. However, we would not necessarily recommend opting for it unless the above option doesn't work for you. In essence, the built-in method should be your first choice for this purpose.The Concluding Thoughts
Using your laptop screen as a monitor is a great option when you don't have a separate monitor. This is especially true nowadays when even desktops are coming as one whole unit instead of individual CPU and monitor. Having separate screens is useful in a lot of professions like for graphic designers, software developers, gamers, etc. So if do have such a requirement as well as another laptop at your disposal, make great use of it.