My work laptop, a Dell XPS M1210, has a VGA port that appears to have died. Likely to require replacement mobo ($1000) apparently, which doesn't seem worth it. It's probably 11 months shy of when I might have been able to just argue for a replacement (and actually I rather like it, although new toys are good).

The main reason why I care is that work I usually hook it up to a 22" external monitor. Is there any cost effective way of hooking it up to the monitor not via VGA. I assume S-Video won't give sufficient resolution, and have heard that external graphic units exist, but I'm not having much luck finding them. Any thoughts or solutions?