One of the great features on the Nexus 4 is the ability to show your phone’s display on a big screen.
There are actually two cool ways to do this, one is via a cable, and the other is over WiFi using Miracast. The latter is more expensive, uses more power and right now doesn’t seem too easy to find compatible devices to beam to. No doubt I will get it going in the future but for now I decided to try out SlimPort.
What is SlimPort?
SlimPort branded products use the Mobility DisplayPort standard to display HD quality images on your big screen television. A SlimPort cable is compatible with any enabled micro USB port such as the one found on the Nexus 4 mobile phone.
SlimPort boasts the following advantages:
- Display Hi Res images up to 4K x 2K at 60Hz
- Low power consumption
- Ability to charge whilst viewing
- Available with HDMI, VGA and HDTV connectors
Review – SlimPort on the Nexus 4
Using the SlimPort cable on the Nexus 4 couldn’t be easier.
- Plug the SlimPort cable into the phone
- If using the HDMI version like me, you then plug your Television’s HDMI cable into the SlimPort adapter.
- Change your Television’s source to the appropriate HDMI port.
- Switch on your Nexus 4 and your display will appear simultaneously on the TV and phone’s screen.
The quality of the SlimPort image on the screen was very crisp and clear, and when it comes to viewing streaming video it seemed only limited by the app being used. Below are two demos I took, apologies for the less than ideal quality, but hey, this is an amateur blog – whadya expect!
But seriously, I hope you can see that the TV catchup streaming video actually looked good and sitting back on the sofa it was as clear as any image I normally get on my TV. The iPlayer stream was blocky, but this has always seemed to be a problem with streaming to the BBC’s Android app. It was watchable but slightly depressing that a decent picture was unavailable. I’ll be sticking to my Raspberry Pi for iPlayer viewing!
Here are the demos, apologies that the sound didn’t come through, it is there but my camera didn’t seem to pick it up very well.
- TV Catchup on a 32″ Samsung Series 5 TV via a Nexus 4 Phone. This looked great, clear and crisp and a nice high resolution.
- And iPlayer via a SlimPort cable and Nexus 4 Phone. This on the other hand didn’t look so good, somewhat blocky.
Like the battery pack I discussed in my last post, this is perhaps not something I will be using regularly but will be a neat little gadget to have up my sleeve when I want to show some footage on the big screen. It could be useful when stuck in a hotel with free WiFi but no decent TV stations, or for showing video footage shot
You can buy the SlimPort from Amazon.co.uk
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