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Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter

Disappointing

Written by AP from Burr Ridge

Oct 17, 2008

I can not get this thing to output to my Samsung LN-4042H 40 inch LCD. The old miniDVI to VGA worked no problem with my old MacBook. I have checked and it is not a TV problem, so certainly something hardware or driver related. Also $29.99 for a video dongle seems steep to me.

553 of 766 people found this useful

Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter

Works perfectly

Written by GL from Richmond

Oct 24, 2008

Output to my 22" Viewsonic is clear and crisp and setup with no effort. Seems to be of the same quality as the mini DVI to VGA adapter which I used everyday for a year with out incident on my old macbook. Should be priced in the 14.99 - 19.99 range.

416 of 503 people found this useful

Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter

Disappointed (and embarrassed)

Written by HE from Parkland

Nov 20, 2008

So I picked up the Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter for my new MacBook to give a presentation at work. I was connecting to a Samsung 52" HDTV display. Keep in mind, I've done dozens of presentations on my previous MacBook Pro with the standard DVI to VGA Adapter and it has always worked flawlessly. Well, needless to say, this new Adapter is worthless. I could not get it to work and, from the looks of the other reviews here, I'm not alone.

Thankfully, my colleague had his PC notebook (running Windows Vista, mind you) and I was able to give my presentation. Unfortunately, I had to convert my Keynote presentation to a PowerPoint presentation so it didn't come out as good. I'm the resident Mac user in the office, so you can imagine there were a lot of PC vs. Mac jokes going on that day.

I hope Apple Inc. is reading these reviews and will come up with a solution, i.e. firmware update, to get this adapter working. Otherwise, I'm back to using a PC at work. Ugh, I'm cringing at just the thought.

97 of 101 people found this useful

Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter

How to make this work.

Written by RL from INDIANAPOLIS

Dec 18, 2008

There is a trick to getting this adapter to work with bigger tv's. I have a 32 inch LCD samsung and my friend has a 42 inch plasma samsung and it worked with both of them. First connect the adapter to the VGA cable, the tv should then recognize there is a pc connected so select the pc input. Then plug the adapter into the mini displayport and enjoy.

89 of 101 people found this useful

Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter

samsung and vga

Written by AM

Feb 11, 2009

Appears lots of people are upset with the adapter not working with their samsung. I don't have the adapter but the reason for the "non-working" condition is based on the samsung vga implementation. It appears that samsung needs or wants to see all grounds connected in the vga connection coming into their monitor / tv. In vga land, there are 5 grounds (one for each color, sync signals and a shield / connector ground). IF these grounds are not connected together "in some form", then in my findings, your samsung display will not "highlight" the "pcmode" and as result, nothing will be displayable on the monitor (usually you will get "check cable" message). The reason for the "differences" that people are experiencing in results is that some vga cables are built with the grounds connected, some computers (eg. some PC's) are implemented to switch (connect) their grounds at the output port, and some different adapters (versions) have the grounds "hard-wired" together, some don't (this one?). Not sure why samsung choose their implementation, but these are my recent findings from my efforts to connect two pc and mac to a newly purchased samsung 61 HD TV. The "easiest" way around things (in my opinion) is to get a vga cable with all ground pins and sheath ground connected... if you already have a vga ("non-working") cable, then try buy a short "extension" cable with the described characteristic and use it as an intermediate cable (ie. between the samsung monitor and the "non-working" vga cable). Hope this is understandable and helps.

76 of 77 people found this useful

Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter

Its rough being on the leading edge of technology...

Written by CM from Calgary

Dec 2, 2008

I bought this adapter with my new aluminum unibody macbook a couple of weeks ago. I immediately rushed home to try it out with my samsung LN46A550 TV... To my dismay the TV nor the macbook recognized that they were connected to eachother...

After some hard research and digging i found out that this particular adapter only supports up to a 30" display. For whatever reason, apple made it this way. So i returned my adapter and asked employees at the apple store what was up with only supporting 30" or smaller displays. To my surprise i was told good news and bad news... The good news, theres another adapter coming out for my macbook with mini display port... The bad news is that it is not shipping yet and they dont know when it will start shipping. My guess is it has something to do with signal strength for the display size....

Either way, I have an awesome new computer and im just gonna have to wait to hook it up to my 46" TV.

76 of 83 people found this useful

Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter

This adapter screwed a major presentation for me today

Written by EL from Stockholm

Feb 20, 2009

Prior to january this year, I had never (10 years) had any problems with getting my Mac to recognize an external display. However, four weeks ago at a MAJOR presentation (research grant funding) my colleague's Macbook air failed to recognize the projector. Thank god we had brought my machine as a backup, and the presentation went fine. Today, the same thing happened to me at an important event. While we didn't lose money, it was _quite_ embarrassing to appear as a 10-year old who doesn't know how to connect a projector, and I had to give my presentation without slides (nobody else had Keynote '09 on a Mac). Apparently there are a number of people claiming this adapter either does not have all ground pins correctly connected, or that it has physical issues that prevents some VGA cables from sliding all the way in.

This is a major issue right now, since there are no other miniDP->VGA adapters out there. For now, I would not recommend anybody to trust a new Macbook for a critical presentation - the next critical time I will play it safe with Powerpoint, just in case...

74 of 81 people found this useful

Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter

The Problem with Reviews

Written by RK from Richardson

May 14, 2009

The problem with product reviews is most people who submit reviews are those with a problem. This products works fine. Plugged it in and it worked. A product this simple is not usually commented on because there is not much to go wrong. I read a few reviews before I bought it but I had no problems. Does what it is supposed to do.

84 of 102 people found this useful

Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter

Useless

Written by JY from DENHAM SPRINGS

Nov 25, 2008

I've bought this part twice trying to get my Unibody Aluminum Macbook to work with my Samsung LN40A550 40" LCD. Does not work. The Macbook finds the monitor, and even shows supported resolutions and refresh rates, but the TV acts like no signal is getting to it.

Come on, Apple. It's only the most popular television / monitor brand out there. Let's get a fix on the way, please. Or, at least acknowledge the issue.

75 of 85 people found this useful

Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter

Review, on the road experience & tips on starting up the device

Written by TC from London

Nov 28, 2009

In order to use this you should have a Macbook that has a Mini DisplayPort, always check the model of your Macbook before buying as you can easily end up buying the mini DVI to VGA adapter instead of this or have a mini DVI connector older gen Macbooks.

In terms of whether it's compatible with projectors and LCD TV, so far I used it on two LCD TVs, both work flawlessly (LG and Samsung). The trick here is MAKE SURE THE MAC BOOK IS OFF/SHUTDOWN, attach the adapter to the Macbook, follow by the VGA connector. Once those are ALL CONNECTED, switch ON your Macbook. The OS will detect the port and enable the external screen normally. It's an IMPORTANT step, if you miss it the screen WILL BE BLANK, trying to click on detect screens in preference probably wont work as well.

When it works, you might want to switch to mirror mode, you can configure that in the display preference. I use that for presentations as I have to get a view on what I was presenting every now and then in front of me. Best resolution in mirror mode probably is nearer to the 720p (1280 x 720), which is a HD standard resolution, less distortion for what you try to display on the TV/Projector.

On the technical side, the adapter contains a Digital to Analog signal convertor (that's why it's a bit long, there is a circuit board and ICs in it), which may only be enabled if it detects a screen attached during initial boot up.

Another note is that there is a mini Displayport to HDMI adapter available on (Check Apple/Amazon). These are digital links which will probably provide better compatibilities or resolution to any HDMI capable HD TV. Some will even allow audio on the TV via adapter.

My 2 cents is for Apple to provide simple picture/graphical guide for users (on package or at display) or ask Apple store staffs to guide buyers. This can be very frustrating for normal users who isn't aware of the (simple) startup procedures.

Thanks for reading! Hope it helps :-).




Cheers,
Zen

48 of 52 people found this useful

Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter

Doesn't detect displays and poor color and resolution

Written by DG from Oshkosh

Nov 24, 2008

I just got my new MBPro and had to present at a meeting. I assumed that this adapter would just be plug and play into a Panasonic LCD projector. I was wrong.

I plugged it in and chose (Detect Displays) which it did but the resolution and color were terrible. I grabbed my colleagues HP laptop and it worked just fine and the color was great.

Very concerned as I use this laptop for presentations and spent a lot of money on it. Thankfully my old Macbook Pro (which always worked) is still in my office so I can switch back. Disappointed.

41 of 43 people found this useful

Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter

No go with 50" Samsung

Written by BG from Louisville

Nov 24, 2008

Brand new Macbook Pro Late 2008 using this cable to my 50in Samsung TV - MBP finds the display in the Sys Prefs/Displays but no signal detected on TV. Not sure if the fault is the Mac or the TV? Either way it stinks it doesn't work.

40 of 43 people found this useful

Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter

Works but is poorly engineered

Written by JG from Hawthorn Woods

Aug 29, 2009

The adapter works, but it adds to the clutter due to apple's putting all the connectors on the left. To make up for the poor placement of the display port, this cable should be at least a foot long to get some of the clutter behind the computer. the display port (usually always connected when on the desktop) is the front most port, getting in the way of the USB ports (which usually get plugged in and out). A 3-6 foot cable would be better to clean the cable mess.

48 of 60 people found this useful

Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter

Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter won't work with Samsung LCD TV

Written by PM from San Jose

Nov 26, 2008

My aluminum Macbook with the Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter won't work with a 46 inch Samsung LCD TV. Apparently lot's of users are having this problem. The Samsung TV won't even switch to the VGA PC mode with the Mini DisplayPort connected, in order to get the Samsung TV in the PC mode you have to unplug the DisplayPort, put the TV in VGA PC mode, and then you can plug in the Mini DisplayPort, but it still won't display any video from the MacBook. My Samsung TV worked fine in this mode with a Windows XP laptop, and displayed 1080p fine. It appears to be a problem with the DisplayPort Adapter, and it's inability to either drive the VGA signals or send the proper serial data stream informing the Samsung TV of it's resolution.
To get around the problem I had to buy the Mini DisplayPort to DVI adapter along with an HDMI to DVI cable. With this solution my Samsung TV worked fine with the cable plugged into the HDMI port, and it displays perfectly in 1080p mode. I think this is the only solution for the vast number of MacBook users out there trying to drive LCD TV's.

36 of 36 people found this useful

Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter

Design Flaw: Check before buying!

Written by SN from Hawthorne

Sep 19, 2009

The adapter cannot be secured to a VGA cable. You can tell just by looking at the holes; the first few millimeters of the holes are smooth plastic and the threads are recessed. This results in the adapter not having the ability to be secured to the cable, and every time it moves, the video becomes distorted. After discovering the flaw, I went back to the Apple store and looked at the rest of the Mini DisplayPort VGA adapters...they all had the same flaw. Wait until they fix this before you buy one.

41 of 49 people found this useful

Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter

Same as others

Written by JS from Clinton

Nov 15, 2008

My JVC tv worked just fine with my old macbook using the mini DVI to VGA. No luck with this product and my new macbook pro. I used the same resolution as before and got nothing. I thought I was upgrading!

35 of 37 people found this useful

Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter

Good, but needs a firmware update

Written by LS from Oakland

Nov 5, 2009

This adapter worked quite well for me, but then it began cutting out
or flickering. I did a web search and learned that Apple now has a
firmware update for the adapter which you can download.
Just plug in your computer with its power supply and with the external
VGA display connected, and run Software Update. So this problem
might explain some of the less-than-positive reviews.

33 of 38 people found this useful

Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter

Poorly designed connectors

Written by CY from Los Angeles

Aug 13, 2009

I do a lot of video work and these adapters don't securely connect to most VGA cables I've used. The two threaded holes are too deeply recessed so the VGA cable bolts don't connect (sorry for the weird terminology, but Apple appears to have censors that block the word "s see are ee double u). I end up needing to tape the two cables ends together to keep them attached.I never had this problem with Apple's DVI/VGA adapters. My recommendation: don't waste your money.

32 of 36 people found this useful