Reviews for Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter

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.

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...

I can't even give this product a one star rating because the design is flawed and it just doesn't work but they won't let you not rate it. The screws are too short and the pin housing is not inset far enough to get a good connection with the VGA cable. I returned it to the Best Buy store and, after trying three other Apple VGA adapters that were the same, finding that mine wasn't a lemon, the manager of the Geek Squad went above and beyond to help me find a different VGA cable that would work with this adapter. After going through all the VGA cables he had there in Best Buy, and there were several, we came to the conclusion that none of them would work with the new Apple VGA adapter.

My boss gives presentations on color all over the world and we have NEVER had a problem with earlier Apple VGA adapters for previous models of Macs. But this one just doesn't work. You need a tight connection with the pins for a projector to project colors correctly. And yes, both my computers and the projector are calibrated for color. When I saw the colors projecting totally incorrectly and flaring off the screen and realized what the problem was, I put the exact same presentation on our MacBook, instead of the new MacBook Pro, using the older VGA adapter and it projected perfectly.

I see that MM from Newport News and JP from Paradise both had the same issue in their reviews. Unfortunately, duct tape may keep the adaptor hooked to the cable, but it still will not enable it to project colors correctly because you cannot get a tight pin connection.

Please, please redesign this product as soon as possible!

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.

The limitations of this adaptor are not mentioned anywhere on the store page.

Only by digging though support does one find out that "VGA displays that use higher refresh rates (such as 85 Hz) at resolutions of 1600 x 1200 or greater may not generate video properly until you lower the refresh rate."

"May" the DAC chip on the adaptor is either designed and the firmware is written to support 1600 x 1200 @ 85 Hz or it is not.

The solution is simply to make technical specifications available to the buyer or at least provide the above warning amongst the overview.

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.

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.

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.

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!