BlackBerry® PlayBook™ Accessories

[jgoldman]

I just wanted to let everyone know that I ordered HP's VGA to HDMI adapter and then bought and attached a female/female HDMI coupler. I then plugged in my micro HDMI to HDMI cable to the other end of the coupler and to my Playbook. When i plugged my projector's VGA cable into the other end of the HP adapter the projector recognized the Playbook and displayed the screen beautifully. 

The display started in native resolution which was a bit smallish but I was able to adjust the display output resolution settings and it was fine. I tried saved video and video over the browser as well as various apps and documents and it all looked great. Finally I ran a powerpoint presentation and used the HDMI output option where I could see the slide notes on the Playbook but they didnt show up on the display and that worked too.

The only glitch I found was that it got confused when I rotated the Playbook to portrait mode.

The HP adapter was $50 bucks with taxes and shipping and worth every penny. It does not require an external power source either. Another victory for me and my new favorite toy (I mean company equipment for business purposes only of course) 

[knottyrope]

i have not tested vga with mine. but the hdmi has been flawless in portrait or land scape mode on my 50in plasma so far

[atinottawa]

I have this device as well but I find the picture quality so-so and the aspect ratio all wrong when I connect it to my office projector. Anyone else have this experience? I think I tried all of the display settings but to no avail.

Maybe it's an issue with my projector, but this doesn't really help as my hope was I could take this thing into any boardroom and do a Powerpoint presentation (like my partner does with his iPad) but I don't think I would take that chance now.

[knottyrope]

you have to match the output of the Playbook to the projector.

My TV will tell me when it is running at 720 vs 1080, not all projectors do this though.

Are you running a movie or a looking at the home screen of the playbook? The home screen will show expanded to fit the screen.

[jgoldman]

nope. i have not had this problem and i've used it in several meetings on different projectors including a presentation for senior management and they were more impressed with the playbook than the presentation. picture and aspect ratio are great as i've stated even when showing streaming video, text documents, spreadsheets, pictures and powerpoints. maybe its your office projector or else you could just give your playbook to someone who knows how to use it and just borrow your partner's ibad.

[atinottawa]

Haha. Find someone who knows how to use it. Like there's an actual interface to work with in the Playbook. All I know is I can take a **bleep** Dell laptop anywhere and plug it into a **bleep** projector, and go. With the "Professional Grade Tablet" it either requires $250 worth of third party hardware (Fury -- "I've had no negative feedback yet") or half a hour of friggin around in some boardroom. They were more impressed with your Playbook than your deck? Up here in Canada, land of RIM, we call that being polite.

Mine's going to be on Ebay for some other sucker soon if this isn't worked out in the next software update.

[willum42]

Have you by chance got Part Numbers???

[knottyrope]

30 dollars online.

http://www.shopping.hp.com/product/computer/categories/cables/1/accessories/NP031AA%2523ABA

[FrancisM912]

Hi.  I'm interested in the HDMI to VGA adapter.  I would like to know what is the HDMI at the other end, male or female? If female, can I use a micro HDMI to HDMI cable to attach to the HDMI to VGA adapter and make it work on my PlayBook?

[tpz60]

The adaptor at the other end is male. I purchase a short female to female adaptor (about 2" long) from Tiger Direct.  I then utilized the standard HDMI to micro HDMI cable that came with my Playbook ...plugging the standard HDMI into Tiger Direct female/female adapter and the mini HDMI into the Playbook.  On the other side of the HP Adaptor, I purchased a ...what was called a male to male "VGA gender changer" that allowed me to plug the HP adaptor into the projector without the need of using the long standard female to female VGA cable that comes with most projectors.