The IT Nerd

Something that was quietly launched recently was the Belkin Miracast Video Adapter. It’s purpose is to allow you to mirror the display on your Android smartphone to your HDTV over the air. That way you can play your favourite game or surf the net on a much bigger screen. The question is, how well does it work?

The first thing is that you need to have an Android phone that works with it. If you have a phone running Android 4.2 or higher, you’re in business. I didn’t have a test phone handy with Android 4.2 so I had to borrow one for this test. If you’re unsure about whether your phone will work or not, here’s a list of what Belkin has tested. Assuming you have a phone that works, here’s what you need to do next:

1. Plug the Miracast into your HDTV’s HDMI port. You may need the included HDMI extension cable to plug it in.
2. Plug the included USB cable into the Miracast and an available USB port on your HDTV.
3. Using your remote control, set your TV to the HDMI port that you plugged the Miracast into. If you see some instructions on your screen, you’re doing fine so far.
4. Grab your Android phone and follow the on screen instructions to connect the smartphone to the Miracast. What you have to do varies from device to device. But it’s not more than three or four steps to connect your phone to the Miracast.
5. Done!

Once you’re set up, anything on the screen of your phone will be mirrored exactly in 1080p resolution on your TV. Any sound that would normally come from your device will also be piped through the TV speakers. The mirroring (or “Casting” if you’re on a Nexus device) goes until you tell it to stop. The picture looked good. It’s likely best suited to watching YouTube videos in HQ. Games and apps looked decent. But some elements did suffer from being blown up in size to fit a HDTV. None of it is objectionable. The only real objection is that there is some lag between the phone screen and the TV. So if you’re playing a first person shooter, you’ll be forced to look at the phone’s screen to play.

So, what can you expect to pay for the Belkin Miracast? It retails for $80 MSRP. If you have a supported phone and you’d be using it for something other than hard core gaming such as displaying presentations or watching videos, the Belkin Miracast is worth a look to take what’s on your phone and display it on your TV.

This entry was posted on February 13, 2014 at 8:34 am and is filed under Products with tags Belkin. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.