clearing the air on MHL (HDMI) adapters with the Amaze

[iceboxx187]

First off, I'm not a super techy techy kinda guy, so I am not going to attempt to sound like one. My wife and I recently purchased the top 2 tmobile smartphones (HTC Amaze for her, Galaxy s2 for me). I googled all over the place for info about mhl before and after purchasing these two phones, and from what I had gathered, the two phones where pinned differently and you had to use a HTC mhl adapter for the HTC or a Samsung for the s2. However, I was more worried about my phone having mhl support than she was, so I purchased the samsung adapter yesterday. The shape of the outer casing of the samsung microusb adapter was slightly different than the HTC power cord, but the innner part looked exactly the same. So, after watching a movie on my s2 we got curious and tried plugging the samsung adapter into the htc and it fit like a glove. I then plugged the samsung power cord into the adapter and the HTC started to charge. So, I went ahead and pluged the HDMI cable into the adapter and the TV lit up! The samsung MHL adapter works with the HTC amaze! I played a video to verify the sound worked great and all that, then snapped a picture (worth a thousand words) of the samsung adapter and htc amaze working on my tv. I highly doubt that the HTC mhl adapter will work on the s2 because the outer casing is too big to fit in the s2's charging port, so you wont be able to use an HTC charging cord on the samsung adapter either, but samsung has been using this same usb adapter for a long time now so you probably already have one laying around. Anyway, here's a picture of MHL through a samsung adapter on an HTC amaze.

 

[iceboxx187]

 

[ChromeJob]

The port on the Amaze is actually called an ExtMicro USB (or "Ext Micro/USB" on the protective cover your Amaze came with), it is a 12-pin variant that is backwards compatible with 5-pin Micro-USB.

In my tests, a generic 5-pin MHL-HDMI Micri-USB adapter worked ... temporarily. If the phone screen went to sleep, I had a hard time reviving the external monitor/TV. I also found that unplugging the generic adapter sometimes didn't "turn off" the HDMI Connection alert on the phone. Also, the conventional Micro-USB plug is not as long or plug in as deep as the HTC variant ... which could result in a loose connection.

The correct adapter for your wife's Amaze is the HTC AC-M500, a 12-pin adapter with the ExtMicro USB plug, and a matching port for charging. Using one of these, I get flawless HDMI out (and a bonus of stereo audio out via a 3.5mm port), and the TV wakes up after the phone has gone to sleep. I've got pictures of the connector on Amazon's product image gallery, and detailed pics of this new HTC "Micro-USB variant" on WikiPedia/WikiMedia. (See the article on USB, click the image, go to the WikiCommons description page, and click my username ... then "User Contributions.")

There's thread about the RCA composite video adapter here, and are a few threads on the XDA-Developer forums about what the extra 7 pins are for. And also discussion (and some confusion with people making vague assumptions) of the cables and adapters.

Hope I've cleared the air up a bit more....

 

[iceboxx187]

Thanks for adding! I pretty well understood all of the ramifications beforehand, but since I already had a samsung mhl adapter I thought that I would try. I dont know what protective cover you speak of (wife says hers didnt come with any cover). On ours the samsung plug fits snugly into the htc (no loose connections). The sound travels through the hdmi cable into the tv just fine as well. We didn't have any problems with the screen going to sleep, but if we ever do we'll just download keepscreen so it will stay on. We were more worried about the S2 mhl working than the amaze, but it's nice to know we can use the amaze if I am out with the S2. Personally, I'm not spending another 42 bucks on an adapter when I have one that works. When we purchased the phones, we hadn't even found anything assuring us that the amaze even had mhl (the s2 is advertised with hdmi on tmobiles website, but the amaze says nothing about it) they dont know anything about their own phones lol (the customer support chat lady told me that neither the amaze nor the s2 supported adobe flash lol) We love these 2 phones though, and they are very comparable, personally I like my gigantic screen though because i have fat fingers.

 

[ChromeJob]

... I dont know what protective cover you speak of (wife says hers didnt come with any cover). ...

... When we purchased the phones, we hadn't even found anything assuring us that the amaze even had mhl (the s2 is advertised with hdmi on tmobiles website, but the amaze says nothing about it)....

Check p. 94 of your Amaze user guide. Granted, HTC is really quiet about both the connector and the proper adapter to use. The user guide even calls the ExtMicro USB port "USB." And this protector cover calls it "Micro EXT/USB" while their Euro stores all refer to the cables/adapters as using "ExtMicro USB' port. C'mon, HTC, get your story straight....

You can connect HTC Amaze 4G to an HDTV that has HDMI and enjoy watchingthe preloaded movie, your rented videos, and purchased videos on the big screen.You'll need to use a supported MHL-HDMI adapter and HDMI cable (soldseparately) to connect HTC Amaze 4G to the TV's HDMI port.

I like the higher resolution of my Amaze over the SGS2, when I hold mine next to a colleagues, I simply have crisper icons, and a clearer display. Surprising what just a few more pixels will do. Though ... I'm really drooling over the upcoming HTC One X with a 4.7" screen, 720p display. I've seen a Rezound, and it's marvelous looking.