Samsung Galaxy S II First With MHL-enabled USB Port for Added HDMI Connectivity
We’ll admit: we missed this one interesting detail about the Samsung Galaxy S II when it was announced at Mobile World Congress a week and a half ago. Samsung’s employed a technology called MHL – Mobile High-Definition Link – that allows you to use your USB port as an HDMI port.
No, the port doesn”t magically transform between USB and HDMI before your very eyes, but the USB port can be used with a special MHL-compliant USB-to-HDMI adapter that’ll let you watch and view all of your content on TV just as if it were built in.
It’s nothing that video-out through the 3.5mm headphone jack couldn’t handle, but this gives you higher quality, of course. You do still need to buy a special cable to use it, of course, and we don’t know how compatible it is with the range of HDTVs out there today. (There are a lot of phones whose mini HDMI ports don’t work with older HDTVs due to incompatible types.) The press release can be found at the good ol’ Samsung Unpacked site. [Engadget]
PS: Would you be surprised if I told you I almost published this post calling the technology DHL throughout its entirety?