If you want to project a presentation with the latest and greatest devices.
As many of you who will be reading this already know I work with a ton of presenters – teachers, instructors and coaches. I guess this post is for them or you if you happen to find yourself in a similar situation.
Thin is in when it comes to electronics which means the good old chubby vga port is out in favor of the skinny and high def HDMI port. Using Apple devices requires even more of an array of adapters as you have 30 pin (dock), lightning, thunderbolt and minidisplay ports depending on the apple device you are using. Never mind that 95% of the projectors you will encounter (especially in schools) will have VGA and no HDMI/Apple input ports. This is the sort of situation I see over and over as technology leaps forward and leaves us holding technology that we have not even wore the shine off yet. So I am presenting a bit of a buyers guide of adapters that will get up up and presenting.
I have a brand new laptop and the projector no longer plugs in!
Ultrabooks and the now deceased netbook long ago ditched the faithful old VGA port and now regular laptops are following suit.
You likely have an HDMI port like this now…
The above image shows a HDMI port dead center and to the right is a the VGA port I have been referring to as well.
And here is the adapter you need…
Buy one on Amazon.
How is my Mac laptop supposed to work with this old projector?
A lot of Mac users will already know about this must have adapter but just in case I am including it as well.
I have an older iPad or just my iPhone 4 – now what?
Notice the long slot on the following adapter – this lets you plug in a charging cable as well as your projector cable. Given how old these devices are now your battery has probably seen better days and you are going to need a little more juice for longer presentations.
Buy it on Amazon
I have a shiny new iPad or iPhone – help!
While I probably could not see well enough to make and present a presentation from an iPhone 4 – I easily created and gave a short presentation at a meeting not long ago using just my iPhone 6+ and this adapter. I have also seen instructors present whole 4 day classes using only an iPhone. At present, even though the price is steep, Apple is the only source I would trust – search and you will notice there are not many knock offs for this one yet. This Apple adapter also features a port to plug in a charging cable.
Buy it on Amazon
A bonus bit of information
You can plug your iPhone/iPad into a TV to watch Netflix, YouTube etc. with the following adapters for that boring night in the hotel room. Note that the adapter for newer iOS devices (lightning port) are not cheap and I would strongly suggest investing that money in a dedicated streaming box such as a Roku if you are just going to watch streaming content in your livingroom.
Older iOS devices ( 30 pin “dock” port)
Buy it on Amazon
Newer iOS devices (lightning port)
Buy it on Amazon
Android devices I am not sure on but if you have questions about a specific device just let me know and I will see what I can dig up!