Neewer Black HDMI Input To VGA Adapter Converter For PC Laptop

I bought this to use with a Raspberry Pi and an old, but still good, LG Flatron L1510S LCD monitor. I imagine many Pi would like to make use of a similar old VGA panel and for £15 this converter is a cost effective solution. Using the Pi I have a very sharp display at 1024*768 60Hz, which I think is the maximum my VGA monitor can support. It took quite a long time to get the display to work but the problems were not really to do with the converter. Firstly, I found the HDMI plug on the converter a very snug fit in the HDMI socket of the Raspberry Pi (which is good), but initially I did not have it pushed fully home which meant of course that the monitor received no signal. Having worked that problem out I had to create a config.txt for the Pi. I found the following settings worked with my monitor:

# Settings for Flatron VGA monitor
# 1024 * 768
# Force HDMI signal even if monitor not detected
hdmi_drive=2
hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=16
hdmi_force_hotplug=1
disable_overscan=0

hdmi_mode=16 is the display resolution at 1024 * 768. Full information is at[...].
Having discovered the correct config.txt settings the only further issue was that the screen kept blanking and the Ethernet controller kept going down. I found that the solution to these problems was to power the Pi from my laptop rather than the wallwart USB power supply I was using. The converter draws a significant amount of current from the HDMI port and in my case this appeared to exceed what could be obtained from my power supply. Powering from the laptop's USB cured the problem.

I bought this after reading other reviews, and expected that it might need some configuration to work with my RPi. In fact it was no problem at all. I first of all plugged the convertor into my laptop's HDMI port and the Acer monitor just to prove it would work with 2 known good systems. This was perfect. I then connected the RPi and initially there was no display - even though the monitor had recognised the signal. So I plugged the VGA cable from the monitor directly into my laptop to set the resolution. I used the buttons on the monitor to reset the monitor to default settings and then set a lower resolution on my laptop. I then swapped the VGA cable back to the convertor and had a display from the RPi straight away. So all is good.

I've been looking for an affordable HDMI to VGA converter since I bought a Windows 7 tablet. The tablet, like most of them, only has an HDMI output. There are other adapters available, but they cost rather more than this! There's one from HP that will set you back nearly £70! For £14, I just had to try the Neewer adapter. It arrived this morning and was working within 5 minutes. That's it. Just plugged it and it worked! And, unlike the £100+ ones I found, you don't even need a power supply.

I still need to fiddle with the resolution settings to match up with my projector, but that's not difficult. The input and output resolutions are the same, so it's down to your PC's ability to manage different resolutions for each monitor.

There is no audio out, by the way, so that's a separate cable. For fourteen quid, you can't complain at that! You will also need to adjust the Audio Device settings in your control panel as connecting the HDMI lead switches the PC audio to HDMI - at least it does on my tablet. Not a major issue - once you know!

The description suggested that the HDMI connection is mini-HDMI, so I ordered an adapter. It says, "The micro HDMI to VGA Adapter allows for aconnection to VGA" Well, it's a full-size HDMI connector, so I didn't need the adapter. It's a minor annoyance as I'm sure I will need to connect other HDMI stuff to something else at some point. So will somebody please update the wording in the product description? Would have saved me a few quid.

So there it is, an absolute bargain. And it's really small, so you can just shove it into a pocket. (It's about 45x40x12mm - not much bigger than a box of matches)

The lack of audio and the need to play around in the Control Panel are minor things, easily overcome and entirely forgiveable at this price.

And finally, it's just as well it's easy to set up as and there are absolutley no instructions!