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Comment by quarterwave | Hacker News Reader

Consider the use case suggested by the image on the copy i.e; on-screen projection of slides in a business meeting. Can this use case be met with a tablet/smart phone using a VGA adapter?

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The "business meeting" use case pictured doesn't make a lot of sense. The copy at the bottom says the stick itself is a computer, not a video receiver, so there'd have to be a keyboard/mouse/controller of some kind connected to it, and they'd have to get the slide deck onto it somehow, and open PowerPoint, and that just doesn't seem particularly useful. It's much easier to use some wireless display technology and cast it from a laptop, or plug in a cable.

What they say they're aiming for are simple, self-contained (display-only?) kiosks... which maybe could be useful, for some people. You could also use it as a media center. If it could magically transform a huge TV into a touch screen, on the other hand... that would be amazing.

It supports Bluetooth, so you could pair a remote or a smartphone with it, and it's easier to carry than a laptop. Remember there's a full version of MS Office on it, too.

What makes more sense to me, though, would be a phone with an HDMI port (or wireless video capability) that connects directly to the projector. It's one less device to carry. If you don't want to walk over to the phone to advance to the next slide, you could still add a Bluetooth remote or control it from one of those smart watches.

(I'm kind of suprised that Blackberry never tried something like what I just described--it would have been a great way to differentiate themselves in the enterprise sector and keep the iPhone at bay.)

Some phones tried the HDMI out (I bought my Droid Razr because of it), but I guess market research has shown that people don't really care. Most phones (including the iPhone) still support the HDMI out over USB in some form, and still next to nobody uses it.

> I'm kind of suprised that Blackberry never tried

The BlackBerry Z10 I have in some drawer at home has a micro HDMI out. Also BB OS 10 can act as an UPnP server and a Samba share, and I think it supports Miracast or something.

I've done this before. I had a micro-HDMI to HDMI connector, and a HDMI to DVI connector to plug the phone into the projector. This was about 2 years ago, and I was using a 2 year old phone, IIRC. The experience sucked, but mostly because the app I was using didn't support most PowerPoint features.

I'm sure modern phones and apps could handle it pretty well, though. Using the official MS Office apps would probably solve the major issues I had.

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