I bought a Dell Latitude laptop for my mom last winter. Her tower PC died and I wanted something smaller & much lighter. I want to connect the laptop to her 20 inch flat screen monitor. We’ll also use a USB keyboard and mouse. The laptop is just replacing the bulky tower.
It’s amazing laptops still use VGA. I dug a 20 year old VGA flat screen out of storage to test the laptop port. It works.
Mom’s monitor is DVI-D or DVI-I and about six years old. I’m trying to find a adapter to connect it to the laptop.
Bought one of these. It didn’t work. Monitor never came on.
They’re both obsolete, but VGA is like the 3.5mm aux plug of video ports, it’s backwards compatible with just about everything so business laptops often have it to work in old conference rooms.
Are you sure there’s no displayport or mini-displayport on the laptop? What’s the model number? I’d be really surprised if VGA was the only output.
If I remember correctly, the Dell Latitude series is designed & marketed as business laptops. Many business users still need VGA regularly because many businesses & institutions are slow to upgrade their conference rooms, and still have projectors with only VGA input.
By the way, DVI is pretty much obsolete, replaced by HDMI and DisplayPort. A modern laptop should have one of those, or USB-C/Thunderbolt-3 which can output HDMI and DisplayPort through an adapter. Are you sure this Dell Latitude doesn’t have any of these? Which model is it exactly?
I suspect OP’s either got an older model or he doesn’t know what he’s looking at. On Dell’s Latitude product page, every machine I see on there has HDMI. Some of them have VGA, but they all have HDMI.
Actually I’m not sure if there are HDMI to DVI adapters? I think I’ve only seen DVI to HDMI adapters (i.e. DVI output on a computer to HDMI input of the monitor).
Anyway, always keep in mind that an adapter usually only works in one direction. That’s why the DVI-VGA adapter didn’t work, because those only convert DVI to VGA, not the other direction.
Don’t lump Apple in with your assumptions of prejudice. Apple laptops are diligently equal-opportunity in the absense of all ports except USB-C. Oh, I always forget - there’s still a 3.5mm headphone port for some reason.
HDMI is electrically compatible with DVI and DVI devices can be connected to an HDMI port with a simple adapter. HDMI came about because the TV vendors didn’t like the existing DVI specification for a variety of reasons. DVI only carries video, so the TV connection would still require extra audio cables. DVI didn’t carry enhanced color space information that the TV vendors were using, or control functions for consumer electronics. And finally, they didn’t like the bulky DVI connector with the screw connections (which people don’t screw in half the time anyway) for consumer electronics. It was a design goal that HDMI be backwards compatible for DVI connections via a simple passive adapter.
With thin laptops coming into style, they started sprouting HDMI or display port connectors because of the size of the DVI connector. The newer display port intended for computer connections is also compatible with DVI via a passive adapter.
Ok. I’ll use HDMI if my mom’s monitor has that port. Otherwise I’ll get the adapter.
I got too reliant on adapters after the VGA flat screen monitors became obsolete. Dell included a adapter (in the box) so newer PC’s could still use the legacy VGA monitors that companies were still using.
I haven’t kept up with graphics in several years. I don’t do as much hardware support at work anymore.
Basically hdmi to dvi in either direction is generally rock solid. They make cables that are also adapters. Internally no converting is being done, same signal wires just different connectors on the ends.
So this will generally be completely reliable and is your best option. Crossover cables are about 4 bucks. Gosh I had one in 2007.
