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Advantage of connecting laptop to monitor through HDMI to VGA

I can connect my laptop with an external monitor via VGA port or via HDMI. Which way is preferred and why?

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What is a "normal port"? There are several types of ports used today for monitors like classic VGA, DVI, DisplayPort and so on. –  AndrejaKo Jan 11 '11 at 23:23
VGA, updated the question. –  khelll Jan 11 '11 at 23:25
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marked as duplicate by AndrejaKo, Joe Taylor, Diago Jan 12 '11 at 6:38


2 Answers

up vote 4 down vote accepted


The HDMI cable can carry audio and video, which means one cable to bring your laptop's video and audio signals to your display (which may have integrated audio). So: cable simplification is one reason to prefer HDMI to something like DisplayPort or DVI.

Physical cable size and length (and cost) are also another reason. HDMI cables are nice and compact and can be had cheap (from places like monoprice.com) and will go for lengths of up to 100' before requiring a repeater to maintain signal integrity. In comparison a DVI or VGA cable is clunky and costly and doesn't run for long lengths without a lot of noise showing up on the video signal.


The HDMI physical connector isn't that secure. It can be pulled out of the socket with minimal force. So if you're moving your laptop around a lot you might find the cable disconnects versus something like a D-Sub connector where you can screw it to the device to hold it in place.

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Posted at the same time. Your answer is better, so I'm voting you up. –  Randolph West Jan 11 '11 at 23:26
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I think you misunderstand the point of HDMI, which delivers video and audio over a single cable.

It's a digital signal, so there will be little difference between the HDMI and DVI output, but it will be much better than the analogue VGA output.

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