HDMI laptop for £300-400 - is it possible?

rossyl · 21 Feb 2008 at 15:49

been waiting for a decent laptop on dell outlet. saw one, then with vat, and delivery i realised £600 was just a silly amount to spend on something i rarely use.

what i want is a half decent laptop, doens't have to have an amazing spec. BUT al i want to do is be able to plug it into my LCD TV at hi-res on HDMI.

Anyone got any ideas?

Super Tigers · 21 Feb 2008 at 16:13

Hdmi sockets on cheap lappies are hard to find. How about a DVI-D socket on a laptop? then get a dvi-hdmi converter and a standard dvi-d cable. I connect my htpc via dvi--dvi-hdmi converter into my Panasonic 26in LCD tv and it works very well for a 720P input and gives excellent results.

Rob H

rossyl · 21 Feb 2008 at 20:46

can you get 1080p via DVI - i presume so and it's just dependant on the graphics card?

however, DVI doesn't transmit sound, so you cannot get proper surround sound can you?

gam3r · 25 Feb 2008 at 21:43

Hey. The Dell 1525 laptops have HDMI out, prices start from £329...pretty decent spec if you don't mind the Intel x3100 onboard.

rossyl · 26 Feb 2008 at 21:20

thanks - good thinking.

current plan is waiting till those penryn's come out. hopefully by mid-march!

rossyl · 2 Mar 2008 at 10:18

when will dell drop their prices on the old non-penryn chips!!

Fothsn · 2 Mar 2008 at 16:47

My Sony Vaio has an HDMI port and be carefull most laptops dont do sound out via the HDMI mine dosent and it seems a lot dont.

benjo plz. · 2 Mar 2008 at 16:50

Acer Aspire 5900 series have HDMI. Might be better off converting Dvi-D to hdmi.

Mr.Bon · 2 Mar 2008 at 17:05

fothsn said:
My Sony Vaio has an HDMI port and be carefull most laptops dont do sound out via the HDMI mine dosent and it seems a lot dont.

Strange, I assumed it would carry sounds aswell as video. Could someone expand on this? :confused:

lsg1r · 2 Mar 2008 at 20:56

fothsn said:
My Sony Vaio has an HDMI port and be carefull most laptops dont do sound out via the HDMI mine dosent and it seems a lot dont.

check your sound settings, my motherboard which (I think atleast) can supply sound via the dvi port (and hdmi adapter) has an extra option saying how to send the sound out, ie via the 3.5mm jacks or over hd audio via a digital output. Haven't tested it mind but it might be worth checking for.

benjo plz. · 2 Mar 2008 at 21:11

lsg1r said:
sound via the dvi port

Fothsn · 2 Mar 2008 at 21:13

lsg1r said:
check your sound settings, my motherboard which (I think atleast) can supply sound via the dvi port (and hdmi adapter) has an extra option saying how to send the sound out, ie via the 3.5mm jacks or over hd audio via a digital output. Haven't tested it mind but it might be worth checking for.

Eh? DVI is Video only.

Also is this a PC mobo? Laptops lack a lot of bios options such as this

mattyrigby00 · 2 Mar 2008 at 21:24

my TV has an audio port for both the HDMI and the VGA for connecting PC's via it using a DVI-HDMI adapter without sound or a VGA connector, yours might have one too

Fothsn · 2 Mar 2008 at 21:34

mattyrigby00 said:
my TV has an audio port for both the HDMI and the VGA for connecting PC's via it using a DVI-HDMI adapter without sound or a VGA connector, yours might have one too

We’re talking Sound passing through HDMI,

benjo plz. · 2 Mar 2008 at 22:10

fothsn said:
We’re talking Sound passing through HDMI,

what he said sounded fine to me :confused:

.

Butters · 2 Mar 2008 at 22:24

The Dell laptops will pass sound though their HDMI ports. I'm sat here typing away on a 1525 as we speak. The Sony's do too. Only in the Sony you have to enable it. Not on the Dell, its enable the minutes you plug in the TV

craptakular · 2 Mar 2008 at 22:38

rossyl said:
can you get 1080p via DVI - i presume so and it's just dependant on the graphics card?

however, DVI doesn't transmit sound, so you cannot get proper surround sound can you?

DVI to HDMI is fine for 1080p

DVI doesnt transmit sound. Of course you can still get sound you can either run the sound via anologe connects or SPDIF.

Fothsn · 2 Mar 2008 at 23:09

Ah after checking a few things out seem I had to update a my sound & graphics drivers for this to show up

I take my comment above about sound not passing through my laptop, it does now! I should have looked into this further I’m sure I read it didn’t pass audio.