Belkin does always work hard to introduce competitive products & innovative technologies to consumers. I have owned many Belkin Products & I have been extremely satisfied with the product quality & features. I must thank Belkin & Amazon for allowing me to have a sample to provide an unbiased review.
Miracast (Unlike Google Chromecast) believe it or not is an industry-wide solution, so the technology 'theoretically' should work well across devices, regardless of manufacturer or branding. Granted 'Chromecast' is wildly popular because Google can eat up the manufacturing cost and release a cheaper $35 product for the masses. I have owned Google Chromecast in the past, While Chromecast is a superior hardware & quality construction but I hated their intentional monopolization to lure users into their products & services when the hardware could have been used for better use.
This is where 'Belkin Miracast Video Adapter' interested me. I wanted to see if Belkin had a fair chance to prove their craftsmanship with Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Miracast(tm) technology. Believe it or not, Belkin tried their best. The device does work as intended & pairing and sharing your compatible Android phone's display works but in terms of general usability it falls short of expectations. Why? .. Read below:
CONS:
Miracast (Unlike Google Chromecast) believe it or not is an industry-wide solution, so the technology 'theoretically' should work well across devices, regardless of manufacturer or branding. Granted 'Chromecast' is wildly popular because Google can eat up the manufacturing cost and release a cheaper $35 product for the masses. I have owned Google Chromecast in the past, While Chromecast is a superior hardware & quality construction but I hated their intentional monopolization to lure users into their products & services when the hardware could have been used for better use.
This is where 'Belkin Miracast Video Adapter' interested me. I wanted to see if Belkin had a fair chance to prove their craftsmanship with Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Miracast(tm) technology. Believe it or not, Belkin tried their best. The device does work as intended & pairing and sharing your compatible Android phone's display works but in terms of general usability it falls short of expectations. Why? .. Read below:
CONS:
- The Belkin Miracast Video Adapter requires 'external 5vDC' power and Belkin provides a USB cable assuming all TV's will have a free USB port. But the truth is 'Yes' Most TV's do have USB port these days & are generally designated as 'Service port'. These USB service port does not have enough power to drive power hungry streaming media devices such as these so since Belkin does not include a Power Adapter despite spending $79 on this device the end user may have to bear the cost of AC adapter or be creative.
- The next serious design flaw is the placement of the USB port on the device itself. It is too close to the side where the HDMI port plugs into the TV. Most of the TVs have HDMI ports stacked up close to each other & this Belkin Miracast Video Adapter being so big (50% bigger than chromecast) it is impossible to attach this directly to the TV as shown in the product pictures without sacrificing adjacent HDMI ports. - Thankfully Belkin does include a HDMI extension cable but that makes the contraption messy.
- When Everything works, Displaying pictures from your smartphone is breeze but do not expect to play games on big screen from your Android Smartphone as it does not scale properly because most smart phones have very low resolution screens & also there is a serious lag which makes it unsuitable for video.
- There are configuration options available on-screen TV, But those work only if your TV is HDMI-CEC Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) If you TV is older than last 4 years then most likely your TV does not have it. For those consumers without HDMI-CEC there is nothing one can configure?
- Unlike Google Chromecast which can auto-Update itself, Updating Belkin Miracast Firmware for bug fixes is much more involved process and there are about 12 different steps and you need a Windows based PC to achieve that feat! - IHMO, not many people can achieve this task unless they are tech savvy. (See firmware update process details)
- Currently there are very few Android ONLY compatible devices with which this Belkin Miracast adapter work with. I tried with ASUS MeMOPad(ME173X-A1-BL) which worked perfectly using 'wireless display' (See the other models that work) which makes this device while technologically an 'industry-wide' solution but falls seriously short of expectations for the price.
While Google Chromecast may be monopolized by Google it is still a better choice as of today since it supports virtually all devices that have some sorts of Google Chrome Browser including Desktop PCs & Of-course their own Android tablets. Also with certain experimental features in Google Chromecast 'Full Desktop' Sharing from Windows Desktop PCs are possible from Google Chromecast but this Miracast Video Adapter is targeted for limited Android users only.
Overall impression is that Belkin tried their best and might prove useful to some specific compatible devices but extreme popularity Google Chromecast will eventually cast a huge shadow on an 'industry-wide' solution namely Miracast.
You can buy one of these from Amazon by using the link below: