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There must be a really simple solution, so I feel a bit stupid having to ask:

I want to get a Samsung Ativ 9 Plus which has a Micro-HDMI and some weird proprietary (or maybe not?) small VGA port. As there is no VGA-adapter in the box, and VGA doesn't provide good quality, I want to connect the laptop to the DVI-port. There are nearly no cables that link micro-HDMI ports to DVI, and the only one I found had a big warning, that most chips don't support conversion.

What is the best way to hook up my future laptop with my existing screen that only supports VGA and DVI?

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  • What type of DVI is the on the monitor? DVI-D ? Digital to digital is not a problem, digital HDMI to analog requires an active conversion (powered). As for the weird VGA, is it mini VGA upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/… Dec 1, 2013 at 23:36
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    -1 You wrote "There must be a really simple solution, so I feel a bit stupid having to ask" no it's not stupid to ask, things tend to have simple solutions often, but that doesn't mean you would know them. It is thanks to people asking them and the answers then being on google, that makes it so important to ask. What IS stupid is to say that line you said which I quoted.
    – barlop
    Dec 1, 2013 at 23:44

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You wrote "VGA doesn't provide good quality". It is slightly inferior to DVI/HDMI but in most cases it's just fine. VGA actually supports higher resolutions than single-link DVI. Some VGA interfaces do stop at 1920x1080 or x1200 due to analog bandwidth issues but that is not an inherent limitation of VGA. Try it before you reject it.

Per the Samsung product page it appears that the "mini VGA" connector requires a dongle (a cable adapter) to go to standard VGA. Ah, the penalties of making laptops thinner and thinner: On the desk they'll be surrounded by dongles to adapt them to standard connectors.

Re "most chips don't support conversion" from HDMI to DVI: If you were connecting HDMI on a Blu-Ray player to DVI on a monitor, the Blu-Ray player would likely refuse to output anything because DVI won't support HDCP. But your computer shouldn't have any trouble unless you're playing high-def protected content. I run HDMI on my laptop to DVI on monitors or projectors all the time. No problems at all.

You can solve your availability problem with two adapters: One micro HDMI to regular HDMI, and one HDMI to DVI. Both of these are just cables, no active "conversion" required.

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  • Hey at least they still include a VGA port of any type at all, most likely only going to be used in business settings (ancient VGA projectors), a dongle option is better than none at all. At home a USB-C/Thunderbolt docking station would sort out all other ports.
    – qasdfdsaq
    Sep 14, 2015 at 15:08
  • @qasdfdsaq good point! Sep 14, 2015 at 15:12

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