The Samsung Galaxy S III (S3) - HDMI Adapter Controversy

Samsung has advertised that the Galaxy S III comes with an MHL port for video output, but the port doesn't work with any existing MHL accessories or displays.

So far, Samsung's decision to use a non-standard port, but advertise it to consumers as a being MHL compatible (without providing any warning or explanation), has caused confusion and controversy, wasted the time and money of their users, and undermined an emerging standard.

Final Update
I have received an explanation from the MHL Consortium (on 2011-07-11).  Elements of this explanation have been dribbling out for a couple of weeks now (so some of this is not new), but I will try to summarize the whole thing:

The Galaxy S3 has an 11-pin connector for its MHL support, where all previous MHL compatible devices used a 5-pin connector.  As a result, previous MHL accessories and devices are not directly compatible with the SGS3.  Samsung has provided a new MHL to HDMI adapter, and a cheaper 'adapter tip' for adapting existing MHL accessories for use with the SGS3.

The 11-pin connector and the MHL standard:
1.  The SGSIII is MHL compliant in spite of using a different connector then other MHL products - this is because the connector is not part of the standard.  The other vendors all adopted the same 5-pin connector as a convention and to ensure interoperability, but this was not necessary for MHL compliance.
2.  The 11-pin connector has nothing to do with MHL 2.0.  This change to the connector is independent of the core MHL functionality - we could well have both 5-pin and 11-pin MHL products.
3.  The ability of companies (besides Samsung) to make use of this new 11-pin connector design is not known.

Reasons for using an 11-pin connector:
4.  The 11-pin connector design supports the use of USB and MHL simultaneously - note that the new Samsung 11-pin MHL-HDMI adapter also has a USB-OTG port.  The 5-pin MHL connector design uses the same wires for both MHL and USB so it is unable to support their simultaneous use.
5.  Samsung’s Galaxy S III can power the MHL-HDMI adapter.  Although this can theoretically also be done with the standard 5-pin micro-USB connector, the Galaxy S III is believed to be the first smartphone that supports this functionality.
(Some of the above text was provided by an MHL spokesperson.)

Clearly, there are significant advantages to this new connector.  In my opinion these do justify a change in the connector, even a non-backward compatible change, if necessary.

If Samsung makes the 11-pin design available to other vendors under terms that befit a multi-vendor standard then I think it would be fair to consider this connector to be version 2 of the combined USB+MHL connector.

It is still, however, quite unfortunate the way this played out: so much confusion could have been avoided if Samsung had:
- Given their new connector a distinct name, the same way that similar standards such as USB and HDMI use a different name (e.g micro-USB, USB-OTG, mini-HDMI) for new, incompatible connectors.
- Given an explanation, such as the above, when the phone was released.  They could even have done this informally, e.g. by putting it in a relevant Wikipedia article.
(They could have done just the second of these two items, but ideally would have done both.)


Vendor's have opted for proprietary ports against the interests of their users before, but Samsung has gone further this time and this has become an important test: if a vendor is prepared to destroy an emerging standard1 and deceive their users2, in order to increase accessory sales, will it succeed?  Will Android users' roll-over?  We think not - as attested by the hundreds of disappointed and angry articles in the tech press3 warning users of this issue.

The purpose of this site is to contribute another voice warning users about the reasons to avoid Samsung branded accessories and calling on Samsung for an explanation that will reduce the confusion about this port.  This site is not intended to dissuade consumers from buying the Galaxy SIII or other Samsung products - actually most users don't need the video output capability anyway - we are just warning users of the dangers of Samsung branded mobile accessories.

The owner of the site has no financial or professional interest in this issue.

http://www.galaxymhl.com/