I tried hooking up my FP5 to a Iiyama screen with keyboard and mouse plugged into the screen. While it does work (and it charges the battery at the same time), it’s a pretty rough experience with basic functionality. For example I couldn’t type this message on the keyboard because with every space bar press it would switch to Google Search. There were rumors of Android 14 getting an improved desktop mode, but haven’t read anything about that anymore.
Not sure if it helps, but in my case, I activated the Desktop Mode when a display is connected in the settings, this requires a reboot after changing it. When connecting the keyboard for the first time, a notification was shown to change the layout of the keyboard, after selecting the appropriate layout, ‘all’ the keys worked properly (didn’t exactly tested all the keys, but in ~30 mins of web browsing not a single odd behavior was noticed), take note that my keyboard has a lot of diacritics and other odd characters not present in English keyboards.
That said, Desktop Mode while usable, it has a couple of issues with some apps (stop rendering, don’t scale properly, crash, ANRs, etc) and it often breaks the recent apps list (where a reboot is required to restore its function) that hinder the multitasking abilities provided by such mode.
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I will check the keyboard layout next time, thanks for the tip!
Does the Display Port alternate mode support audio out?
I could use my Steam Deck dock to connect it to my TV and use the (quite janky) secondary display mode, but no audio was passed. Is this a limitation of the protocol or of the hardware/software’
Also, are there any apps/other solutions to improve the secondary screen experience?
Does the Display Port alternate mode support audio out?
When I connect the phone to my main monitor (Benq PD2725U - 27" 4K Thunderbolt 3 monitor with KVM switch/dock/upstream) the audio is played perfectly on it.
I don’t have it at hand, but I think my portable monitor (ASUS XG16AHP) also played the phone audio.
Also, are there any apps/other solutions to improve the secondary screen experience?
Settings → Display → Desktop mode, then reboot. When connecting to an usb-c display you should now have a full desktop in that display, while retaining the normal phone display. You might want to use a bluetooth keyboard and mouse (or USB if your monitor has an USB hub for it).
There are quite a few glitches, mostly from android and not exactly from FP integration… Some apps misbehave when resized, the recent apps drawer often goes crazy and a reboot will be required to restore it. Using VLC to watch videos was not possible as it glitched quite badly (although MX Player worked).
If there is, I couldn’t find a way to change resolution and refresh rate of the video signal that goes to the monitor (it basically outputs what the monitor recommends and the phone can handle, 4K@30Hz / 1080p@144Hz is what I got in my monitors), I believe some work is being done to better support desktop mode in Android 15: “Google has been working on a more polished user-facing version of desktop mode that many believe may debut with Android 15, though that’s unconfirmed.”
I used the desktop mode in an hotel room connected to the TV through my old usb-c dock/dongle (N.B.: not all dongles will work - the one I have at work doesn’t work) and a very slim bluetooth keyboard and compact mouse. It was surprisingly usable to browse the web and watch videos (yes, the audio played in the TV) where a big screen is a must.
Take note that some games have some horrible latency, I could not understand why since it didn’t look like the phone was struggling with them.
I’ve also used an app Taskbar that supported desktop mode and changed how some stuff worked in it, but it was honestly more janky than the default desktop mode that is integrated in the OS.
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I’ve tried using desktop mode once before (had to enable it under developer settings) on a 4K TV. Without it (i.e. just plugging in the phone without changing any settings), I got what appears to be 720p with black borders, even if the phone is held horizontally and displays full screen video. The icons and text are way too big, which can be somewhat improved by decreasing the font size to the lowest setting. I can connect my mouse/keyboard by plugging in the unified USB dongle into the USB/HDMI hub. This is usable for web browsing and watching videos.
With desktop mode enabled (had to use developer settings), it did result in a proper resolution and filled the entirety of the screen without black borders. The catch is that it only shows my wallpaper and a little app drawer icon in the left corner. Worse, it no longer recognizes my mouse, so I can’t actually do anything… I don’t have a bluetooth mouse on hand unfortunately, but maybe someone knows of a workaround.
Tried Second Screen (made by the same guy that made Taskbar) but despite receiving permissions via adb, it didn’t do anything.
Could you explain thise more detailed, as desktop mode is in the normal settings under display?
Might be different because I’m on CalyxOS. When I search for desktop in settings the only result is “force desktop mode” via developer settings.