Best display connection option for the Mini: HDMI or VGA?

HDMI issues have been solved, so its really your choice. I'd go HDMI simply to save the cost of buying an adapter. Both work fine.

Take HDMI, all digital and much faster. With VGA you have that annoying aligning of image all the time. And it is all black so you can trash the stupidest thing from Apple's design department: white adapters for black mac mini's. It's not an earbud! Oh, and get a new, black and longer AC cord with it. The white one is too short and butt ugly.

Hdmi all the way. I use one on my mini to my TV and it is second to none. Only way to go really.

Are you sure that's not HDMI and DVI?

DVI and VGA are two different things. DVI has a similar looking port as VGA but it's slightly different (noticable up close). It sends the same kind of digital signal as HDMI. Heck, not too many monitors offer VGA anymore.

Also, as lame as it is... some high rez monitors won't show the high rez unless you use a dual link DVI cable. HDMI is technically capable of showing those resolutions but the monitor (for whatever reason) will cap the resolution at 1080p. Even going HDMI-> DVI via adapter tends to work on said monitor.

But if you only plan on using ~ 1080 then HDMI is probably fine.

"Are you sure that's not HDMI and DVI?"

A number of newer monitors seem to now have HDMI and VGA -- but not DVI.

The OP asks:
"Best display connection option for the Mini: HDMI or VGA?"

My answer would be:
"The one that works best for YOU".

You might try HDMI first. But if something doesn't seem "quite right" to you, you might _also try_ a VGA connection, to see if it pleases you more.

It's been some years now, but when I first got a Dell 1905FP to use with my PowerMac g4, I tried connecting via DVI, and found that some of the monitor's controls were unavailable. By going to VGA, those [previously unavailable] control parameters became "touchable", and I was able to adjust the monitor to display the image that was most pleasing to me. I still use that setup with my 2012 Mini.

I have a mini and my Monitor has 1 HDMI and 1 VGA. I use the VGA port for my mini because I use the HDMI for my xbox. VGA works great and I have used the HDMI and that worked good too.

I originally had mine setup with HDMI, but I couldn't control the volume with the keyboard buttons and couldn't mute it. Changed to DVI and everything worked fine. I'm guessing it was the monitor - I wanted to use the monitor speakers for alerts and instructional videos.

MDP/Thunderbolt to DVI or HDMI is another option if you decide you want to go dual monitor later. The only one I would avoid is VGA -- my eyes have become very tuned to detecting the blur of a VGA connection. But the other three (MDP, DVI, and HDMI) are all pure digital and look pretty much the same.

Mac Mini best display connection

I have a refurbished Mac Mini - the basic model - have had it one month - and it came loaded with the very latest build of Mountain Lion. I had it hooked to my ASUS monitor with HDMI. It was taking a long time to boot up, and over 30 seconds to wake up, even when I disabled sleep mode (both when new, and after changing RAM to 16GB). I suspect it was my Asus monitor, but when I switched the connection to DVI, wake up times went down to 1-2 seconds. I read someplace where the HDMI flicker issue has been resolved, but someone else suggested that colors and fonts were not as good under HDMI as with other connections. The tab bar on my Safari was so dark as to be almost unreadable - I now have it calibrated better - but I believe part of the solution was moving to the dvi cable. Just putting this out there so you can be aware of possibilities if you run into similar problems.

karpich1 said:

Also, as lame as it is... some high rez monitors won't show the high rez unless you use a dual link DVI cable. HDMI is technically capable of showing those resolutions but the monitor (for whatever reason) will cap the resolution at 1080p. Even going HDMI-> DVI via adapter tends to work on said monitor.

Click to expand...

I imagine the HDMI connectors on these monitors do not support the 1.3a standard, which is basically required for resolutions beyond 1080p.