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Hands-on look: HTC Evo 4G's HDMI-out (photos)

Sure, the HTC Evo 4G is one of the first smartphones to have an HDMI out port, but how well does it perform?

Jeff Bakalar

Jeff is CNET Editor at Large and a host for CNET video. He's regularly featured on CBS and CBSN. He founded the site's longest-running podcast, The 404 Show, which ran for 10 years. He's currently featured on Giant Bomb's Giant Beastcast podcast and has an unhealthy obsession with ice hockey and pinball.

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Jeff Bakalar

June 2, 2010 1:23 p.m. PT

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When purchasing a cable for the Evo's HDMI-out connection, make sure to get a HDMI Micro-D interface.

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The HDMI Micro-D out is much smaller than the HDMI port you usually see.

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Cartoons looked the best when played back on our trio of test HDTVs. Even though this video's native resolution was only 600x352 pixels, every TV displayed it in full screen.

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Here is a good example of the strange pixel blurring we experience on almost every video played.

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This low-resolution trailer for the new "Tron" film stretched to fit our Panasonic TV's screen, but was surrounded by black on all sides when using our Samsung and LG TVs.

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We had mixed results viewing high quality YouTube videos like "Iron Baby" on each of our test HDTVs.

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We liked the picture from this high quality YouTube video being played on our Panasonic TH-50PX75U.

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Some more high quality YouTube testing.

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Here we see the same YouTube video demoed at the Sprint HTC Evo 4G launch party, "Cupcake Cannon." Notice the black area on all sides of the video using our Samsung HDTV.