- Not a single Google Pixel phone supports display output over USB-C unless you buy a special DisplayLink peripheral.
- When Google launched the Pixel 8 series, we discovered that the phones actually support display output over USB-C at a hardware level.
- With the release of the latest Android beta, Google has finally enabled display output over USB-C on the Pixel 8 series.
If you ask a power user what features they love about their Samsung phone, Samsung DeX is probably near the top of the list. DeX lets you turn your Galaxy phone into a portable desktop environment when hooked up to an external monitor or TV. Sadly, Google’s version of Android doesn’t offer a DeX equivalent at the moment. What’s more, Google has opted to forego display output support entirely on its Pixel lineup, so you can’t even mirror your Pixel phone’s display to an external screen unless you buy a special peripheral. However, that’s finally changing with the Google Pixel 8 in the latest Android beta.
When you hook up any Pixel phone — from the very first model to the most recent Pixel 8 Pro model — to an external monitor or TV using a USB-C to USB-C cable or a USB-C to HDMI adapter, nothing currently happens. This is because Google opted not to enable a feature called DisplayPort Alternate Mode on their Pixel lineup. DisplayPort Alternate Mode lets devices transmit a DisplayPort signal over their existing USB-C connector pins, which is useful for mobile devices that don’t have enough room to add a dedicated port for HDMI or DisplayPort.