With the launch of the iPhone 15 generation a USB-C port on the devices has been introduced. Low and behold, we were curious about what this means when you connect one of these devices to our XENEON Gaming Monitor that comes equipped with an USB-C DP-ALT port that also takes care of charging the device.
We have tried the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Plus, as well as an M1 equipped iPad Pro. Let’s have a look what we figured out.
USB-C makes everything simpler. Or at least you gain some possibilities that were a bit more complicated before. You will need a good quality USB-C to USB-C cable (a USB3 with 10Gbps and 100W charging support is ideal) to hook up your iPhone 15 Pro directly to the USB-C DP-Alt port of your XENEON monitor.
The contents of your screen will be mirrored to it right away. HDR does work out of the box as well. The only drawback we experienced is that the monitor will be locked at 60 Hz instead of utilizing the high refresh rate capabilities it has. At this point in time, Apple does not offer the possibility to change things like resolution or refresh rate within the iPhone’s settings. You can however choose between SDR and HDR Mode.
Another drawback is that the iPhone won’t be able to fill up the screen entirely, but paired with a SCUF Instinct Pro and a K100 Air Wireless RGB via Bluetooth lets you transform your iPhone 15 (Pro) into a tiny gaming device. Charging is also possible via the XENEON 27QHD240 OLED monitor, so a gaming session on a larger screen is certainly in the cards.
The iPhone 15 (Pro) running iOS 17 does not offer mouse support and does not scale to the entire area of the screen, therefore the feature is still somewhat of a gimmick. Who knows what future iOS updates will bring in this regard. Playing a game or two on a larger monitor like the XENEON 27QHD240 OLED, is certainly possible though. Paired with the SCUF Instinct Pro controller it did play well, without feeling any actual latency.
The iPad equipped with a M1 or better, does have official monitor support via Stage Manager. The conditions are somewhat different from hooking up the iPhone to the monitor, and with mouse and keyboard support, we did not hesitate to pair our M75 Air Wireless as well as the K100 Air Wireless RGB via Bluetooth. Loading up a game after that was no trouble at all.
Just like with iOS, Apple does not offer the possibility to change things like resolution or refresh rate within the iPad’s settings. You can however choose between SDR and HDR Mode.
If you know your way around iPadOS 17, you can easily setup a station that is quite usable for multiple tasks. Bring a SCUF Instinct Pro to the equation and you can also game. Fullscreen is not possible yet, as the games scaled to the iPads native aspect ratio and resolution, but this did not hinder us to have some fun.
We are looking forward to seeing what Apple will do with future updates of iOS and iPadOS. It has certainly become easier to connect an iPhone now that it has an USB-C port. An iPad Pro did connect without a hitch before, and with iPadOS 17 window management became already more convenient. If you want to have a gaming session with one of your portable devices like the iPhone and iPad on a bigger screen than on the device itself, a XENEON Monitor will let you do this.
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