A lot of phones don't have video over the USB C port (eg Google Pixels).

Pixel 5 does. I tried with one recently and noted it only does mirroring, unlike Samsung and Huawei which launch some pseudo desktop OS when plugged in.

Wait, you got video out working with the 2020 Pixel 5? First I'm hearing of this.

Which adapter did you use?

Pixel 4a does not.

Can you unlock it (pin/password I mean, not finger/face) with a keyboard and mouse though?

Yep.

Even did a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qkh4oagFfb8

Got out my old Moto Z Play which was retired. Restarted the phone so I couldn't use fingerprint to unlock.

Plugged in a mouse, clicked pin. Unlocked.

Moto Z Play runs Nougat, stock but rooted. You don't need root to be able to do this nor do you need ADB to be enabled.

Also confirmed to be working on Razer Phone (stock, 9/Pie) and Essential Phone (stock, 10). Also works with Keyboard instead of mouse. Just type in the pin and hit enter.

Pattern unlock will have to be done with the mouse for obvious reasons.

So if your digitizer is completely busted, you can still use a mouse and keyboard. If your display is completely busted, you likely will be able to get video alt mode with USB C out.

I tried it on a few other devices that I had in my pile. Chances are, if it's Micro USB, you won't get video on boot, even with a proper MHL adapter.

* Sony Xperia J (Jelly Bean): Nothing, Micro USB

* Sony Xperia Play (Gingerbread): Nothing, Micro USB

* Marshall London (Lollipop): Mouse and Keyboard Works, Micro USB

* Asus Zenphone 3 Zoom (Nougat): Mouse and keyboard works, USB C

IIRC, Displaylink and OTG support was officially added in Lollipop, so that kind of jives with my experience here. As always, YMMV.

On my android I can enter pin/password per keyboard, or the swipe pattern per mouse. Some early android phones had slide-out keyboards (like a Blackberry), so good support for physical keyboards isn't that surprising. I wasn't expecting the mouse support tough.

It's all standard HID interface these days.

Moto E series doesn't have MHL.

No, adb is still needed.

MHL largely was for MicroUSB. Chances are what you need is a USB to DP or USB to HDMI adapter. Some work in one but not the other and vise versa. In the end however, Moto Es ARE designed to be the most cut down, least featured phone in the Moto line.

You would still be able to use a mouse or keyboard to input a pin or passphrase if the screen was still semi readable.

Also the Pixel ones don't have it (or DP alternate mode), I think. This is why Nexus 5 is still the best Google phone so far.

Pixels support DisplayLink mode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iw4YJpiBVo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iw4YJpiBVo

The Nexus 5 years produced good phones.

My friends Moto Z Play 2 screen was cracked and stopped working after a hard fall. Phone still powers on and accepts touch input but no display. 2 different hubs do not push video at all, so we’re probably looking at replacing the screen to recover her pics.

Why does a USB C port mean you don't need ADB or help with a cracked screen?

It's bad to leave ADB enabled in general.

With a USB C port, there's a near absolute certainty that you can simply plug in a USB hub with HDMI built in to hook your phone up to a mouse and monitor to get around the cracked screen issue.

The recent versions of Android seem to have gotten way better on ADB security. It seems to generate a keypair on every computer with ADB and require a user with the unlocked phone to authorize the keypair for each device manually. It also auto-revokes authorization if you haven't connected that device with ADB in 7 days by default.

I think the implication is that video output is usually available on these devices.

I had a double whammy of a corroded display connection and a loose usb-c port, meaning recovering data from the phone was a very sensitive and frustrating affair.