This past week I stayed at the Marriott in San Francisco, not JW, but the one next to the Mascone Center. I had an upgraded room and it had a connectivity device that Marriott advertises on ESPN2, CNN, etc. For those who has not seen them, it is a small black box that sits on the desk and has some connections on it - VGA for the laptop, composite, HDMI, and 1/8" audio. This allows to plug in a laptop, iPod (if you have a cable), or a DVD player (if you have a cable). There is a VGA cable provided. Anyway, I was sort of looking forward to this since the release of the press release a little while ago, but....

Anyway, I tried to plug in my laptop, and it is OK. My laptop native resolution is 1680x1050 and the 32" TV gave me 1024x768. So, now all my programs look bigger (slightly bigger) but I am still able to fit only about 50% of the elements I can fit on my laptop screen. I tried for a few mins and then went back to my laptop screen. I guess I can understand if I download a movie, bring netflix, or iPod, but I don't usually do that since I end up working most of the time in my hotel room. I know how to connect my PC to the TV (I do it at home) but I usually need a pretty strong reason to do that.

This is probably long winded, but has anyone else found these things useless or am I missing the boat? Is that a reason for anyone to stay there?

I did enjoy the LCD and some HD channels, but 32"^ is a bit smallish for the room I stayed in, so the effect was not very noticeable.