Even though the small device in your pocket called the smartphone comes bundled with powerful hardware and software, it isn’t sometimes enough, especially when performing a detail-oriented task.
For instance, there are times when you cannot afford to miss any details supposedly while looking at a map for better navigation or a photo to find tiny mistakes for correction.
And while your smartphone can possibly zoom to too much extent to cater to this need of yours, it still might not work for some people since with a small screen, at one moment you can only focus on a small area of something big.
So what do you do?
You move on towards making use of something known as mobile casting or mobile cast.
What is mobile cast?
To describe a mobile cast in an easy manner, it is nothing but simply wirelessly (through using the same WiFi connection as the mobile and the laptop or TV) sharing your mobile content to another display unit such as a laptop or a TV screen.
Now when you talk about mobile casting, another term that you would often hear and which also is interchangeably used with casting, is mirroring.
Despite being used as synonyms, there is a slight technical difference between both mobile casting and mobile mirroring.
This technical difference forms the basis of everything that separates these two words which are confused for each other.
Mobile mirroring
Mobile mirroring is actually reflecting your mobile screen on to a bigger display while using your smartphone to control it.
An example could be while giving a quick presentation to a small group or a team of people on a laptop or TV screen.
Mobile casting
Contrary to this, mobile cast is totally different.
In mobile cast, although the content is shared on to another display from your smartphone, still you no longer control it via your smartphone.
Instead, the entire control and operation of using that content is shifted on the display unit that receives it.
In this way, your smartphone is free for being used for something different and is not occupied with using the shared content.
Screen casting is mostly used for watching movies or playing video games from your smartphone, on to a bigger display for more fun, entertainment and clarity.
How to cast mobile to laptop?
Casting your smartphone mobile screen onto a Windows running laptop PC is easy and simple as both have built-in options for this purpose.
Usually, if you use video streaming apps on your smartphone such as YouTube and Netflix, they too display an option on the screen to cast the streaming content onto another device such as your laptop or TV screen.
Casting an Android smartphone to your Windows laptop PC
The following is a step-by-step guide to tune in both your Windows laptop PC and your Android smartphone for successful casting.
Setting up the Android smartphone for mobile cast
- First, make sure that your smartphone is running on Android OS version 5 or later.
- Now if your smartphone’s OS is based on Android 5, 6, or 7, then tap on the ‘Settings’ icon, then ‘Display’, and then ‘Cast’.
- If your smartphone’s OS is built using Android 8, tap on the ‘Settings’ icon, then ‘Connected Devices’ and then ‘Cast’.
- Look for the dotted menu (vertical 3 dots), and then select ‘Enable wireless display’.
- Wait for some time until your smartphone searches for nearby devices to cast your screen.
- Once searched, it should display the name of your laptop device.
- Tap on the device name and then, as a result, your Windows laptop PC will show a message, followed by the screen of your smartphone appearing on your laptop display.
Setting up the Windows laptop PC for mobile cast
- Search for the pre-installed application on your Windows laptop PC by the name of ‘Connect’.
- Open the ‘Connect’ app and then follow the above procedure for setting up the Android device.
You can play popular Android games on a large screen without any technical difficulties. Casting is the ultimate solution. I hope you find it useful, and also leave a comment if you have any questions.