One of the great things about USB-C is that it does more than simply charge cell phones. Faster versions of this standard allow devices to be connected to many external accessories, including external displays. Unfortunately, not all cell phone manufacturers allow this.

Pixel devices have a feature called DisplayPort via USB-C, which until now has been locked at the hardware level. However, as discovered by Mishaal Rahman, it was discovered that this feature can be enabled via shell commands on a rooted Tensor G3 phone, and that may change with the Pixel 8.

This means that this feature is currently only locked at the software level, suggesting that we may see proper desktop and external monitor support on Pixel devices in the near future.

Rahman has posted on his Patreon (paid) about the Pixel 8's new display output feature. This Android detective first tried to enable DisplayPort Alternate Mode on the Pixel 8 on a rooted device, but was unsuccessful. Later, another tester proved him wrong in exactly the same way, and Rahman was later able to reproduce it in a video.

Apparently, it is possible to mirror a Pixel 8 display using a DisplayPort compatible USB-C to USB-C cable and a USB-C to HDMI cable, but Rahman believes the latter method may be the cause of his earlier failure.

Given that the feature is currently only available on rooted devices, it will likely be out of reach for most Pixel 8 owners. Nevertheless, Rahman claims that the feature can be enabled with a single change to a system property, suggesting that Google may be able to unlock the feature in a future software update. Software locks are better than hardware locks.

The only question is when proper desktop support will return to Android and the Google Pixel series. There is more to it than just mirroring a phone's screen to a display. But this will not happen overnight.

We will just have to be patient and see if this is what we are likely to see at the launch of Android 15 or not.