The best Windows phone will soon be the HP Elite x3, the newest Windows phone to launch during the fall of Q3 to Q4 of 2016. It will be released on September 12 in North America for a price of $799 (with docking included), thankfully that’s with the highest specs on a Windows phone yet too. Those wondering where to buy the HP Elite x3 can see the official store links below.
Money saving tip: Microsoft Store will have a Black Friday sale on HP Elite x3, said to be of a $313 value.
A quick look at the highlights reminds us why this is such a sought after Windows phone, with its 5.96-inch screen with an AMOLED display featuring a retina resolution of 2560×1440 with Gorilla Glass 4. HP Elite x3 is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, has 4GB of DDR4 RAM (the only Windows 10 Mobile phone yet to feature this kind of power), and 64GB of storage, with microSD card expansion support all the way up to 2TB.
And all of this in a waterproof Windows phone, another first, with the Elite x3 handling waters up to 1 meter for 30 minutes.
HP Elite x3
The phone is otherwise packed with high specifications and features, such as a 8MP front camera and 16MP rear camera with LED flash and Iris camera, a fingerprint reader, 2 Bang & Olufsen stereo speakers, 3 mics with noise cancelling, both 3 and 4 pole headphone jack support, and a USB 3.0 Type-C port.
For cellular calls and data transfer it has 2G, 3G, and 4G LTE support, dual-band 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, and NFC.
Other sensors include ambient light sensor, proximity, accelerometer, gyro, eCompass, pressure sensor, hall effect, and GPS.
On the feature side it has good security managements features, such as biometric authentication, Secure Boot, cryptography, encryption, anti roll back, Bitlocker encryption, and Enterprise-grade VPN.
As an almost 6-inch Windows phablet it weighs 194 grams and it 7.8mm thick. The HP Elite x3 battery life is up to 300 hours in standby, with a 3.85V/4150 mAh battery capacity from a Li-ion polymer battery. It supports wireless charging too.
The HP Elite x3 taking orders today is sold with the HP Elite x3 Desk Dock included. This can then connect the phone to any screen, so the HP Elite x3 can be used as a full computer. Other official accessories for HP Elite x3 are the HP Elite x3 Lap Dock, HP Elite x3 Silicone Case, and HP Elite x3 Anti-Shatter Glass Screen Protector.
Out of these, it’s the Lap Dock that is the most unique. HP have been quite innovate around the Elite x3, I mean really given it a lot of thought. The HP Elite x3 Lap Dock looks like a Windows 10 2-in-1 tablet, but is in fact a 12.5-inch display with a keyboard which gets it computer power all from the Elite x3 phone.
The Lap Dock also adds 3x USB Type-C ports, and 1x HDMI port, and HP says that the Lap Dock will be launched at the end of 2016.
HP Elite x3 Lap Dock and phone side by side
