Microsoft Adds HP Elite x3 Smartphone to Windows Store, $799

Microsoft has begun to sell HP’s Elite x3 smartphone at its Windows Store. The handset is one of the most powerful Windows 10 Mobile-based devices and the one of a few initially aimed at the business professionals on a company contract. The fact that Microsoft has started to sell the HP Elite x3 indicates that the smartphone is now available to general consumers as well.

Microsoft sells unlocked HP’s Elite x3 at it MSRP of $799, which is much higher than the price of typical Windows smartphones. The handset comes with its Continuum desk dock that features an Ethernet adapter, as well as DisplayPort USB connectors, and can work with desktop displays as well as keyboards. Meanwhile, neither Microsoft nor HP currently offer the Elite x3 Lap Dock device, which can transform the Elite x3 smartphone into a laptop.

The HP Elite x3 smartphone is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 SoC and is currently the only Microsoft’s Windows 10 Mobile-based smartphone to use the chip. The device is equipped a 5.96” AMOLED display and comes with 64 MB of eMMC 5.1 NAND flash storage, 4 GB of LPDDR4 RAM as well as all the necessary connectivity features, including 4G/LTE, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and a USB Type-C connector. Developed specifically for enterprise and business users, who value security, the HP Elite x3 is FIPS 140-2 certified and features Secure Boot (with iris and fingerprint scanners), full disk encryption with a 256-bit key, fTPM 2.0, and so on. The smartphone from HP also takes advantage of Microsoft’s Continuum technology, which allows you to run your phone as a desktop PC.

At present, the HP Elite x3 has no rivals in the price range because it is the only Windows 10 smartphone that sells for $799. In the Continuum space, the HP Elite x3 competes against Acer’s Liquid Jade Primo as well as Microsoft’s own Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL, which are available for $449, $399 and $499 respectively.

The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus Review: Iterating on a Flagship

The iPhone 6 was a runaway success by any measure. The A8 SoC may have been built on a temperamental  20SoC process – something that dogged all other phone vendors – but for Apple it didn’t matter. The iPhone 6 was the first iPhone generation with a phablet variant. By all metrics it was a resounding success as it capitalized on this pent-up demand for larger iPhones.

The iPhone 6s continued this success, and in a year of disappointing launches due to the weak showing of the widely used Snapdragon 808 and 810, the 6s and 6s Plus looked particularly good as the competition really couldn’t measure up. Now there were a lot of Android devices that performed better than the iPhone 6s/6s Plus in some particular area – a better camera or longer battery life, for example – but taken as a whole the iPhones 6s were just clearly superior devices. If nothing else, they hit that particular balance between features and performance that a lot of users were looking for.

Meanwhile, the addition of 3D Touch was the sort of refinement to the user experience that still remains exclusive to the iPhone. Other OEMs have implemented some form of force sensing, but the implementation is not really executed in a way to improve user experience in a noticeable way. Adoption remained weak as well, with no real widespread support in the ecosystem for such features.

That said, the iPhone doesn’t exist in a vacuum on its own. Even in just the high-end market segment Apple limits themselves to, they have a loyal opposition, and that opposition is of course Samsung. Looking at the state of affairs there, relative to the iPhone 6s the Galaxy S6 had a better camera for still images, but it was obvious that it couldn’t freeze motion as well. The phone itself was fairly thick as well due to the need to accommodate a much larger battery. Despite the larger battery, battery life on LTE just wasn’t where it needed to be. The Galaxy Note5 was in many ways a similar story, which isn’t too surprising as the Note has moved closer and closer to being a phablet-version of the Galaxy S.

But, as the story goes, Apple’s competition has improved and advanced. The Galaxy S6 gave way to the even better Galaxy S7, HTC finally found their groove with the HTC 10, and OnePlus’s 3 is their best showing yet. The competition is getting better, and with the iPhone 7, Apple can no longer rely on weak competition or pent-up demand for some major feature. The iPhone 7 must stand by its merits against this increasingly stiff competition.

To see how it manages, read on for the full review.

Launch Update: ASUS ZenFone 3, Zenbook 3, ZenWatch 3, ZenPad 3S 10

ASUS has introduced a number of new products this summer, but never released their official recommended prices and availability timeframes for the US market. In the recent weeks, the company quietly began to sell some of the new products and this week ASUS published actual configurations, MSRPs and ETAs for its Zenbook 3, ZenFone 3, ZenWatch 3 and ZenPad 3S 10 devices.

ZenFone 3

ASUS formally introduced its ZenFone 3 family of smartphones at the company’s annual press conference ahead of Computex in late May. The new ZenFones are the first handsets from ASUS based on ARM processors and also the first phones from the company to use Super AMOLED display panels (high-end models only). The initial ZenFone 3 lineup included three models (Laser and Deluxe), but eventually ASUS expanded it with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 821-based ZenFone 3 Deluxe 5.7” Special Edition as well as the value ZenFone 3 Laser.

Three ZenFone 3 models are already available in the U.S. for $199 (ZF3 Laser ZC551KL), $399 (ZF3 Deluxe 5.5” ZS550KL) and $499 (ZF Deluxe 5.7” ZA570KL), whereas the ZF3 Deluxe 5.7” Special Edition is set to be available in late October exclusively from the ASUS Store for $799. In the meantime, the destiny of the media-consumption focused ZenFone 3 Ultra (ZU680KL) in the U.S. is unknown. The device is available in some countries (e.g., the Philippines), but not in Europe or North America.

It is noteworthy that at present ASUS only offers silver versions of its ZenFone 3 smartphones. It looks like the rest colors will hit the market at a later date.

Zenbook 3

The Zenbook 3 from ASUS seemed like a worthy competitor for Apple’s MacBook back in June thanks to its Core i5 and Core i7 SoCs as well as low weight of 910g. Since the announcement at Computex, ASUS has upgraded the notebooks with Intel’s Kaby Lake processors, making the systems slightly faster and more responsive. At present, ASUS sells two Zenbook 3 models in the US: the premium Core i7-7500U-based UX390UA-XH74-BL equipped with 16 GB of RAM, a 512 GB NVMe SSD and a fingerprint reader for $1599 as well as the mainstream Core i5-7200U-powered UX390UA-DH51-GR with 8 GB of RAM and a 256 GB SATA SSD for $1099.

The top-of-the-range model with 1 TB SSD and rose gold finish for $1999 is yet to come. We mentioned earlier this year that the price difference of $500 between the Core i7-based ZB3 models is a significant jump for 500 GB of additional PCIe SSD capacity. 

ZenPad 3S 10

It is rather hard to make a breakthrough affordable tablet these days, but the new ASUS ZenPad 3S 10 looks rather impressive. For $299, the slate offers a retina-class 9.7” display with 2048×1536 resolution, a six-core MediaTek MT8176 SoC (two Cortex A72, four Cortex-A53 cores, PowerVR GX6250 graphics, etc.), 4 GB of LPDDR3 RAM, up to 64 GB of storage, 802.11ac WiFi and a fingerprint reader. 

The ASUS Z500M tablet looks like a rival for Apple’s iPad Air 2, which price starts at $399. The Wi-Fi-only ZenPad 3S 10 slate will be available in early November, but there has been no mention if ASUS intends to release a version with 4G/LTE.

ZenWatch 3

The ASUS ZenWatch 3 (WI503Q) got a lot of attention earlier this year because this is the first smartwatch from the company featuring a round display and because it is one of the first devices to use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 2100 SoC (APQ8009w). Just like in other countries, the ZenWatch 3 will be available in the U.S. in November for $229.

What remains to be seen is whether the manufacturer plans to start selling all three versions of the device at the same time (in silver, gunmetal and rose gold finish), or intends to roll them out one after another like it does with the ZenFone 3.