HP has finally released information about the pricing and availability of its Elite X3 Windows 10 smartphone. We first saw this smartphone at MWC back in February where HEXUS made a video of the device on show. Then in June we heard that HP had tweaked the specs and integrated a fingerprint reader into the device.
The HP Elite X3 will be priced at $699 at launch, on the 29th August. The company will also launch a bundle of the smartphone with headset and Desk Dock for $799. The desk Dock provides USB and DisplayPort connectors for a monitor and peripherals. Another important accessory will be the Lap Dock, which is a laptop shell powered by the X3. Separate pricing of these accessories has yet to be published.
As noted by Engadget, now seems an odd time to be investing in and launching a new Windows Phone. This is HP’s first smartphone in over two years and it is a decidedly high-end device. It’s not alone in seeing the potential of Windows on mobile devices going forward, at the start of the month Dell decided to drop all its Android tablets and 2-in-1s in favour of Windows.
The hardware spec of the HP Elite X3 smartphone is rather impressive and is, in summary, as follows:
- 6-inch (2560x1440) AMOLED edge-to-edge display with Gorilla Glass 4 covering
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, quad core CPU running at 2.15GHz plus Adreno 530 GPU
- 4GB LPDDR4 RAM
- 64GB eMMC 5.1 storage plus microSD up to 2TB
- 16MP rear camera, 8MP front camera with Iris scanner
- 4G LTE-A, 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2x2) Wi-Fi, Miracast support
- Headphone jack, dual nano-SIM (or nano SIM plus microSD), USB Type-C
- Fingerprint reader
- 4,150mAh battery
- B&O audio
- Measures 83.5 x 7.8 x 161.8mm, weighs 195g
- Windows 10 Mobile OS
