HP has announced on Monday, July 18, that the Elite X3 phablet will start shipping to customers in the United States on August 29.
According to PCMag, the HP Elite X3 phablet has been first announced by the company in February, at the Mobile World Congress. Now, HP has announced that the launch of the new device in the U.S. is scheduled for the next month, in August.
HP will sell the standalone phablet for $699. However, the HP Elite X3 is designed to work with optional docks adding laptop-like features such as USB and Ethernet. HP will sell the bundle that includes a dock for desktop use and an X3 headset for $799.
The 5.96-inch Elite X3 phablet caters to small business owners and corporate IT departments. The mobile device is powered by a 2.15GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 820. With the help of the bundled docks and the Microsoft's Continuum feature, the phablet can turn into a desktop PC or laptop.
The desktop dock can be used to add a single USB-C port, two USB 3.0 ports and a DisplayPort. The Continuum feature will display content from your phone, once you connect a monitor. Users can switch between the external screen and the phablet screen.
According to BGR, this cutting-edge hybrid HP device comes with killer specs such as 64GB of memory. The lap dock is essentially a full 12.5-inch laptop that uses the Elite x3 as its networking, storage and processor. Its larger battery can also charge the one in the phablet, once the lap dock is connected. HP has not announced the pricing for the lap dock yet.
This unique setup is useful particularly for business travelers constantly on the road. However, since the Elite X3 runs Windows 10, in order to get desktop-class apps to work on the hybrid device, it is necessary to use an enterprise-class remote desktop service such as HP Workspace.
