The X3, close but no cigar

[beman39]

yeah if MS can stop dragging its feet and get continuum really polished and ALL apps/games working in continuum then they can come out ahead of the game! we can only hope!

 

[Kogling]

Keep in mind the Lumia 950 XL went on sale originally for $649. HP Elite x3 sans dock goes on sale I believe October 21 for $699. A 64GB iPhone 7 Plus is $769 for a 32GB variant ($969 for 256GB). Galaxy S7 Edge 32GB is $599.

I think people here are confusing value with cost. I think the Elite x3 is priced right for its specs and feature set. People seem to have a problem with the value due to it being Windows 10 Mobile, which is a judgement/opinion.

It's not cheap, but it's not aimed at regular consumers. Businesses presumably buy in bulk and get a discount, etc.

Galaxy S7 edge is $599, so $100 less than the Elite (when you minus the dock) but in terms of specification they are fairly similar - I'd say the screen in terms of curved display is more premium.

But, the edge has a smaller battery and from what I can see, is pushing better battery performance even on the 820 variant. This isn't including their "always on" screen feature either. The 3D? iris scanner is nice, but im not using it, and unless you're lacking fingers, I don't see why you need two Bio login as both aren't used at the same time. Only practical use would be the fact it would allow two people access - one via eyes, other via finger?

Android is the only reason I'm not buying into the Edge over this phone. Now if someone said you could flash windows 10 onto Edge I'd exchange this phone on the spot for an edge any day.

On the other hand, if the Elite was pushing better battery performance with it's x% larger battery, my opinion might be different but I'm just not feeling this 4150 mAh battery and apparently, more efficient hardware. I don't feel I've bought an upgrade from my 1520, I feel I've bought a QHD screen on an inferior 1520. Screen is nice, text is smoother but I think I can easily live without that many pixels.

The 950 XL I also don't think was at the correct "value for money" spot on release either, whereas it is now.

Maybe windows is to blame for a phone that on paper, should be lasting twice as long than what it is. You are right, this phone should be a $699 phone by it's specification alone, and who knows, maybe the edge's 22 hour benchmark for video playback on android would drop to 6 hours on windows, below the elites 8 hours? and the Elite on android might push 30 hours? But my 3 year old 1520 felt longer lasting on the same windows OS and bringing all that fancy hardware together and making it work is also part of that premium $699!

Anyone can make Jewellery out of gold, not everyone can make one that's attractive, functional and fit for purpose!

 

[Great deal]

And throwing exclamation points in doesnt make your point valid. Every other "flagship" phone is a general consumer phone, MS has conceded this market. Every business owner I know in this tech hub of a city, that I have discussed this device with, likes the idea, agrees its a starter and waiting 6mo or more it will cost way less, but isnt willing to switch carriers or suggest to employees that they do so with their personal lines, just for this phone. Or any dual sim. Internationally may become an issue even quicker than here in the states as some countries as a whole are killing off 2g. So what then? No work line or no personal line? Pretty tall favor to ask for a phone.

I travel the world, i like the idea of chucking in a local sim card.

 

[Allen Rhodes]

I travel the world, i like the idea of chucking in a local sim card.

If the local sim is the secondary sim, and the country doesn't have 2g, it won't work. That's my point. This is coming, virtually, now.

 

[Dusteater]

If the local sim is the secondary sim, and the country doesn't have 2g, it won't work. That's my point. This is coming, virtually, now.

This is my problem with the 950 XL as well. Not having LTE on second SIM means no visual voicemail, etc. And at least with AT&T in my region, the 2G reception is very bad compared with LTE on SIM 1. The whole dual SIM thing is not working out quite how I hoped.

 

[mweflen]

I wonder how HP feels about the drastic 950/XL price cut right before it released its do-it-all super phone. It's a pretty tough claim that the X3 is more than twice is good as the 950/XL.

I mean, I hope the X3 is successful and all. I just imagine a lot of Windows Phone consumers, looking to upgrade, weighing the options, and saying "nah."

 

[Ric Byrum1]

This was the first Review I have read on the phone. In my end of the business. I get more input from the computer end of things so that's were I get my info from the consumer is that has recently been a marked improvement from The Audio Beat to the Elite in PC`s and had hoped the phone would have improved. What I do know is Acer got kind of tossed out of the boat because they wanted to do a "me too" type of continuum. I guess HP felt like they had to play ball with MS, which is sad LOL, if MS would just stick to building software and contract other companies to build their hardware, they would have been much better off. One thing should have been a learning moment: The Nokia Lumia Windows Phone adventure. To buy a phone company that was already dying out, attempting to buy and refurbish it that whole idea should have been rethought. At the end of that story, the phone is now gone, unsupported, along with 2.2 billion dollars. When they started this idea, they did so without a lot of forethought. I believe what I would have done breaking into a new market would have been more research acquiring at least 1,000 of the most popular apps by android so that the windows phone would have been more familiar to the consumer and gotten that underway before even whispering the idea of a phone on the open market. It was good to hear your side of the HP phone deal. I believe that is straight up and I will pass it along to my customers.

 

[Ertonimus]

This is my problem with the 950 XL as well. Not having LTE on second SIM means no visual voicemail, etc. And at least with AT&T in my region, the 2G reception is very bad compared with LTE on SIM 1. The whole dual SIM thing is not working out quite how I hoped.

Perhaps I'm missing something here but I rocked a dual sim Lumia while travelling and although I wasn't able to connect to LTE via the second sim I was fine connecting to 3g and HSPA+(4g). There are other bands than LTE and 2g.

 

[loudog3114]

I don't know about $1000 - I paid $864 shipped to my house. My opinion is this; if you own a 950XL, it probably isn't worth the cost. If you do not, it probably is. It is a better device to use all around; Faster, better battery life, iris AND fingerprint scanners, much faster iris, larger/wider screen. The fingerprint sensor alone makes it worth a couple hundred in my book, as that makes any device miles easier and more pleasant to use. The iris scanner is only a backup for me, when I have gloves on. The camera, frankly, I couldn't care less, and you should too. Sure, I take pictures; of friends, parties, the occasional attempt at being artsy with a landscape, and I haven't had my hands on a premium phone that didn't fit the bill for those uses in years. Yes, the 950XL will win the stat game when it comes to pictures, but in real life, it just doesn't matter.

 

[JaimitoFrog]

Originally posted by Allen Rhodes
And throwing exclamation points in doesnt make your point valid. Every other "flagship" phone is a general consumer phone, MS has conceded this market. Every business owner I know in this tech hub of a city, that I have discussed this device with, likes the idea, agrees its a starter and waiting 6mo or more it will cost way less, but isnt willing to switch carriers or suggest to employees that they do so with their personal lines, just for this phone. Or any dual sim. Internationally may become an issue even quicker than here in the states as some countries as a whole are killing off 2g. So what then? No work line or no personal line? Pretty tall favor to ask for a phone.

Can set the smart sim settings to forward calls from one sim to the other when there is no 2G.

 

[jlzimmerman]

Even if the OS becomes stable and polished, we still have the weak ecosystem to deal with. Will the ecosystem come around assuming the OS matures? Maybe it will, but it is not guaranteed.

It most likely will not. The simple and sobering fact that Microsoft is not proud of W10M/WP almost guarantees that it will be nothing but a niche device. They display very little parity when releasing mobile software and I haven't seen an ad or commercial for W10M/WP since late 2014.

It reminds me when I tweeted MS Band stating that nobody will never know about the Band if they don't advertise it. They replied and referred me to their YouTube channel. SMH.

However, I will continue to use W10M because I dislike Android and iOS more than W10M for several reasons.

 

[MOBBAK]

Could you please share with us your reasons for not getting Android or iOS and W10M over them?

 

[diego866]

Definitley. That is a legit concern for many XL or 950 owners. It's a nice upgrade but likely not enough to justify the cost. It's like that every year for the iPhone and Apple fans.

The lumia 950 camera beats the hp x3 camera friend...

Enviado desde mTalk

 

[Allen Rhodes]

I don't know about $1000 - I paid $864 shipped to my house. My opinion is this; if you own a 950XL, it probably isn't worth the cost. If you do not, it probably is. It is a better device to use all around; Faster, better battery life, iris AND fingerprint scanners, much faster iris, larger/wider screen. The fingerprint sensor alone makes it worth a couple hundred in my book, as that makes any device miles easier and more pleasant to use. The iris scanner is only a backup for me, when I have gloves on. The camera, frankly, I couldn't care less, and you should too. Sure, I take pictures; of friends, parties, the occasional attempt at being artsy with a landscape, and I haven't had my hands on a premium phone that didn't fit the bill for those uses in years. Yes, the 950XL will win the stat game when it comes to pictures, but in real life, it just doesn't matter.

Again...... Its a great phone. Im not partial to a fingerprint reader just as you arent to a camera. But I beg to differ, the camera on every phone is a BIG deal. I get they are going after business types. But, again, a dual sim needs to be a personal phone as well. So telling me i shouldnt care about a camera spec just because you dont is pure crud. My point is the cost of the device, fine about $900, isnt worth the minimal upgrade from MY, MY, 950XL. I played with the apps on the demo and side by side launched them, barely a noticeable difference. If you are coming from an Icon or even a 1520, I'd say do it. But wait about 6mo when the price plummets. As a prior poster pointed out, for about $300 less, as of today, you can get a slightly less comparable phone. This is all just opinion here guys. If the price point hits $500 by spring and still no word on a Surface phone, I may snag it if I only have one phone line. Because, again, MY phone carrier is killing off the 2G network.

 

[DaveZChicago]

So this might not be an accurate comment (and I'd appreciate anyone shedding some light) but I've had several dual sim phones and none of them supported anything other than 2g on the 2nd SIM no matter what the service offering. And they never supported data on the 2nd SIM either (you had to pick which SIM did the data). Don't know if this is inherent in phone design or not? In any case as an FYI I had AT&T for both my SIMs and for whatever reason my 2nd connection with AT&T kept dropping, spend a few fruitless days with AT&T support before finally saying forget it, for the 2nd number transferred to a T-Mobile unlimited voice and text service, $5/mo cheaper than AT&T and they transferred the number over in seconds -- and now the service doesn't drop anymore. I kind of like having different carriers on the SIMs anyways in case I'm in a dead zone with one but not the other.....

 

[Daniel Rubino]

Limitations of the chipset by Qualcomm. IIRC there are no Snapdragon's that support dual LTE radios.

 

[anthonyng]

Limitations of the chipset by Qualcomm. IIRC there are no Snapdragon's that support dual LTE radios.

Hopefully on their way... I guess in asia markets, 2g is still prevalent to satisfy their dual sim needs however, in NA it's all winding down