I had a Lumia 920 for a good 3-4 years, great device... But no update to Windows Phone 10... Only the Beta. And the lack of a decent app library really hurt. Happy over in the Android camp now.
Sorry, but the sad truth is that, 4 years after release, the Lumia 920 is an outdated device. A 1.5GHz dual core Krait is no longer the powerhouse it was in February 2012 and may not be able to handle everything Microsoft wants to throw at Windows 10 Mobile devices.
Besides, how much financial sense does it make (seeing as Microsoft needs a profit to justify keeping W10M alive) to pay development costs for all these ancient devices? If it were an Android device, you would still be stuck on 4.1 Jelly Bean :P
The Lumia 920 comprised about half the highish-end Windows phones in existence. I didn't know they didn't upgrade it, but that decision was effectively just shooting Windows Phone in the head (as none of the popular low-end devices received Windows 10 either).
I had a 1520 until... 2 days ago. That combined with Windows 10 is absolutely the worst phone I have ever owned. Buggy, slow, terrible battery life, weird full-device resets... no thanks.
I am now back to my faithful Xperia Z3 which has comparable specifications in every way but somehow manages to also be better in all of the above respects. The Android app library seals the deal.
Microsoft could have executed well with Windows Phone but they made too many false starts. Time for it to die now.
1520 Buggy, slow, terrible battery life ?? I had for 1+ year. never had problem.
I had sony xperia Z3 too, huge wasted huge space on bottom and slow, drain battery. I guess it stuck on android 5.1 now and forever, never update, unless you run android N developer review.
I have been using android N preview on nexus for 2 months now. Nothing powerful, same look at android 4.4.
Yea no. I highly doubt you had a 1520, and if you were having those issues you had hardware not software issues. And most likely a bad cheap sd card that will kill your z3 over time. I have 2 1520's, I ran win 10 since day one in preview, I lived with many bugs. Yet it was always more stable than half our phones here in our carrier (yes I work at a carrier). Even now it is used as a day to day next to the 950xl. The battery lasts 16hrs+ on a normal day of usage I have even got 30+hrs out of it depending on my use. I cannot remember the last time it 'randomly' rebooted itself, but I can tell you the last time my s7 did here and the note edge and the s5 and the z3 and z1s and and and. At any moment I am within reach of over 15 devices, from the s7 all the way down to the grand prime, I leave everyday after dealing with android and iphone in a tech environment thanking fully that I use windows 10. The app gap is minimal and anything I truly need can be remoted into my desktop via vpn and bluestacks or vox or or or. Or take out my windows tablet and emulate, or if I really really really needed android (I don't), I can get me a cheap 70 buck 7in tablet with 4g/lte and call it a day.
Really cool stuff but I can't help but think that Continuum is just going to go the way of Windows RT.
Microsoft's ace in the hole is a Windows 10 phone with an x86 processor that can do full windows while docked. With Thunderbolt 3 technologies and increasingly efficient CPUs from Intel I feel like this is a forgone conclusion.
no need for a smartphone only soc anymore. Core M is already pulling 5W, imagine 5 years from now on 10 and 8nm how many watts core m will pull. intel is spending a good bulk of it's R&D money on LTE Modem development this year.
After the disasters of Atom I would be surprised to see any major phone manufacturer willing to partner with them, especially when Apple and Samsung design their own ARM chips. Add to that how in 5 years time ARM designs will easily be able to compete with whatever Core part Intel might wish to throw at this market... it doesn't look great.
you obviously have no idea what you're talking about...ARM as fast as an Intel Core CPU? LOL...Intel would destroy any ARM CPU in the world regardless of who made it if they put a Core M CPU into a smartphone....and they're not that far off from being able to do it.
The idea is good, and I think business is where the Continuum feature makes the most sense. The problem is even when docked it won't be as useful as it should be since Microsoft locked down the ARM platform too much. If they would let a full desktop mode be enabled it would be more compelling, but it would have to get rid of the API restrictions or it'd just be another Windows RT. Alternately an x86 version of this phone would also work, and probably be even better since no re-compile (for ARM) would be required. Probably the biggest argument I'd expect against such an idea is battery life issues, but could be avoided by just shutting down any win32 apps when the phone gets pulled from the dock.
Continuum does give you an actual desktop. You just can't run Win32 apps since you don't have x86. The API restriction is in place because it doesn't run on ARM.
Once Intel puts out a chip even remotely capable of decent performance in this power envelope and somebody puts that in a phone, then maybe they'll release a version of Windows 10 Mobile for x86 and maybe they'll put Win32 in that version... but probably not any time soon. Intel only just last year started putting their performance cores in larger fanless consumer devices (Core mX). At a miniumum, we're 4 years away from seeing a performance Intel core in a phone.
Continuum does not give you an actual desktop. It's behavior is more akin to tablet mode on the full version of windows where you have fullscreen applications and a very simplified taskbar. The start menu is also not the same, and resembles the mobile start menu. That said, it seems like they're actively moving towards the full desktop model, and if that's the case, I think they're going in the right direction.
It's worth pointing out that Win32 is an API, and the relationship between win32 apps and x86 is merely the fact that it's the only platform that really has any. Windows RT that shipped on the original surface tablets had ARM versions of win32 apps (e.g. the built in apps like notepad, WMP, etc), but required them to be digitally signed to run, preventing third party applications from being created (imo a foolish move in an attempt to lock down the platform from malware). A more accurate statement is that you can't run win32 apps because it's missing most of the win32 api, and it's mostly locked down to UWP apps at this point. There is nothing that really prevents them from integrating the missing portions of the API on phone and allowing developers to target ARM as the platform for win32 based applications. It's just that it's almost certain they won't do it because they're pushing for UWP as the future.
I did say "a desktop" not the full Windows desktop. It's a KB/mouse controlled, windowed desktop.
Also, you're right, the full Win32 API isn't tied to x86 for technical reasons. But that doesn't say it's not tied to x86 for other reasons. MS is in the process of de-spaghetti-fying Windows. Win32 is not really part of that plan any more than it has to be. So it makes sense that they wouldn't propagate it to architectures it didn't already exist on.
I can imagine the only reason any of Win32 was on WinRT is because Windows at that time wouldn't work without the parts they did put in. Go listen to MS developers talk about how, in the making of things like UWP, API contracts, and Nano Server they found the kernel making calls into higher API's like Win32. That's probably the only reason any of Win32 existed on WinRT or in Windows Mobile 8 and higher.
Go look for the Defrag Tools episodes where Larry Osterman was interviewed. Pretty interesting stuff.
The problem is that it's too little, too late. With a worldwide, and USA (their most important market), marketshare of 0.3%, and dropping, why would a business get excited over this? As for consumers, we do know that Win Phone prices over the low hundred's aren't going to sell.
It is not the chip. It is the decision of WinTel not to put a PC desktop experience in a smartphone size device. It took me a long time to realize this as it is not a technical problem at all. In the device above, the employee wielding such will still need a PC for his work.
Intel also decided not to use the Core in smartphones, because they have better margins. In my rough estimate, they will need to sell Core smartphones at the prices of Apple flagship devices.
>> In the device above, the employee wielding such will still need a PC for his work.
That depends on the job. A basic office worker or secretary who needs Office and access to files on the cloud and/or local intranet can probably do their entire job with it. They can then take it home and connect it to a dock and do whatever little bit of facebook and internet browsing most people typically do. Of course there are going to be people like programmers, graphics designers, etc who need fast beefy computers with specialized software to do their job, and even then that's still a subset of programmers. This would also be useful for someone on the go. Being able to hook this up to a dock in a hotel room and sync my GitHub or Perforce projects from a server and do some basic coding would be wonderful.
Yep. This can replace thin client quite nicely, in both desktop (dock) and laptop form... and still of use when RDS is not possible. Email, calendar, contacts, basic MS Office features... will work.
And then, security icing... TPM, encryption, iris scanner... we have some reasonably large customers who are quite aware, even obsessed with these things.
It could do well. Don't know if it will, but it could. And since they failed to address consumer market, playing on Microsoft's strongest card - enterprise presence - makes sense. If they manage to establish some territory there, spreading to consumers segment (v.2) could turn out to be a bit easier.
I actually tried just this not too long ago. I played with the continuum feature of a lumia 950 and used the new remote desktop app to connect to my work machine. Worked fairly well all things considered. I wouldn't have known that I was on a phone if I wasn't the one who hooked it up.
Yeah. It's nice that it includes 64 GB of storage by default, but to not use at least UFS 1.0 (UFS 2.0 is out already) seems odd. eMMC in a workhorse device seems very limiting.
4 GB of RAM is a nice start. I haven't played with mobile Windows since the WinCE days, so not sure how heavy the apps are, but is that enough if you're going to be multi-tasking when docked?
Not too heavy. I'm using 1GB Lumia 830 as my work phone. Native apps (Email etc) and mobile MS Office do very well. Skype for Business is a bit slow to start, but once open, also works fine.
It IS at least eMMC 5.1, which is pretty decent. Yeah, UFS would definitely be better but once we got to eMMC v5.0 it was pretty decent -- the older eMMC 4.51 and below really sucks (cough, Atom, cough)
I own a 950. I've owned a 950xl. Still own a 1020 for mild camera duty.
When I look at this phone, which has reasonable specs, I simply see zero reasons for it to succeed at all. Continuum is nice, has a place within business, but why would this sell when staff just want something shiny to 'think' that they're cool?
The only thing I really wonder is if that's just a recycled Nexus 6 display. No other phone on the market uses/used a 5.96" 1440 AMOLED display other than the Nexus 6. I mean HP could have asked Samsung for an updated panel, but a dying panel for a dying mobile OS fits perfectly.
Realistically, is there a real market for those? Reviews of Continuum have said that it's interesting, but not really useful. That seems to be the main thrust of this though.
But has Hp done their due diligence on this? Have they surveyed even their own people to see whether enough would be interested? Even for business, a $700 (starting price) for a Win Phone seems too high. There just isn't enough real business software for it.
I would think that, with Win Phone sales dropping 70% a quarter, a Win Phone would be a risk.
Phone runs Citrix, Citrix runs everything. Phone acts as mobile thin client, employee doesn't need desktop, laptop or tablet, just a phone. I don't know if it will be super successful but big businesses like HP, like Citrix and like spending less money on IT.
Yes but Android and iPhones are not that easy to convert to desktop and/or laptop.
Now that people work more and more from outside of the office... have dock and one (two, if possible?) monitors on your office desk... use dumb laptop from home or when out and about of office in general... use native apps when RDS cannot be established. Sounds quite flexible arrangement. We have quite a few thin clients around, all of them could be candidates for something like this when their TCs are due for replacement. Especially that many of them use high end company-provided phone, be it iPhone or Android. This phone with dock will still be cheaper than TC + iPhone combo.
Thats exactly my use case. I work from home once a week and my L950 is great. I use it as well as a remote media player with miracast for netflix, bbc and a little streaming App that I wrote. Theres definetely
Enterprises have anroid/ios PORTS of their other internal apps that they have been using for years already on wintel, so yeah Citrix runs everything. Plus that other guy that said emulators .. so yeah, it really does run everything.
Citrix runs on iOS and Android so why not go for those platforms? The only attractive feature in WM10 for me is Continuum. Hopefully Citrix supports resizing the UI to fit whatever screen the phone is connected to.
I wonder if Continuum came out of Nokia. I have old Symbian^3 phones that presented a 1080p UI for media playback when hooked up to a TV, while showing a simplified media interface on the phone. It's not mirroring like what's been done on Android phones and tablets until now, it's presenting two different interfaces simultaneously.
So you get no third party apps, enlarged and simplified Office apps when you connect it to a dock, and not much else. For $700 that's a bad joke. Windows Mobile 10 needs an x86 phone that can run legacy Win32 programs as well as UWP apps, a PC in a pocket. This thing is a dead end Windows RT device all over again.
Sadly Intel has nothing to make such a device. Atoms are too slow even in a tablet power envelope and the Core M chips add $300+ to an already high price.
Even a core m isn't the right chip for a device like this. Yeah, the cpu cores on there would be great, and even probably the GPU too (I wonder how competitive Intel is on GPU perf/watt...) but they would probably want to remove all but a few PCIe lanes (wifi, storage, etc) and add in support for stuff common to a phone, like a modem, ufs/emmc support, spi/i2c/etc, etc.. If they made THAT chip, and sold it at a competitive price they could have taken then mobile market, but they just demand too much money for such a solution to make it competitive.
The Core M TDP even configuring the TDP down is too high for a phone. Great for a tablet though and some good deals around if you look. Picked up a Dell Venue 11 Pro direct from Dell with the fastest Broadwell Core M (2.9GHz), 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD, Win8.1/10 Pro for $270 delivered just last week. It can run at 2 to 2.2GHz for an extended period even in a tablet so I wonder how fast they could run in a laptop with more space for cooling?
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
67 Comments
Back to Article
JoeyJoJo123 - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Lel. Windows 10 smartphone?Dead in the water.
damianrobertjones - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Lel?ZeDestructor - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
to go with the keksMurloc - Saturday, July 23, 2016 - link
le reddit lol :^)acme64 - Tuesday, July 26, 2016 - link
toplelStevoLincolnite - Friday, July 22, 2016 - link
Might as well be dead. Windows Phone has bombed.I had a Lumia 920 for a good 3-4 years, great device... But no update to Windows Phone 10... Only the Beta.
And the lack of a decent app library really hurt. Happy over in the Android camp now.
outlw6669 - Friday, July 22, 2016 - link
Sorry, but the sad truth is that, 4 years after release, the Lumia 920 is an outdated device.A 1.5GHz dual core Krait is no longer the powerhouse it was in February 2012 and may not be able to handle everything Microsoft wants to throw at Windows 10 Mobile devices.
Besides, how much financial sense does it make (seeing as Microsoft needs a profit to justify keeping W10M alive) to pay development costs for all these ancient devices?
If it were an Android device, you would still be stuck on 4.1 Jelly Bean :P
althaz - Friday, July 22, 2016 - link
The Lumia 920 comprised about half the highish-end Windows phones in existence. I didn't know they didn't upgrade it, but that decision was effectively just shooting Windows Phone in the head (as none of the popular low-end devices received Windows 10 either).Spunjji - Friday, July 22, 2016 - link
I had a 1520 until... 2 days ago. That combined with Windows 10 is absolutely the worst phone I have ever owned. Buggy, slow, terrible battery life, weird full-device resets... no thanks.I am now back to my faithful Xperia Z3 which has comparable specifications in every way but somehow manages to also be better in all of the above respects. The Android app library seals the deal.
Microsoft could have executed well with Windows Phone but they made too many false starts. Time for it to die now.
newuser1 - Friday, July 22, 2016 - link
1520 Buggy, slow, terrible battery life ?? I had for 1+ year. never had problem.I had sony xperia Z3 too, huge wasted huge space on bottom and slow, drain battery. I guess it stuck on android 5.1 now and forever, never update, unless you run android N developer review.
I have been using android N preview on nexus for 2 months now. Nothing powerful, same look at android 4.4.
elitewolverine - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link
Yea no. I highly doubt you had a 1520, and if you were having those issues you had hardware not software issues. And most likely a bad cheap sd card that will kill your z3 over time. I have 2 1520's, I ran win 10 since day one in preview, I lived with many bugs. Yet it was always more stable than half our phones here in our carrier (yes I work at a carrier). Even now it is used as a day to day next to the 950xl. The battery lasts 16hrs+ on a normal day of usage I have even got 30+hrs out of it depending on my use. I cannot remember the last time it 'randomly' rebooted itself, but I can tell you the last time my s7 did here and the note edge and the s5 and the z3 and z1s and and and. At any moment I am within reach of over 15 devices, from the s7 all the way down to the grand prime, I leave everyday after dealing with android and iphone in a tech environment thanking fully that I use windows 10. The app gap is minimal and anything I truly need can be remoted into my desktop via vpn and bluestacks or vox or or or. Or take out my windows tablet and emulate, or if I really really really needed android (I don't), I can get me a cheap 70 buck 7in tablet with 4g/lte and call it a day.lazarpandar - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Really cool stuff but I can't help but think that Continuum is just going to go the way of Windows RT.Microsoft's ace in the hole is a Windows 10 phone with an x86 processor that can do full windows while docked. With Thunderbolt 3 technologies and increasingly efficient CPUs from Intel I feel like this is a forgone conclusion.
Death666Angel - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
"CPUs from Intel I feel like this is a forgone conclusion."I thought Intel axed any smartphone SoC plans.
lazarpandar - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Well I'm dumb.Morawka - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
no need for a smartphone only soc anymore. Core M is already pulling 5W, imagine 5 years from now on 10 and 8nm how many watts core m will pull. intel is spending a good bulk of it's R&D money on LTE Modem development this year.Spunjji - Friday, July 22, 2016 - link
After the disasters of Atom I would be surprised to see any major phone manufacturer willing to partner with them, especially when Apple and Samsung design their own ARM chips. Add to that how in 5 years time ARM designs will easily be able to compete with whatever Core part Intel might wish to throw at this market... it doesn't look great.ACE76 - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
you obviously have no idea what you're talking about...ARM as fast as an Intel Core CPU? LOL...Intel would destroy any ARM CPU in the world regardless of who made it if they put a Core M CPU into a smartphone....and they're not that far off from being able to do it.Impulses - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Yet Intel already bailed on mobile SoCs...osxandwindows - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
This has windows RT all over it.domboy - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
The idea is good, and I think business is where the Continuum feature makes the most sense. The problem is even when docked it won't be as useful as it should be since Microsoft locked down the ARM platform too much. If they would let a full desktop mode be enabled it would be more compelling, but it would have to get rid of the API restrictions or it'd just be another Windows RT. Alternately an x86 version of this phone would also work, and probably be even better since no re-compile (for ARM) would be required. Probably the biggest argument I'd expect against such an idea is battery life issues, but could be avoided by just shutting down any win32 apps when the phone gets pulled from the dock.cygnus1 - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Continuum does give you an actual desktop. You just can't run Win32 apps since you don't have x86. The API restriction is in place because it doesn't run on ARM.Once Intel puts out a chip even remotely capable of decent performance in this power envelope and somebody puts that in a phone, then maybe they'll release a version of Windows 10 Mobile for x86 and maybe they'll put Win32 in that version... but probably not any time soon. Intel only just last year started putting their performance cores in larger fanless consumer devices (Core mX). At a miniumum, we're 4 years away from seeing a performance Intel core in a phone.
inighthawki - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Continuum does not give you an actual desktop. It's behavior is more akin to tablet mode on the full version of windows where you have fullscreen applications and a very simplified taskbar. The start menu is also not the same, and resembles the mobile start menu. That said, it seems like they're actively moving towards the full desktop model, and if that's the case, I think they're going in the right direction.It's worth pointing out that Win32 is an API, and the relationship between win32 apps and x86 is merely the fact that it's the only platform that really has any. Windows RT that shipped on the original surface tablets had ARM versions of win32 apps (e.g. the built in apps like notepad, WMP, etc), but required them to be digitally signed to run, preventing third party applications from being created (imo a foolish move in an attempt to lock down the platform from malware). A more accurate statement is that you can't run win32 apps because it's missing most of the win32 api, and it's mostly locked down to UWP apps at this point. There is nothing that really prevents them from integrating the missing portions of the API on phone and allowing developers to target ARM as the platform for win32 based applications. It's just that it's almost certain they won't do it because they're pushing for UWP as the future.
cygnus1 - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
I did say "a desktop" not the full Windows desktop. It's a KB/mouse controlled, windowed desktop.Also, you're right, the full Win32 API isn't tied to x86 for technical reasons. But that doesn't say it's not tied to x86 for other reasons. MS is in the process of de-spaghetti-fying Windows. Win32 is not really part of that plan any more than it has to be. So it makes sense that they wouldn't propagate it to architectures it didn't already exist on.
I can imagine the only reason any of Win32 was on WinRT is because Windows at that time wouldn't work without the parts they did put in. Go listen to MS developers talk about how, in the making of things like UWP, API contracts, and Nano Server they found the kernel making calls into higher API's like Win32. That's probably the only reason any of Win32 existed on WinRT or in Windows Mobile 8 and higher.
Go look for the Defrag Tools episodes where Larry Osterman was interviewed. Pretty interesting stuff.
melgross - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
The problem is that it's too little, too late. With a worldwide, and USA (their most important market), marketshare of 0.3%, and dropping, why would a business get excited over this? As for consumers, we do know that Win Phone prices over the low hundred's aren't going to sell.zodiacfml - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
It is not the chip. It is the decision of WinTel not to put a PC desktop experience in a smartphone size device. It took me a long time to realize this as it is not a technical problem at all. In the device above, the employee wielding such will still need a PC for his work.Intel also decided not to use the Core in smartphones, because they have better margins. In my rough estimate, they will need to sell Core smartphones at the prices of Apple flagship devices.
inighthawki - Friday, July 22, 2016 - link
>> In the device above, the employee wielding such will still need a PC for his work.That depends on the job. A basic office worker or secretary who needs Office and access to files on the cloud and/or local intranet can probably do their entire job with it. They can then take it home and connect it to a dock and do whatever little bit of facebook and internet browsing most people typically do.
Of course there are going to be people like programmers, graphics designers, etc who need fast beefy computers with specialized software to do their job, and even then that's still a subset of programmers. This would also be useful for someone on the go. Being able to hook this up to a dock in a hotel room and sync my GitHub or Perforce projects from a server and do some basic coding would be wonderful.
Murloc - Saturday, July 23, 2016 - link
monitor too small, not ergonomic.inighthawki - Saturday, July 23, 2016 - link
What? The dock connects it to a monitor. The phone becomes nothing other than a very small computer.elitewolverine - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link
Say that to my 950xl hooked up to a 24in Monitor...damianrobertjones - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Business.Continuum for mobile.
Remote desktop for serious work.
Done.
nikon133 - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Yep. This can replace thin client quite nicely, in both desktop (dock) and laptop form... and still of use when RDS is not possible. Email, calendar, contacts, basic MS Office features... will work.And then, security icing... TPM, encryption, iris scanner... we have some reasonably large customers who are quite aware, even obsessed with these things.
It could do well. Don't know if it will, but it could. And since they failed to address consumer market, playing on Microsoft's strongest card - enterprise presence - makes sense. If they manage to establish some territory there, spreading to consumers segment (v.2) could turn out to be a bit easier.
inighthawki - Friday, July 22, 2016 - link
I actually tried just this not too long ago. I played with the continuum feature of a lumia 950 and used the new remote desktop app to connect to my work machine. Worked fairly well all things considered. I wouldn't have known that I was on a phone if I wasn't the one who hooked it up.unuspromulti - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
The X3 and HP Workspace which they'll be selling with it to businesses will use Citrix to provide access to virtual desktops, x86 applications etc.10basetom - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
I wonder why they didn't use UFS 2.0 storage like most every other SD820 device, unless that's a typo.phoenix_rizzen - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Yeah. It's nice that it includes 64 GB of storage by default, but to not use at least UFS 1.0 (UFS 2.0 is out already) seems odd. eMMC in a workhorse device seems very limiting.4 GB of RAM is a nice start. I haven't played with mobile Windows since the WinCE days, so not sure how heavy the apps are, but is that enough if you're going to be multi-tasking when docked?
BedfordTim - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
As an indicator, even the Snapdragon 808 in my 950 is noticeably faster than my Atom tablet.nikon133 - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Not too heavy. I'm using 1GB Lumia 830 as my work phone. Native apps (Email etc) and mobile MS Office do very well. Skype for Business is a bit slow to start, but once open, also works fine.extide - Saturday, July 23, 2016 - link
It IS at least eMMC 5.1, which is pretty decent. Yeah, UFS would definitely be better but once we got to eMMC v5.0 it was pretty decent -- the older eMMC 4.51 and below really sucks (cough, Atom, cough)HomeworldFound - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
"HP’s Elite x3 Windows 10 Smartphone to Cost $699, Set to Be Available Worldwide"Why?
damianrobertjones - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
I own a 950. I've owned a 950xl. Still own a 1020 for mild camera duty.When I look at this phone, which has reasonable specs, I simply see zero reasons for it to succeed at all. Continuum is nice, has a place within business, but why would this sell when staff just want something shiny to 'think' that they're cool?
pedjache - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Dunno, seeing that speaker grille, I thought 'Oooh!Shiny!'damianrobertjones - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
If only it cut beards as well... .unuspromulti - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Because staff don't make IT decisions at large companies, IT do, and they also pay for them.boyang1724 - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
The only thing I really wonder is if that's just a recycled Nexus 6 display. No other phone on the market uses/used a 5.96" 1440 AMOLED display other than the Nexus 6. I mean HP could have asked Samsung for an updated panel, but a dying panel for a dying mobile OS fits perfectly.melgross - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Well, getting special, or even updated major parts is fine if you expect to sell a lot of goods. But Hp would pay more for them.How many of these do they really expect to sell? Not many, I would imagine. So they don't have the bargaining power.
extide - Saturday, July 23, 2016 - link
Good eye, yeah I bet it's the same panel, although who knowsmelgross - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Realistically, is there a real market for those? Reviews of Continuum have said that it's interesting, but not really useful. That seems to be the main thrust of this though.But has Hp done their due diligence on this? Have they surveyed even their own people to see whether enough would be interested? Even for business, a $700 (starting price) for a Win Phone seems too high. There just isn't enough real business software for it.
I would think that, with Win Phone sales dropping 70% a quarter, a Win Phone would be a risk.
unuspromulti - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Phone runs Citrix, Citrix runs everything.Phone acts as mobile thin client, employee doesn't need desktop, laptop or tablet, just a phone.
I don't know if it will be super successful but big businesses like HP, like Citrix and like spending less money on IT.
Gunbuster - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Citrix runs all the android or iOS apps that enterprise employees are already using on their existing handsets?DanNeely - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
1) Citrix to a Windows/Mac desktop.2) Run an Android/iOS simulator on the desktop.
3) ????
4) Profit^H^H^H^H^H^H Oh God WHY!?!?!?!
nikon133 - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Yes but Android and iPhones are not that easy to convert to desktop and/or laptop.Now that people work more and more from outside of the office... have dock and one (two, if possible?) monitors on your office desk... use dumb laptop from home or when out and about of office in general... use native apps when RDS cannot be established. Sounds quite flexible arrangement. We have quite a few thin clients around, all of them could be candidates for something like this when their TCs are due for replacement. Especially that many of them use high end company-provided phone, be it iPhone or Android. This phone with dock will still be cheaper than TC + iPhone combo.
osxandwindows - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Their is a laptop that you can dock android to, actually.hlovbeyond - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link
Thats exactly my use case. I work from home once a week and my L950 is great. I use it as well as a remote media player with miracast for netflix, bbc and a little streaming App that I wrote. Theres definetelyextide - Saturday, July 23, 2016 - link
Enterprises have anroid/ios PORTS of their other internal apps that they have been using for years already on wintel, so yeah Citrix runs everything. Plus that other guy that said emulators .. so yeah, it really does run everything.serendip - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Citrix runs on iOS and Android so why not go for those platforms? The only attractive feature in WM10 for me is Continuum. Hopefully Citrix supports resizing the UI to fit whatever screen the phone is connected to.I wonder if Continuum came out of Nokia. I have old Symbian^3 phones that presented a 1080p UI for media playback when hooked up to a TV, while showing a simplified media interface on the phone. It's not mirroring like what's been done on Android phones and tablets until now, it's presenting two different interfaces simultaneously.
SpartanJet - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Looks great can't wait to ditch my iphone for this.osxandwindows - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Wellcome to surface RT, now with a different name and interface.Enjoy.
Gunbuster - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
Remember Microsoft is fully committed to Win 10 phone in enterprise, just like they were in the consumer space. Oh wait nope...valinor89 - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
"comes with 64 MB of eMMC 5.1 NAND flash storage,"You mean GB right?
Makaveli - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
I do IT in a large law firm.Already been speaking to our HP vendor about this phone..and may get one tossed my way for free.
Looking forward to seeing what this phone can do.
damianrobertjones - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
I bet you do, you naughty man you!serendip - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link
So you get no third party apps, enlarged and simplified Office apps when you connect it to a dock, and not much else. For $700 that's a bad joke. Windows Mobile 10 needs an x86 phone that can run legacy Win32 programs as well as UWP apps, a PC in a pocket. This thing is a dead end Windows RT device all over again.Gunbuster - Friday, July 22, 2016 - link
Sadly Intel has nothing to make such a device. Atoms are too slow even in a tablet power envelope and the Core M chips add $300+ to an already high price.extide - Saturday, July 23, 2016 - link
Even a core m isn't the right chip for a device like this. Yeah, the cpu cores on there would be great, and even probably the GPU too (I wonder how competitive Intel is on GPU perf/watt...) but they would probably want to remove all but a few PCIe lanes (wifi, storage, etc) and add in support for stuff common to a phone, like a modem, ufs/emmc support, spi/i2c/etc, etc.. If they made THAT chip, and sold it at a competitive price they could have taken then mobile market, but they just demand too much money for such a solution to make it competitive.smilingcrow - Tuesday, July 26, 2016 - link
The Core M TDP even configuring the TDP down is too high for a phone.Great for a tablet though and some good deals around if you look.
Picked up a Dell Venue 11 Pro direct from Dell with the fastest Broadwell Core M (2.9GHz), 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD, Win8.1/10 Pro for $270 delivered just last week. It can run at 2 to 2.2GHz for an extended period even in a tablet so I wonder how fast they could run in a laptop with more space for cooling?
damianrobertjones - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
There are far too many companies that don't want that to happen.Csfalcao - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link
2nd paragraph ''and comes with 64 MB"