Yesterday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, HP finally unveiled the long rumored Elite x3.
It was the phone that Windows fans had been waiting for. Powered by a Snapdragon 820 chipset, a 5.96" QHD AMOLED, a 16 MP rear camera, an 8 MP front camera, 4 GB RAM, and 64 GB of storage, it"s everything that fans were hoping the Lumia 950 would be and what they"re dreaming that the Surface Phone will be.
There"s just one problem. The device is designed for businesses.
Since the announcement yesterday, there have been conflicting reports about whether consumers would be able to purchase the handset at all.
Luckily, they will. HP issued the following statement to Neowin:
The HP Elite x3 will be sold a variety of ways. On hp.com, via distributor/VARs (indirect/direct channels), the HP sales force and Microsoft will sell this in the carrier channels on our behalf. In some countries, HP Elite x3 may also be sold by partner operators’ sales network. For more details, visit hp.com.
HP also hasn"t announced the LTE bands that the Elite x3 will support. If they choose to support Band 13 LTE, Verizon will be forced to allow the phone on their networks. After all, it wouldn"t make much sense to create a business phone that doesn"t support the carrier that most businesses use.
Since the HP Elite x3 won"t be available until this Summer, there are still quite a few unknowns, such as the price and the LTE bands. At least it"s now known that consumers will be able to purchase the phone, even if it"s at an unlocked price.