Why Microsoft's New $99 Display Dock Could Be A Game Changer (Opinion)

By our very nature, we at Tom's Hardware aren't much interested in the many, many accessories and gadgets that are optional add-ons to devices like mobile phones and laptops. (A neato Bluetooth dongle, you say? Who cares! Is that a very expensive protective laptop sleeve? Not for me! And so on.) Those items tend to be the "slice of pie" of the tech world, unnecessary detritus that only serves to add to the final bill but isn't much part of the meal, as it were.

The new Display Dock (HD-500) that you can purchase with an upcoming Lumia 950 or Lumia 950 XL smartphone is not one of those things. Indeed, although you can certainly use one of the relatively high-end Lumias without ever missing the Display Dock, the little $99 device can open up a world of possibilities for many users.

The small, square device is like a laptop dock you can fit in your pocket. Leave it hooked up to your monitor, keyboard and mouse, where it will wait for you to plug in your new Lumia phone using the USB Type-C cable, transforming your phone into a PC thanks to Windows 10 Continuum, or take it with you and have a PC-like experience wherever you go.

My Phone, My PC

Let me back up a bit.

The ability to use your phone as a primary computing device is something of a panacea in the minds of many, and that question -- Can my phone be my PC? -- has been asked repeatedly since Apple created the smartphone market with the iPhone.

There have always been severe limitations, though. The mobile hardware wasn't at all powerful enough. The apps weren't sufficient substitutes for desktop software. There weren't good enough ways to connect and display the smartphone's contents on a larger monitor. Battery life was an issue. And so on.

Things have been changing on that front, of course. Mobile hardware continues to increase in power, and innovations such as SlimPort and MHL and USB Type-C have all in one way or another helped to ameliorate the connectivity and battery issues.

Microsoft cleared one of the final, and most formidable, hurdles -- that of the UI problem -- with Windows 10 by enabling Universal Apps on the new OS (that is, applications can run on any device with the same code, from desktops to mobile phones to the Xbox) and creating Continuum (which intelligently displays a device's contents to fit a larger display).

In other words, the technology baked into Windows 10 enables you to connect your Windows 10 Mobile smartphone to a monitor and display the phone's contents in a pretty, intuitive, familiar UI, with applications that run (more or less) just as well on your desktop as they do on your phone.

(Windows 10 Mobile is not yet out -- it's coming in December alongside the launch of the Lumia 950 and 950 XL -- so we'll have to reserve some judgment on how well that will work. But the demos we've seen are promising.)

The Last Mile

What Microsoft has done with the HD-500 display dock is to create a "last mile" solution for all the aforementioned tech. It's a linchpin of sorts, a dedicated little hub for your high-end Lumia phone that lets you add a keyboard, mouse and large display to your phone.

With the additional available ports, you can also attach, for example, an external hard drive, effectively increasing your available storage by as much one or two TB. Also note that the hub enables DisplayPort over the USB Type-C connection.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Microsoft Display Dock (HD-500)
Ports-USB Type-C (5 Gbps)-DisplayPort-HDMI-USB 2.0 (x2)-USB 2.0 w/ high current charging
Dimensions-64.1 x 25.6 x 64.1 mm (WxLxH)-230 g
Support-HDCP 1.3/1.4-60 fps-DisplayPort over USB Type-C-1080p HD video
Misc.-Gadgets app UI-Charger input: 3000 mAh-Charger output: 2000 mAh
Price$99

Reservations

The above is all well and good, but you probably have some reservations about that really important little thing we call "performance." To be honest, I share that concern. Can the hardware inside the Lumia 950 and 950 XL (and any subsequent phones that the HD-500 will support) really hack even a relatively lightweight workload?

We wouldn't dare state definitively that they could (or couldn't) without testing it for ourselves, but we can speculate. Consider the specs of these new Lumias:

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Header Cell - Column 0 Lumia 950Lumia 950 XL
SoCQualcomm Snapdragon 808 (hexacore)Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 (octacore)
Display-5.7-inch Quad HD AMOLED Corning Gorilla Glass 3-2650x1440 (564 ppi)-5.7-inch Quad HD AMOLED Corning Gorilla Glass 4-2650x1440 (518 ppi)
Memory3 GB
Storage-32 GB-expandable storage up to 200 GB microSD-OneDrive storage
Cameras-20MP PureView with Zeiss optics, OIS, triple LED flash, supports 4K-5MP front camera, wide-angle, 1080p HD
Wireless-Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac with MIMO-BT 4.1-4G LTE-Single- or dual-SIM available
Battery3000 mAh3340 mAh (removable)
Sensors, Etc.-Accelerometer-Ambient light sensor-Barometer-Gyroscope-Magnetometer-Proximity sensor-A-GLONASS-A-GPS-Wi-Fi network positioning
Misc.-USB Type-C port with "fast charging"-Physical power, volume and camera buttons
Software-Creative Studio-Gadgets-Lumia Help+Tips-MixRadio-Photos plug-ins-Transfer my Data
Warranty1-year
OS"Windows 10"
Price$549$649

They run high-end Qualcomm Snapdragon SoCs and have 3 GB of RAM. That's not nuthin', as they say. And we've certainly seen smartphone-level hardware running non-smartphone devices before, such as some 2-in-1 tablets and Chromebooks, and those experiences aren't terrible.

Granted, Chrome OS is built to be as lightweight as possible, and thus a mobile chip can handle its demands more readily than it would a bulky Windows desktop installation. And although today's high-end smartphones can keep up with whatever you throw at them, there's a certain way that we're prone to use a desktop environment that is different from how we'd work on a mobile device.

However, if you simply take everything you do on your phone all day (shooting off emails, writing notes, using Office 365, working on social media, maybe even doing some light photo editing, etc.) and give yourself the ease of keyboard/mouse input and the large display area afforded by a monitor, that's a terrific upgrade to your workflow, is it not?

Your phone can't do all the things your PC can -- even if that PC is a lightweight ultrabook -- and in that sense, no, your phone can't replace your PC. And it never will. But with the aforementioned technologies, linked together with the HD-500 dock, your ability to be productive with your phone can skyrocket.

One other issue, though, is the HD-500's exclusivity. It's unclear what future handsets it might support, although it's reasonable to assume that it will work just fine with any phone running Windows 10 Mobile that has a USB Type-C port. (At present, there are precious few devices that meet that criteria. But more could be coming.)

The Bottom Line

We can confidently surmise from the listed specs that the Lumia 950 and 950 XL will offer strong performance as standalone smartphones. And we can safely assume that, via the HD-500 dock, they will provide reasonably sufficient performance for lightweight productivity applications on a nice, big display.

Further, Microsoft has done a nice job of framing this little device. It's simple and straightforward, convenient, and its use is purposeful and clear: Plug your peripherals into it. Plug your phone into it. Off you go. That's it.

And it costs just $99.

Even so, no one is expecting Microsoft to sell millions and millions of Lumia 950 and 950 XL handsets. I believe many Windows Phone users have been waiting for a new flagship option, and many will snap up one of these phones, but the market share just isn't there to make a huge dent. For however many new Lumias Microsoft sells, it will unload even fewer HD-500 docks.

And that's okay. It doesn't matter if these things sell like gangbusters. On paper, Microsoft has figured out the way to do this smartphone-as-PC thing better than anyone else to date, and because of that, it's likely that we'll see more handset makers, and possibly third-party dock makers, come to market with similar options.

That's a good thing for consumers. It could force other OEMs such as Apple and Samsung and HTC to develop similar hardware solutions, and it could put some pressure on Google and Apple to do a better job of reproducing a mobile OS interface on a large external display.

In that sense, even if Microsoft doesn't sell many HD-500 docks -- and even if it doesn't work all that spectacularly well -- it could still be a catalyst for changing the smartphone game.

Seth Colaner is the News Director at Tom's Hardware. Follow him on Twitter @SethColaner. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

  • hannibal
    Remix mini https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jidetech/remix-mini-the-worlds-first-true-android-pc
    Is also one device that use mobile chip to produce desktop like experience, so this MS-dock can actually be really good in practice! Also WP 8 has been really light and run reasonable well also with very low specks, so it should be relative easy to 950 series to run any normal phone application.
    What we now need is 64-bit version of WP10 and things can change radically.
    Reply
  • ninjustin
    I think it's a good half step. The Lumina's still won't run normal windows programs (what the hell is the technical term for those), only the universal apps from the app store. I would imagine for office work though it would still be good for many people.
    Reply
  • billybobser
    That does sound lovely and robust. Kinda wish my company hadn't pulled the trigger on business iphones. The utility on these devices are poor without 3rd party work arounds. (downloading a patch/file to transfer to a pc over USB anyone?)

    And to be honest, the power in todays phones should have no problem running a basic office suite. ( unless it was programmed as an afterthought...).

    Most of my work tasks are emails, reading technical docs/cad drawings, creating word docs/spreadsheets and cropping/basic image manipulation. Hardware is not the problem. Robust and efficient software is.

    I'm glad to see companies coming up with real solutions to use a phone for all work tasks instead of having touch rammed down our throat. Touch is a terrible way to do everything.
    Reply
  • blakbird24
    Well we've been waiting to see some real classic-apple-style innovation come from somewhere, since apple itself stopped doing it years ago. This may be it. Certainly looks like it on paper.

    I've been saying ever since Microsoft created Windows 8 that they have a potential game changer in this unified computing concept if they can just get it right. This is the kind of thing I was talking about. A truly unified lifestyle computing platform. It's inevitable that we eventually move to the abstract form factor where all the horsepower is leased to us and we simply have choice of interface (or abstract interface, ala VR), this seems like the obvious intermediate step. Classic M$ would find a way to screw it up, but they've actually been holding up in the last couple of years, so maybe.

    I'm watching intently, that's for sure.
    Reply
  • schultzter
    It's not quite clear, does it charge the phone too? If not then I'd probably have to interrupt my work day to plug my phone into a charger at some point!?
    Reply
  • salgado18
    When you get to test it, don't forget to try the smaller 640 with it (maybe the 540 too). They may be very limited in hardware, but that's what testing is for, right? :)
    Reply
  • remyj
    Let's not forget that the ports on this device might work with tablets and laptops with the USB Type-C ports. These docks might sell very well because of this. I hope Microsoft or one of their other Windows partners build one of these docks that would stand the phone up so it could be used as a second monitor. Have a clock, calendar, or task app running on it while you do real work on the larger screen connected to it.
    Reply
  • drethon
    I've said for years that all these computing devices other than a mobile device (cell phone) and high power device (desktop/server) are just display devices that happen to have a CPU.

    Use some wireless method so you don't need wires and now when you walk into a computer cafe with your phone, you can just auto connect to a keyboard, mouse and display(s). Or your laptop can just display what your phone is commanding rather than having its own CPU and storage (or laptop has extra storage if needed). Then your tablet just talks to your phone to display a larger picture and when you walk into your home it can switch over to your server computer for higher processing power.

    The problem likely is that there isn't much money saved by making a tablet a wireless remote screen instead of a stand alone device. Who knows though.
    Reply
  • salgado18
    (To Best Of Media) Why can't you make the link change to the next article when the next article is on the middle of the screen?? The link changes while the screen is looking at comments to the previous article, so a refresh sends us to the wrong one. Seriously, can't you do a site properly? Can't you test it? Don't you have some standards of quality? Ever since Best Of Media took over, I've seen countless complaints about everything here. Pleeease, think user first!
    Reply
  • Dave K
    IMO this is one area where Apple dropped the ball. I bought one of the early iPad's and had the keyboard attachment, it quickly became obvious that it wasn't that useful without a mouse, but Apple specifically disabled using a mouse with the iPad/iPhones (didn't want to cannibalize their pc business). I ended up switching to a Surface Pro, the iPad was crippled for someone who needs more than content consumption.

    This little dock will likely cause me to switch to Lumia for my next phone... assuming the real hands-on testing shows it's got decent functionality. Though on the design side... they should integrate a plug into the unit (simple docking station) instead of requiring an external cable.
    Reply