Can Microsoft's Display Dock replace the notebook?

There's no more need to lug a laptop around if you want to work while on the go - simply connect your smartphone to a monitor using a tiny box and you can work as if you were on a desktop PC. That's the promise of Microsoft's Display Dock, which is designed to break open the barriers between device classes such as smartphones, laptops and desktop computers.
Continuum is the magic word for the concept which relies on the Windows 10 Mobile operating system, the latest smartphones and the USB Type C connector. Once you have those, all you need is a screen, a mouse and a keyboard. The computer will be the smartphone itself.
The Display Dock is a metal box about the size of a bar of soap. On the back there are three USB 2.0 ports, a USB-C charging port and outlets for HDMI and DisplayPort. On the front there's a USB-C port for connecting the smartphone - this port also charges the phone at the same time.
Currently the device only works with the new Lumia 950 and 950 XL smartphones.
Once the smartphone and monitor are connected via the Display Dock, the home screen of the phone appears on the monitor. With a USB mouse and keyboard, you immediately feel like you're working on a PC.
Alternatively, these can be connected by Bluetooth, leaving the USB ports on the dock free for external hard drives.
But how do the mobile apps look on the big screen? Universal apps - those that were created to run both on PCs and smartphones running Windows 10 Mobile - look well, while Outlook and the other Microsoft programmes look almost like they do on the full-size Windows 10.
Things are a little different with the mobile version of Office. Word, Excel and PowerPoint fill the screen but have a reduced range of functions. To not only read text files via Continuum but also to write them will require an Office 365 account or a paid subscription to Microsoft's Office software.
While connected to the dock, the smartphone can still be used normally as a phone or as a trackpad for the monitor. This works particularly well when the phone is connected to a projector and one is clicking through the screens on a presentation.
So can one now leave the laptop at home when going on business trips, instead taking along only a smartphone? For those who work with Office a lot and have documents stored in the cloud, the combination works well.