Lumia 950/950XL

[Russ35]

Anybody planning on getting one of the new Microsoft Lumia phones?

Pre-orders currently being taken at a few places with the 950 at £419 sim free and the 950xl @ between £469 (Amazon and CPW) and £529. Exact release date is unsure but seems to be within the next few weeks (or possibly days).

Get the 950xl from one of the Microsoft partner retailers and you should be able to redeem a code to get a free Continuum display dock (while stock last, register between certain dates etc).

Just about to place my order for the 950xl

[Oakey]

I was due an upgrade some months ago but held out to see what was coming soon.

I've been with Windows Phone five years now but I'm not sure whether I'm going to stick with it. WP has changed a lot since WP7 and all the stuff that made it stand out from iOS and Android (social media integration, that sort of thing) has long gone and with moves like reducing Onedrive space for users I'm not sure whether it's worth staying with the platform anymore.

[zippy3x]

950 for me. I find the XL is just a bit too big.

UK release date is 12th of December (according to Amazon). Apparently there are good deals to be had by ordering in Europe.

My 920 is getting a bit long in the tooth now and the 950 is a solid, if slightly uninspiring, upgrade.

I think that phones have generally reached a bit of a plateau. Nobody is really releasing anything revolutionary.

Ideally I'd like to wait for the rumoured Surface Phone, but who knows when, or even if, that will happen.

[robt350c]

Just ordered a 950 xl from amazon with a mozo case for Christmas - can't wait for Christmas day! Also going to get the continuum hub thingy as I currently have a similar setup at work and home for my surface, all be it with two monitors (think you can only have 1 external monitor).

[Otispunkmeyer]

I'll wait for the reviews I think but needless to say I am pretty sick of my Android phone. Considering the hardware in the thing it doesn't half run like a bag o bolts half the time. Especially the camera. Also it begins to freeze and chug when WiFi connection becomes unstable and the other day it packed up altogether after re-connecting to the outside world after 3 days meant it had too many notifications to handle.

So yeah, fed up with the performance on Android and iOS just seems too simple and boring to bother going back to. Plus the phones are ridiculously expensive now, especially as you cant really plump for the 16GB model, unless you are supremely frugal with apps and media.

I did briefly flirty with WP8 and 8.1 on a Lumia 1520 . The phone was too big and not well made enough for my liking so that made me drop it all in the end, but I did enjoy using WP8.1 and thought it was a nice slick OS. The browser was st mind and the lack of some apps was irksome...but I believe most of this is now sorted in WP10. So I am definitely re-interested in having a windows phone again.

[grumbledoak]

The XL is too big for me and I'm not certain that the 950 will tempt me away from my 520 - I believe Microsoft had it right with Win8.1 UI and I suspect Win10 will be a change for the worse.

[Crush]

I have the 640xl and it does everything I want/need apart from the poor app choice compared to android/Apple.

I'm saving towards a surface pro4

[Tycho]

I do like the look of these phones and when I tried Windows Phone 10 on my cheap 635 it was great. I really like the look of this cover as well:

Leather cover

Edited by Tycho on Thursday 19th November 08:52

[randlemarcus]

Is anyone planning on getting the Continuum connector for these?

[R8VXF]

grumbledoak said:

The XL is too big for me and I'm not certain that the 950 will tempt me away from my 520 - I believe Microsoft had it right with Win8.1 UI and I suspect Win10 will be a change for the worse.

I running Win10 on my 1020 and it is really nice actually. Can reply to texts directly from the notification banner, more quick settings in the notification centre, support for universal apps. I am just waiting for RAW support for the camera and all will be good. Not sure if I am going to go for the 950xl yet though. Will see how the reviews come out. Looking forward to receiving my Band 2 today though

[clonmult]

R8VXF said:

grumbledoak said:

The XL is too big for me and I'm not certain that the 950 will tempt me away from my 520 - I believe Microsoft had it right with Win8.1 UI and I suspect Win10 will be a change for the worse.

I running Win10 on my 1020 and it is really nice actually. Can reply to texts directly from the notification banner, more quick settings in the notification centre, support for universal apps. I am just waiting for RAW support for the camera and all will be good. Not sure if I am going to go for the 950xl yet though. Will see how the reviews come out. Looking forward to receiving my Band 2 today though

RAW support is still there on the 1020, assuming you still have the old Lumia Camera application. The new universal camera application is irritating - startup time is almost instant, but it doesn't support pureview processing (only takes full resolution images).

I was tempted to wait, but I've yet to see any real world examples of decent universal apps (facebook client is still an absolute mess) that bring parity to Android/iOS and much prefer smaller phones, so went for a Z5 compact.

[R8VXF]

I don't have the lumia camera app anymore and it isn't in the store

[Russ35]

R8VXF said:

I don't have the lumia camera app anymore and it isn't in the store

You cannot get the lumia camera on win10 anymore. It still exists if you roll back to 8.1

[R8VXF]

Thought as much. Not a major problem for me though.

[clonmult]

R8VXF said:

Thought as much. Not a major problem for me though.

It does leave the 1020 camera slightly useless - sure it still works, but it doesn't work as well as it did.

Anyway, the original LC app is apparently being updated and will be available again "soon" (I keep on seeing it pop up as an update, it fails each time). How soon would be a guess, but likely to be tied into the official release of W10M for the 1020.

If they could sort the startup speed of the legacy LC application (which is definitely possible) I'd probably start using the 1020 again.

[R8VXF]

clonmult said:

It does leave the 1020 camera slightly useless - sure it still works, but it doesn't work as well as it did.

Anyway, the original LC app is apparently being updated and will be available again "soon" (I keep on seeing it pop up as an update, it fails each time). How soon would be a guess, but likely to be tied into the official release of W10M for the 1020.

If they could sort the startup speed of the legacy LC application (which is definitely possible) I'd probably start using the 1020 again.

Yeah, the old LC app took ages. I do find that the current camera app does hang from time to time though

[Undirection]

Seriously impressed with the 950/XL or more the way it uses Continuum to work as a PC. Not sure what happens if you phone rings though! .

TBH I know a few people who have Lumia phones and all seem to love them. I've never heard anyone say anything bad about them and now MS can auto-change Android apps into ones that work on W10 the app shortage (all relative of course) should change soon.

[R8VXF]

Undirection said:

Seriously impressed with the 950/XL or more the way it uses Continuum to work as a PC. Not sure what happens if you phone rings though! .

TBH I know a few people who have Lumia phones and all seem to love them. I've never heard anyone say anything bad about them and now MS can auto-change Android apps into ones that work on W10 the app shortage (all relative of course) should change soon.

They seem to be ditching the Android converter for now, but the iOS one is still on track

[Otispunkmeyer]

http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/20/9767266/microso...


first review i have seen from The Verge. Sounds a bit meh, especially the hardware which they described as plastiky. Granted, if it doesnt have an apple logo on it they generally dont seem to give glowing reviews, but I was encouraged by a even handed, albeit brief, roundup of the iPad Pro vs Surface Pro 4.

I'd have to reserve judgement until I hold one though. Plastic is fine by me so long as it feels solid. I don't want it to feel like a cheapy throw-away nokia burner phone though. As well, I have found phones with more plastic in their construction hold onto cell and WiFi signals much better. My all metal HTC is very poor in this regard and I don't think the thin strips of plastic in the casing are enough to solve it.

[LeeThr]

I'm seriously interested in one of the XL's, been holding off my upgrade which has been due since July for these. My 1020 is on it's last legs, managed to break the LCD the other night, so it's totally useless until the replacement screen arrives. I wouldn't have bothered apart from the fact there's messages and stuff I possibly need to get at for a court case.

The only trouble is i'm currently with three with a plan that has unlimited data, three so far have no signs that they will be supplying the 950 or xl even after an email to there customer services team who couldn't tell me if they would be or not. I do get through quite a bit of data in a month and the plans that anybody else offer that come even close to what I pay with three currently just don't offer a useful amount of data.

Currently it looks like my only option may well be to just purchase a sim only one. But that may not be such a bad idea should in the next few months the 1040/50 or surface phone materializes as the flagship replacement for the 1020. The camera on the 950 is the only thing i'm not so impressed with, going from the 41MP on the 1020 to only a 20MP on the 950 which is supposed to be a flagship is a bit of a let down.