replace the yellow polycarbonate with rose gold metal and it's an iPhone 6s. kinda.
Yeah, I actually realized that too since I saw iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. They're looks really like an inspiration 620 series of Lumia but in a metal body and done in a good way, but not all. I find the new iPhone from 6 up to now got a quite bit hideous back. Those thick plastic bands kinds of ruin the sleekness of iPhone 6 series, I wished that even Apple tries to do something about it. My first reaction about the leaked image of iPhone is also quite negative, but at least overall it wasn't that bad, its just not as good looking as iPhone 4 to 5s.
Now back to Lumia.
These low-midrange Lumia devices are actually look beautiful, they're minimalistic and still got a great sense of style and it shows how well thought the overall look of the device. The body showcase the color very well...no the body is designed for colors.
What I find with 950 and 950 XL are even quite a black sheep from these previous Lumia, design-wise. They some associated them that they're come from mid-range Lumia design, well in some ways I see it but I find mostly not. The only similarities they share is having a rounded corners and having a flat glass thus lacking curve glass in a shape that is generally a rounded rectangle slab. Well yeah but that's all about it, there are several areas that they don't share at all.
- The body doesn't look wrap around the screen bezel at all, which this where it shows what the color of the device at the front. This something what Lumia is mostly about, colors. This 950 and 950 XL deviates that Lumia (Fabula) design philosophy.
- Second the 950 and 950 XL have rather shaper edges and flat sides, unlike those low-midrange device got more rounded sides and edges. Though 640 and 640 XL got a flatter sides, but the tapered back is still naturally rounded to the back. The back are well design for ergonomics and that's why the back wraps around. 950 and 950 XL now got sharper edges which doesn't shows continuity.
- Speaker design in those photos of low-midrange Lumia got rather minimal and clean looking speaker designs. 950 and 950 XL got this dotted speaker design that looks it tries to borrow from 830, 925 and 1520 from the back, but the implementation are rather horrible. It speaker looks now like a cheap toy instead of supposed to be minimalistic beauty.
Maybe that 950 and 950 XL are indeed from Nokia portfolio, who knows. But the end-result seems like they're like a rejected designs but are archived for reference purpose only. Then Microsoft took over and reuse those templates and maybe did some modifications. Those modifications are less thought-out and only done for practical purposes while beauty comes 4th-class.
I actually even think that maybe 950 and 950 XL reference designs might originally looks better but the modifications ruins it.