Hands-on Experiences with the 950XL

[Noahma]

And how much did you pay for that phone over those two years? About $500+, right?

lets see if my math is good, if not feel free to correct me. its 40.00 / mo. to have a phone on the standard contract. and 15.00/ mo. with a byod. so... on contract you do the 99-199 down and add 960 over the life of the contract. we will use the 99. so thats 1059 over the two years. with byod phone 659 plus 360 for the contract life ( i know, byod is not under contract, keeping things equal) your paying 1019 over the same time saving 40.00

so, its where you want to put the money, up front or spread out. but the benifits for owning the phone over being locked in a contract are high with me. i will buy the phone outright, especially with the crap at&t pulled with the 830

 

[Clinton_O]

how much heat did it have?
I hope not so hot like L920 or like that

Wasnt as hot as that thankfully, my 920 can heat my house lol. Still was a bit warmer than i would like.

 

[B T C]

And how much did you pay for that phone over those two years? About $500+, right?

Honestly, I have no idea. I do know that I would have more than likely been under contract regardless, and whether or not my payment would have been cheaper had I purchased the phone separately, I can't say. I've always been under the impression that the carriers are subsidizing the manufacturers to make the insanely expensive phones more affordable to the consumer.

 

[Thallanor]

Re: My Experience with the 950 XL

So you can't customize the expanded menu? Again I never used WP10. If not then yeah that's pretty lame with that rogue icon sitting top left.

I'm pretty certain that this is how it works on the desktop version of Windows 10 too.

 

[Thallanor]

These phones remind me of the 535... Looks cheap.

No Microsoft store where I am.. Hope it has a premium feel...

With the back cover removed, there is not much left apart from the display, so it should be easy to upgrade the look and feel with a new cover.

 

[Thallanor]

Re: Played with the 950XL today, Wow!

But holy crap, the 950xl that i did play with was seriously struggling. Just scrolling trough the home screen that thing was totally jumpy, lagging ,like really bad. I then went to nhl.com to watch a highlights video for about 2 minutes. The back and the screen of the phone got totally hot. When i tried to quit full screen mode the phone was not responding. I closed the screen of and regained control with that. I then tried to open onedrive and got a white frozen screen. Talk about a way to present a new product...

W10M is still pre-release but even so, based on my experience and what others have expressed here, it sounds like there might be something weird going on with that demo unit. A couple people have pointed out some odd issues, but nothing quite that bizarre. I agree, not a great way to present, but probably not the norm.

 

[Thallanor]

I would imagine they didn't include both because it would unnecessarily bloat the retail cost, and likely also the size, of the device. I mean, really; you're still unlocking your service in a moment without entering a pin or password or something else that people could see, enabling them to bypass your security without your permission. Can we not complain about waiting an extra fraction of a second to check your freaking Facebook notifications?

Also, given moves like adding the start buttons, etc. to the screen, it's clear they're trying to minimize physical clutter to the bare minimum, so I don't see that happening. That being said, a couple phones have put the fingerprint scanner on the back, but still... I think they're really going for the cleaner look.

 

[Thallanor]

with you. I'd stick with my L1520 too. Except I got mine the moment the 1520.3 was found---and the in call mic broke. Also Cortana doesn't seem to want to work in any other language/region except USA even though it's an unlocked/unbranded phone. They're easy fixes probably (at least the former is) but I think I'm going to upgrade rather than fix it (and then maybe use it as a spare)

What OS are you using on your 1520? I find it frustrating that in WP8.1, I can use Cortana in Canada, but not in W10M. (Or W10 on the desktop for that matter.) That shouldn't be an issue with the hardware model though, simply the OS settings.

 

[Thallanor]

But, the demo units at this store were kinda awful. Running the same W10 version others have mentioned, but very buggy and the photos, IMHO, were not that good. Viewed on the screen at normal size, color is very good, but zooming in it had TONS of artifacts. I'm really hoping it's just a pre-production software or firmware issue. I have a 930 and a 1020, and I think both of those perform better for detail than the 950 did, though the 950 was better for color.

Zooming in on what had artifacts? Just curious!

 

[Thallanor]

Yes and no. I agree and more companies should see the benefit of such apps, but most of those same companies also have websites and not see the app store as beneficial to their strategies. For example, I think Siriusxm needs an app. None for phone. And a win10 would be great. But they also stream from the web so might not care enough to put resources towards it. Though I still think it's stupid they don't have one.

I used a third-party SiriusXM app a couple years ago. I'm not sure if it still exists or not - I've not used it in awhile - but it at least used to exist.

I do agree with your general comments on apps though.

 

[Thallanor]

Now to some of the bad things. First complaint is not against the phone. I just wished they would of had the 950 on display so I could see the size of it and play around with it. Now on to the phone. First thing I noticed was that the phone was very warm. I am not joking about this at all. Yes I know that the phones have been on all day, plugged in, and being used, but still I was not happy at all. When I first got there one of the two phones was very warm, the other one not so bad. Someone else even mentioned that to a person working there. I mostly used the one that wasn't too warm. Even with this said after playing around with it and testing out the apps and camera etc., the phone heated up very quickly. I came back to the store after at least an hour and played with the phones once again. I went back to the phone I was using before (the one that wasn't very warm when I first got there) and noticed it wasn't warm at all. I wanted to put the phone to the test and see how much it would take to make it warm up and let's just say it didn't take much. I opened the maps app and used the aerial view with 3D and that was easily able to make it start heating it up (yes I know that app is pretty 'heavy' but I was still surprised how fast it warmed up). I do not believe that this heating issue was from too many people using the phone because I was there for a while and not many people were looking at them.

I imagine that with these processors being known to operate at high temperatures and being pushed by the OS that the liquid cooling and heat plate are doing their jobs. It makes the devices feel warmer in operation, but that's because they're pulling so much heat and dissipating them across the plate inside the phone. So long as it's not uncomfortably warm, I'd say it's worth it for the sake of the phone running fast and not having to throttle itself.

Just my two cents.

 

[Thallanor]

Re: Played with the 950XL today, Wow!

I call BS. The 950 isn't found in any store yet...

I believe it is Canada-only at the moment. Well, I shouldn't say Canada-only, as I imagine some other countries will receive it. So more specifically, not US yet.

 

[Thallanor]

Re: Played with the 950XL today, Wow!

Hopefully their "liquid cooling" I have read about will prevent the high temps. Otherwise it will throttle badly. Would like to see some temps of the phone during and after stress tests.

I think that the heat people are feeling is due to the liquid cooling doing its job and pulling the heat from the processor. I think it'll be fine.

 

[Thallanor]

If I came into the store knowing nothing about these devices, I'd take one look at that 950XL, then at the $849.99 (CAN) price tag and laugh my way out the store.

Hopefully your local store replaces those units because looking nice, $850 isn't out of the question. The 4.7" iPhone 6s is $900 CAD and the 5.5" is $1030 CAD. The iPhone's metal and glass does look more polished, and the app availability is a plus, but when it comes down to it, these prices aren't too out of the ordinary.

Maybe some stores will sell a package where for $900 they include a nicer back cover - put it on display and sell it like that. People might go for it! Hmm... a metal and glass back cover would be nice, if it didn't affect reception and/or Qi charging.

 

[Thallanor]

in my opinion, it's a better thing to by the phone with a carrier at 200$ or less with a 2 year contract then at full price a 849 CAD...

it's not avery body which have this much money available for a phone...

If you do not require 950/950XL-specific features, the 550 might work for you. At $150 unlocked, it's a sweet deal. Worse comes to worse, maybe the 550, and then sock away a few dollars each month? That, combined with how the costs of these tend to drop faster than their iPhone counterparts mean you might be able to get one sooner than you think, unlocked and off contract. And don't forget how frequently Microsoft has their store deals, especially with their 12 days of Christmas coming up in just a couple months.

 

[Thallanor]

Re: My Experience with the 950 XL

Nope. Please don't add that cheap red notification light. That's what the Glance feature is for. I don't want the world knowing whether or not I have unanswered notifications.

Perhaps a pulsing white LED? Dunno, just throwing out ideas. And since the LED notification is user-selectable under notifications in W10M, you wouldn't need it for everything - or anything - if you didn't want it.

 

[Thallanor]

I was also mainly trying to quickly familiarize myself with W10. The menu is cleaner but now coming from W8.1 it's a little confusing. And because it was a little confusing I couldn't find where Windows Hello was (the phone wasn't locked either).

I find that when looking for harder-to-find settings that it helps to remember that the new W10M Settings apps allows you to type in what you're looking for and it'll try to find it. I don't have my W10M 1520 near me, but in W10 on my desktop, typing "Hello" suggests "Setup iris sign-in" so it might be similar on W10M.

 

[Thallanor]

I'm not paying $550-$650 for a phone. Maybe I'm just old, but that $hit is effing insanity to me. I'm really hoping that AT&T will have some kind of deal like they did with the 920, which was $99 with a 2 year contract at launch.

I believe the whole point of AT&T selling it is that you'll be able to purchase it on-contract, otherwise there would be no advantage of purchasing it through them instead of just buying an unlocked one from Microsoft.

 

[Cyril Richard]

Honestly, I have no idea. I do know that I would have more than likely been under contract regardless, and whether or not my payment would have been cheaper had I purchased the phone separately, I can't say. I've always been under the impression that the carriers are subsidizing the manufacturers to make the insanely expensive phones more affordable to the consumer.

I can't say for sure for the US, but in the UK and in France, every single time I've ran comparisons between the total price of the phone+subscription, buying the phone unlocked (and take a less expensive phone-free contract) came out cheaper. Sometimes slightly cheaper, most of the time a lot cheaper. It's easy to do your calculations, I'd advise you to do it before changing your phone. With carriers "subsidies" you just take an expensive credit. Alternatively, as some have said, you can probably use a credit card or find a cheap consumer credit (someone said Paypal, I don't know about their 6 month interest)free credit but it's worth a look) to spread the cost of the phone a bit without being locked into a carrier - so you can take advantage of future plans of your or other carriers.

 

[B T C]

I believe the whole point of AT&T selling it is that you'll be able to purchase it on-contract, otherwise there would be no advantage of purchasing it through them instead of just buying an unlocked one from Microsoft.

My assumption has always been that the phone was a lot cheaper, but I've never actually compared. Until today, I did not know that plan pricing was different if you provided your own device. I just checked their site and AT&T does offer BYOD plans, which they claim can you save you up to $300 per year.