Lumia 950 vs Lumia 950XL

[Captpt]

I never saw a 950 in stores here in Silicon Valley.

i kinda wish they had given the 950 a 1080p screen for better battery life (and lower cost).

I agree, battery life takes a hit for something we really won't notice after a day of use, I went from a Note 4 to a 640XL and after a day the display looks just fine to me but the battery life 4 weeks later still looks incredible lol..

 

[John M Beauchemin]

i kinda wish they had given the 950 a 1080p screen for better battery life (and lower cost).

I'm glad they didn't! I would have had to get an XL. Aren't there other Lumia's with lower rez screens and cheaper prices available?

 

[phelme]

I'm glad they didn't! I would have had to get an XL. Aren't there other Lumia's with lower rez screens and cheaper prices available?

actually, there aren't many (just the M8??) with 1080p still on the market anymore.

(and on what planet is 1080p low-rez??? :| )

 

[Squachy]

I'm certain of it. Of course, I could be wrong, but I've yet to be shown any evidence to the contrary, so I suppose I'll keep on being certain, haha.

No way of telling without seeing the chip itself. The about page only tells you the chip model but not revision number. Lumia 930 used the first version of snapdragon 800 even though theres been like 4 revisions of it since that chips release.

 

[John M Beauchemin]

actually, there aren't many (just the M8??) with 1080p still on the market anymore.

(and on what planet is 1080p low-rez??? :| )

I said "lower-rez" not low-rez.

...and I'm seeing a Lumia640XL on AT&T's site for short money.

You and oldpueblo don't seem to be able to tell the difference between a high pixel density screen and low, but I sure as heck can. 300ppi is the standard for print. Any screen with a sub-300ppi is in my opinion not quite 'there' yet. Currently, the Samsung Galaxy s6 Edge has the best looking screen I've ever seen, it blew my mind when I first saw it it looks so dang good. It looks like you're looking at a magazine behind a piece of glass, not a digital display. I came within a hairs breadth of buying that phone just for that screen. Why does it look so good? 577ppi.

 

[Andraz Podjaversek]

At presentation of 950 series, Lumia 950 was the one on the screen with liquid cooling, so from where are you guys getting the info that only 950xl has this feature ?

 

[Captpt]

At presentation of 950 series, Lumia 950 was the one on the screen with liquid cooling, so from where are you guys getting the info that only 950xl has this feature ?

The liquid cooling is due to the Snapdragon 810 processor and its heating issues, the 950 has the SnapDragon 808 which does not have the heat issue.. Not a bad thing that the 950 doesn't need liquid cooling for sure..

 

[oldpueblo]

I said "lower-rez" not low-rez.

...and I'm seeing a Lumia640XL on AT&T's site for short money.

You and oldpueblo don't seem to be able to tell the difference between a high pixel density screen and low, but I sure as heck can. 300ppi is the standard for print. Any screen with a sub-300ppi is in my opinion not quite 'there' yet. Currently, the Samsung Galaxy s6 Edge has the best looking screen I've ever seen, it blew my mind when I first saw it it looks so dang good. It looks like you're looking at a magazine behind a piece of glass, not a digital display. I came within a hairs breadth of buying that phone just for that screen. Why does it look so good? 577ppi.

At no point did anyone say anything about not being able to tell the difference. The point is whether or not the difference matters in any real meaningful way. Is a 1080P screen at 5" not great looking? It is. Is it worth the loss of battery life and performance? At what point do people want to make a reasonable trade-off? If you made people choose between longer battery life/better performance with a great screen, and less of the former but with a marginally better screen, which do you think people would choose? Those resolutions on a small phone screen (in relation to desktops) is excessive and doesn't really add extra value, while taking valuable resources. Is it nice? Absolutely. But I and most others would prefer more battery life/performance. Any idea what your PPI is on your desktop screen right now? I'm guessing you probably don't, and don't care. Most would fall into that category. So why would it matter on your relatively small phone screen, unless of course Apple made a big deal about it and so now everybody has to.

 

[Musicman247]

And if MS had given the 950 a 1080p screen there would be even more people here complaining how MS didn't give them a "true flagship". Darned if they do, darned if they don't, eh?

 

[RumoredNow]

300ppi is the sweet spot and much above is a waste. OLED is too garish.

It's trendy like a mochacapalattechino though so everyone goes to it from display OEMs to phone manufacturers to reviewers to consumers.

It's like the 4k vid my 1520 will capture. I don't need it for goofing around and I don't have a 4k screen to play it on.

That's where the convergence is. Make the phone display 4k because that is probably the only 4k screen most users will have on which to play their 4k video of baby Sally's first spit-up.

 

[MiloTheOne]

Has anyone actually tested both phones to see what the hardware difference may be? I don't believe MSFT would make a mistake and exclude key software features like Apple did with Siri.

 

[Skyway]

300ppi is the sweet spot and much above is a waste. OLED is too garish.

It's trendy like a mochacapalattechino though so everyone goes to it from display OEMs to phone manufacturers to reviewers to consumers.

It's like the 4k vid my 1520 will capture. I don't need it for goofing around and I don't have a 4k screen to play it on.

That's where the convergence is. Make the phone display 4k because that is probably the only 4k screen most users will have on which to play their 4k video of baby Sally's first spit-up.

I hear ya, these screens are super high res for such a small size. But it looks like they are here to stay. The Z5 premium does have a 4k display, and I definitely see that becoming the norm, maybe next year? 2017?

People are going to be really thankful they have these 4k videos when 4k tvs have saturated the market and there's not enough content.

 

[John M Beauchemin]

At no point did anyone say anything about not being able to tell the difference.

My bad.

The point is whether or not the difference matters in any real meaningful way. Is it worth the loss of battery life and performance?

Yes.

At what point do people want to make a reasonable trade-off? If you made people choose between longer battery life/better performance with a great screen, and less of the former but with a marginally better screen, which do you think people would choose?

I, personally, would choose the higher pixel density because image quality and clarity is king to me, over battery life. Maybe I'm not people? :shocked:

Any idea what your PPI is on your desktop screen right now? I'm guessing you probably don't, and don't care.

You would be right in that I don't know the PPI, you would be wrong in thinking that resolution wasn't my number one priority when I bought these monitors in 2010. I spent over $3,000 on these 3 beautiful 2560x1600 monitors because at the time they were the highest resolution monitors I could get. So, yes, I would say pixel density/screen resolution is very important to me. I haven't replaced them with 4K's yet simply because I can't afford to I would kill to have a 300ppi setup for my desktop, it would make staring at pixels in photoshop or vertices in Maya all day much more comfortable.

Most would fall into that category.

A significant enough portion of people want high quality screens and monitors on their devices for it to be a major manufacturing priority, so I'd actually gather that you guys are in the minority.

I don't know what you do, but I'm a digital artist and I stare at pixels all day. Image quality is a significant quality of life factor for me, not some buzzword from a fruit vendor. Why someone would intentionally want anything LESS than print quality ppi is beyond me. I mean, I get your argument... performance is more important to you... I get it, and understand it, but I can't relate. Resolution is the main reason I game on my PC and not on my Xbox One or PS4. More pixels in a smaller space. The guy I'm staring at who is 100yds away from me is one pixel large on my 1080P Bravia on the Xbox. On the same game at the same distance on my PC, I can tell if he shaved that morning or not.

We can stop at 300ppi, but 300ppi should be every manufacturers minimum baseline. That is the pixel density of the future, when you stop thinking about the screen and start believing that you are touching living images, like a book in Harry Potter or the controls on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.

 

[Musicman247]

My wife would be in the ppi > performance camp as well. She asked for a new phone, and the top two things she wanted were "A better screen, and a good camera". She also commented, "I don't know why, but iPhone screens always look so good compared to everything else." She had a L635 at the time. She now has a 640 and is much happier.

 

[oldpueblo]

My bad.



Yes.



I, personally, would choose the higher pixel density because image quality and clarity is king to me, over battery life. Maybe I'm not people? :shocked:



You would be right in that I don't know the PPI, you would be wrong in thinking that resolution wasn't my number one priority when I bought these monitors in 2010. I spent over $3,000 on these 3 beautiful 2560x1600 monitors because at the time they were the highest resolution monitors I could get. So, yes, I would say pixel density/screen resolution is very important to me. I haven't replaced them with 4K's yet simply because I can't afford to I would kill to have a 300ppi setup for my desktop, it would make staring at pixels in photoshop or vertices in Maya all day much more comfortable.



A significant enough portion of people want high quality screens and monitors on their devices for it to be a major manufacturing priority, so I'd actually gather that you guys are in the minority.

I don't know what you do, but I'm a digital artist and I stare at pixels all day. Image quality is a significant quality of life factor for me, not some buzzword from a fruit vendor. Why someone would intentionally want anything LESS than print quality ppi is beyond me. I mean, I get your argument... performance is more important to you... I get it, and understand it, but I can't relate. Resolution is the main reason I game on my PC and not on my Xbox One or PS4. More pixels in a smaller space. The guy I'm staring at who is 100yds away from me is one pixel large on my 1080P Bravia on the Xbox. On the same game at the same distance on my PC, I can tell if he shaved that morning or not.

We can stop at 300ppi, but 300ppi should be every manufacturers minimum baseline. That is the pixel density of the future, when you stop thinking about the screen and start believing that you are touching living images, like a book in Harry Potter or the controls on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.

I get it, you like pretty screens. I do too. Once again, MOST people would choose better battery life/performance with a pretty screen over JUST a pretty screen where they barely even notice the difference. By having a highres screen you are actually giving up something else. And the ROI just really isn't there. Just to be clear I'm glad they put the highres in the phone, because as stated before the industry "says" it has to be there to be a flagship phone and I don't want it to start further behind the competition right out of the gate. But it doesn't have to be there. You bring up Harry Potter and that brings up a great example. The books are terrible from a plot/writing perspective when you compare it to actual good authors and good series. But popularity usually doesn't go hand in hand with "the best". So here we have highres screens on phones that aren't necessary, because it's popular. If PPI always mattered 100%, then you wouldn't be settling for a "mere 147" on your desktop. There is a threshold called "good enough" that works for most people. I'm glad you can afford nice toys, I can too. But not everyone can and I know my parents would really just prefer to have longer battery life.

 

[John M Beauchemin]

...my parents would really just prefer to have longer battery life.

My father and mother both have iPhone 6s's and love the screen, but that's neither here nor there. Your parents can buy the 640XL if they want a low-rez screen. It's pretty dang cheap now, too.

As for the rest of your argument, It hinges on the concept of you being the one that knows what 'most people' desire, and sorry, I don't believe that you actually have that knowledge. I suspect you are guessing :wink: I also suspect you aren't really reading what I'm saying, but it is the internet so I guess that is to be expected.

And my hardware aren't toys. They are tools.

 

[Petru Moldovan]

3 pages almost completely out of topic.

First of all you keep your phone at some 30-40 cm from your eyes and your monitor at some 60-120cm, so obviously you need a much better DPI for the phone to have the same experience (close to far experience).

Secondly I think that the XL has a bigger battery because of the CPU, not because the bigger display (I don't think bigger pixels on AMOLED will consume more power). I think that the XL will be better on compressing images and making better movies so you will probably use those features because they will work and those will use more power.

Ant third XL is wider then 650 only with some 5.2 mm (it does not matter how tall it is) and is 1mm thinner. 73.2 mm (2.88 in) is too wide for me, so the difference does not matter because both are hard to handle with a singe hand from my point of view and at least the bigger is better to read books, watch videos and play games with both hands.

 

[Muessig]

Let's keep everything on topic here; keep the chat related to the OP everyone.

 

[IdleMind]

950XL. Just hope that AT&T eventually picks it up.
Looking at the comparison, there is no FM tuner on the 950, only the 950XL. I actually use the FM tuner. Gotta have it.
That and the 5.7" screen win me over.

 

[Skyway]

I don't know why they didn't just make both the exact same except for screen sizes. To me, that would be the way to do it, people just need to pick what size device they want. Just seems silly.