Re: [Real Users] My Lumia 950 Detailed Review
I picked up my black 950 on Saturday afternoon. It replaced my black 920 (that I ran W10M on, so the new UI stuff was familiar, even if I'm not crazy about it), which I picked up at launch on AT&T 3+ years ago (November 9, 2012). Setting it up was a pain. AT&T WiFi wouldn't work, so I had to set it up without my account, which meant having to do a factory reset when I got onto my cousin's WiFi. It then wouldn't let me sign in to my MS account, meaning ANOTHER factory reset. It finally worked the third time, then I had to update 50 apps...yikes. Anyway, after about 2.5 days, here are some things I've experienced with my 950:
Cons (starting with them so the post ends on a high note, haha!):
--Finding a good case will be tough. I wanted to get something in orange, but there are only a couple of orange options, and they suck. I wish Amzer's Pudding case were available in different colors. I'd prefer a simple gel or silicon case, as I just want a bit more grip.
--No double-tap to wake blows. I still find myself trying to do it every so often. I miss it and hope it returns.
--Super-sensitive touch's absence is also lame. I didn't care TOO much for it, but losing features is never a positive.
--The rear speaker is pretty poor, as is its placement. I guess the thinness of the phone dictated the rear location, but it pushes no bass (I listen to music through it quite a bit in the car, as my audio input has malfunctioned). The speaker's loud, but music quality is much worse than my 920. The volume level can be really inconsistent, though. Listening to a song, the loudness can rise and fall a few times in a song, it's weird.
--Using the same earphones from my 920 to the 950 (some cheap Skullcandy ones, as my luck with them is too bad to warrant a big-dollar investment), the audio is again inferior. It's not terrible, but not all that good. The equalizer interface is also strangely compact. I think it's on the same +/- 12 scale as the 920's, but they made it a lot shorter, and it throws me off.
--Windows Hello was a disaster. I set it up with my glasses off fine. I tried to add more images after that. The dark image was fine. Glasses on, it wasn't happening. I tried probably 5 times over 10 minutes to get it to see my eyes with my glasses on, to no avail. I went ahead and tried unlocking it with my glasses on. It was fine once, then the next 3-5 tries were failures, so I just turned the thing off (I never use a PIN anyway, so it's not a real loss for me).
--The camera (which I haven't gotten to use much) seems inconsistent with its focus. IDK if it was the reflection of the clear plastic, but I tried to take a picture of my new microSDXC card that came in the mail, and the camera's auto-focus refused to look at it properly. The cardboard, it focused on fine.
--Like I said, I'm used to W10M, but I still feel obligated to comment on its negatives. I abhor the pop-out menu setup. I also think putting the menu buttons in the upper-left is ignorant, since that's the hardest corner to reach. Since the first two phones out have large screens, this makes one-handed use on the 950 and XL troublesome (this from a guy with reasonably large hands--even as a kid, I liked the size of the original Xbox "Duke" controllers). I'm also irritated that the Store tile doesn't display pending updates. I don't let things update automatically (I like to see that changes are happening first), but I never know when I have updates because the tile never tells me. Lastly, I miss Xbox Music's lockscreen integration, and Groove Music from my 920 to my 950 has lost track of a lot of images.
--Last negative point, I think, is the lack of a proper syncing app. Drag-and-drop is a horrible way to handle music for a phone. I have 600+ albums in my personal music library (I don't use streaming). I don't like to sync every song, not every song on every album is something I want to listen to. So, I made artist-specific playlists. On Windows 8.1, I could plug my phone in and use the Windows Phone app. I'd select that I wanted to add a playlist, and the app would then pull all of the tracks in that playlist to the phone. Drag-and-drop doesn't do that, and the new "Companion App" doesn't handle music. So, I'm left to manually curate 600+ albums, or (my current solution) I have to carry a bunch of tracks I don't want to.
Pros:
--The size is nice. It might be a tad too wide for my pocket with a case, but I like it so far. People seem to praise thinness and being lightweight, and this fits both well. I'd probably actually like a little more weight and thickness, I always feel devices like this will be brittle, but that's mostly paranoia.
--Glance is brighter than my 920, a very welcome change. I don't have to pick up my phone to see the display, it's plenty bright with Glance.
--The chassis seems to protrude a TINY bit from the display, which should allow it to be placed face-down without fear of scratches. I like that, as it allows me to place the phone face-down at night, so notifications aren't turning on the display for nothing.
--The display's great. I don't know why people said it was dim, it's blinding at 50% at night, with the lights off (I use auto-brightness, but wanted to get a look). It also seems to have less friction than my 920's display (maybe because of the 920's age and use), so scrolling and swipe-based texting is very smooth and pleasant.
--microSD support is great. My 128-GB card showed up a day early, luckily. I'm big on a using my local library (hate streaming's lower-quality options, required Internet connection, and cost), and storage became a problem on the 32-GB 920 I had pretty quickly. Throw in 4K video and 16-MP images with the 950, and 32 GB wasn't going to be anywhere close to enough space.
--I'm in the process of throwing 48 GB of music onto the phone, so count USB 3.0 among the positives as well.
--The phone is definitely cooler than my 920, which could cook an egg on LTE and GPS.
--Battery life is also solid. Where my 920 could quote itself at about 8 hours on LTE, the 950 is north of 20 hours while on LTE and doing stuff. It cam rate north of 30 hours when not too busy as well, where as a good day for my 920 was 15 hours. It was at 6% after just sitting face-down after about 24 hours at home, after switching to my 950.
I might find more mentions later, especially if I find a chance to use the camera (Illinois with bad weather and constant rain isn't ideal). I also need to snag a Display Dock and give that a whirl. I think that's got amazing potential as a work tool, pairing OneDrive, Office Online (from my desktop), and Office on my phone with the Dock.
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