Terribly unfair review from Gizmodo

[Jonnie LasVegas]

And you're sure you're not covering/shadowing the proximity sensor which makes the phone think it's in your pocket?

Positive. Had this problem on all of my Windows Phones thus far.

 

[oldpueblo]

Positive. Had this problem on all of my Windows Phones thus far.

Now that just seems odd. That you would consistently have an issue that most people don't. Are you maybe only pushing it down far enough to hit the first click stage (focus) instead of fully down?

 

[TLRtheory]

Zero problems with camera launch here. Pressing into the second stage has launched it from lock into the camera in about one second 100% of the time from about 20 tries.

... that's been pretty consistent with my experience on Lumia 930 and 1520.

It's been fail-free on my 1020, 830 and 520, but I don't have LC5 on those so it still takes time before the camera software is ready to start snapping. It always launches from lock though... 100% of the time on every Windows Phone I own.

 

[Michael Bromley]

I read through comments to see if there are any real issues I should be worried about after paying 600 bucks for a phone. Nope.
- Build quality: excellent, especially with less weight (my Icon feels like a brick now).
-Cursor controller works great: this button is saving me tons of time I'd otherwise spend tapping and touching into just the right spot for editing.
- Camera launch is flawless.
- Apps selection: haha! (I have a life AND a browser).
- Battery life excellent, but then I'm not playing games all night long or running ten thousand apps that I never use.

I had read that second Engadget review before buying the phone, and the worst criticisms were aimed at the OS, so I feel I went into the phone eyes wide open. Maybe I'm just a low-demand user but I really like this phone and feel I got my money's worth.

 

[John M Beauchemin]

Wait, you yourself said the phone has shortcomings including temps too hot, and apps crashing. ...those aren't enough reasons to stay away from a phone? Stop being so forgiving to MS, either they get it together, or they give up.

I know you weren't talking to me, but I'm going to answer you anyway. No. An app crash every now and then, and some excess heat does not reverse the fact that the other 99% of the time the phone and OS are fantastic.

When the iPhone first came out, it had bugs. It crashed. It had battery issues. It didn't have apps. It took them many years and iterations to get to where they are now. Same with Google. MS is rebooting itself with W10m and it literally JUST came out, so IMO people expecting the performance and features of an 8-year old operating system vs a 1 month old operating system are definitely going to be disappointed... but I think that those people are being completely unrealistic. If you're one of those people, you should not be an early adopter, you should definitely wait for the OS to mature. When it comes to software nowadays, no one ever ships a finished product. They ship a basic and functional structure, and iterate and polish as they go.

 

[Noob1ee]

Stopped reading after "It has never had the apps or fluid user experience of Android or iOS". Enough said.

 

[TLRtheory]

Maybe I'm just a low-demand user but I really like this phone and feel I got my money's worth.

I'm not a low-demand user at all and I find this satisfying.

I cringe when I see someone get a ridiculously powerful phone and all they wanna do with it is FB or Snapchat. People say I have a lot on my phone... but that's because it enables me to do so much.

On any given phone I'm constantly using the camera, playing high resouce games, reading, media consumption, social networking, remoting into computers to do light work, using it as my study aide/tasker, playing youtube videos at their highest quality... which gets very demanding on storage and demands a lot of capability.

... and 950's been incredibly satisfying for that.

When the iPhone first came out, it had bugs. It crashed. It had battery issues. It didn't have apps. It took them many years and iterations to get to where they are now. Same with Google. MS is rebooting itself with W10m and it literally JUST came out, so IMO people expecting the performance and features of an 8-year old operating system vs a 1 month old operating system are definitely going to be disappointed... but I think that those people are being completely unrealistic. If you're one of those people, you should not be an early adopter, you should definitely wait for the OS to mature. When it comes to software nowadays, no one ever ships a finished product. They ship a basic and functional structure, and iterate and polish as they go.

Two notes I'll make here... even in it's polished form, iOS still has performance hiccups... and apps do still crash sometimes (a lot more often in iOS9, I've found).

...and MS isn't entirely just starting from sqaure one here. While W10m is just freshly out, it's still got a legacy of app development backing it dating as far back as WP7.

That in itself has been more detrimental to the health of the platform than anything else. The Verge just recently released a review where they credited iOS for "Hundreds of Thousands" of apps, then dissed the Windows Store even though - by that criteria - it should've also been credited since it does also have hundreds of thousands of apps. It's grown a LOT more than the media/grapevine want to give it credit for.