Aside from not being able to install MixRadio onto the device, I'm absolutely loving life with my Lumia 950. I've only had it 36 hours granted, but I have to say, the battery life thus far, seems pretty incredible! I am coming from a Lumia 920, so my expectations were never amazingly high to begin with, but the 950 is so far, blowing me away.
A few points:
- I did a fresh install (learnt the hard way as my Lumia 920 with W10M was a bit of a mess from a WP8 restore)
- I have only been using 3G maximum. The 4G signal where I live is fabulous (including 800Mhz and VoLTE) but fortunately my network provider (Three UK) uses HSDPA2+ DC on 3G for most of the network, so whilst the 4G does feel a little faster, the 3G generally runs in excess of 20Mbps.
- I have Hey Cortana disabled, Edge prefetching disabled, push-email disabled (set to every 30 minutes), and kept a check on apps that may be running in the background.
- I do have Glance set to "Always On" with only date, time, and notification icons. I am used to Glance always being on with the Lumia 920, however I don't have a photo on it (with the Lumia 920 I had a colour photo as I thought if the LCD has to be lit fully anyway, it may as well have a photo to display, whereas the AMOLED screen on the 950 should use less battery without a photo).
- I have Windows Hello turned on, and have trained it at least 40 times in different lights/distances.
- When I first received the phone, it was on 46% battery, so prior to use I did charge it to 100% (it doesn't take long anyway).
Anyway, the actual usage on standby is approx 1% - 1.5% per hour! Even with a few turn on's (using Windows Hello), messages, Win Central notifications, it is hovering around 1.5% per hour.
This morning it was at 94% at 0700 and 5 hours later at 1200 it was still at 87%. That's 1.4% per hour! Now I know people may say "this should not be using any power) - but that includes Glance screen running, plus I don't have any apps set to sleep etc, just to run as normal 224/7. I always checked it a couple of times, and used Windows Hello when doing so.
Even when using the phone, the battery seems to last forever. Of course we use the phone a lot more when we have a new handset - not least on a fresh install for installing everything and setting it up. Not once has the battery drained worryingly quick!
I know there will be a lot of people criticizing the phone for it's battery life. There will be people who are unhappy with it, even if they are seeing similar to myself! I know some people will have restored from old WP8/legacy backups, and experiencing issues, and others who have not made a few changes to optimize battery consumption. There will be many people who are unable to turn 4G/LTE off because they do not have the luxury of such a fast 3G network. I'm not saying it's perfect to have to adjust a new phone to get great battery life, but I do feel these are only a few very minor changes I have made (thinking about it, there's plenty of things like Xbox etc that I've not even checked!).
However I just felt I should buck the trend of complaining about battery life, and say well done to Microsoft, you seem to created a perfectly adequate phone and OS thus far. I'm not going to say it's the best on the market, but it's far from the worst, and lightyears ahead of my trusty old 920 ever was! The fast charging is also unbelievable and there's little reason ever to run dry now. I have wireless charges all over the house, and I have not even used them, because I'm not constantly fearing for the battery.
For the record, I charged to 100% at 1500, and since then it has dropped to 98%, as we approach 1700. That includes a phonecall, a few notifications from Win Central, a news alert, some incoming emails, texts, a few whatsapps, and the use of hello on at least 8 occasions, plus the training of it a couple of times, not to mention taking a screenshot and sending it via email to pop on here.
This is my start screen incase people are wondering whether I even have any livetiles/apps running such is the low consumption lol:
A few points:
- I did a fresh install (learnt the hard way as my Lumia 920 with W10M was a bit of a mess from a WP8 restore)
- I have only been using 3G maximum. The 4G signal where I live is fabulous (including 800Mhz and VoLTE) but fortunately my network provider (Three UK) uses HSDPA2+ DC on 3G for most of the network, so whilst the 4G does feel a little faster, the 3G generally runs in excess of 20Mbps.
- I have Hey Cortana disabled, Edge prefetching disabled, push-email disabled (set to every 30 minutes), and kept a check on apps that may be running in the background.
- I do have Glance set to "Always On" with only date, time, and notification icons. I am used to Glance always being on with the Lumia 920, however I don't have a photo on it (with the Lumia 920 I had a colour photo as I thought if the LCD has to be lit fully anyway, it may as well have a photo to display, whereas the AMOLED screen on the 950 should use less battery without a photo).
- I have Windows Hello turned on, and have trained it at least 40 times in different lights/distances.
- When I first received the phone, it was on 46% battery, so prior to use I did charge it to 100% (it doesn't take long anyway).
Anyway, the actual usage on standby is approx 1% - 1.5% per hour! Even with a few turn on's (using Windows Hello), messages, Win Central notifications, it is hovering around 1.5% per hour.
This morning it was at 94% at 0700 and 5 hours later at 1200 it was still at 87%. That's 1.4% per hour! Now I know people may say "this should not be using any power) - but that includes Glance screen running, plus I don't have any apps set to sleep etc, just to run as normal 224/7. I always checked it a couple of times, and used Windows Hello when doing so.
Even when using the phone, the battery seems to last forever. Of course we use the phone a lot more when we have a new handset - not least on a fresh install for installing everything and setting it up. Not once has the battery drained worryingly quick!
I know there will be a lot of people criticizing the phone for it's battery life. There will be people who are unhappy with it, even if they are seeing similar to myself! I know some people will have restored from old WP8/legacy backups, and experiencing issues, and others who have not made a few changes to optimize battery consumption. There will be many people who are unable to turn 4G/LTE off because they do not have the luxury of such a fast 3G network. I'm not saying it's perfect to have to adjust a new phone to get great battery life, but I do feel these are only a few very minor changes I have made (thinking about it, there's plenty of things like Xbox etc that I've not even checked!).
However I just felt I should buck the trend of complaining about battery life, and say well done to Microsoft, you seem to created a perfectly adequate phone and OS thus far. I'm not going to say it's the best on the market, but it's far from the worst, and lightyears ahead of my trusty old 920 ever was! The fast charging is also unbelievable and there's little reason ever to run dry now. I have wireless charges all over the house, and I have not even used them, because I'm not constantly fearing for the battery.
For the record, I charged to 100% at 1500, and since then it has dropped to 98%, as we approach 1700. That includes a phonecall, a few notifications from Win Central, a news alert, some incoming emails, texts, a few whatsapps, and the use of hello on at least 8 occasions, plus the training of it a couple of times, not to mention taking a screenshot and sending it via email to pop on here.
This is my start screen incase people are wondering whether I even have any livetiles/apps running such is the low consumption lol:
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