Lumia 950

[Henry Linc]

My lumia 950 is getting worst day by day. I just bought this phone 5 month ago, and already behave like it's dying. Photo app won't view HDR image, with text written it can't show this image at this moment, the camera button won't take the picture when I pressed it. This does not happen frequently but randomly. But can you guys imagine this kind of problem happen when I'm in the middle of ceremony? I had to restart the phone in front of people that asked me to take a picture of em, not once, twice. The second one I had to remove the battery and put it back again, in front of people in the ceremony. This phone is ****ed up. I don't even play games at this phone. Only bought this phone just for the camera, but the performance is forcing me to throw away this phone at a wall. And of course I can't get a refund, my country is not supported for most of Microsoft's services.

 

[Elky64]

Sorry to hear of your woes, definitely not good having those things happen... Own a L950 myself now running Creators Update (1703), IMHO the phone's behavior and performance is definitely not up to par with even 2014 standards.

What build are you running and are you on any of the Insider Rings? By chance, have you tried a "hard reset" in recent times? This may or may not help but is a common procedure w/W10M that can help work out some bugs in some instances. Pain to do I know but that's the way of the world with Windows Phone, or at least in my experience.

 

[AdrienLnglt]

Having L950 myself (previously had a L920) and I have to say I'm far from being satisfied with it. My L920 was way more reliable than the L950 is. Is it because of W10M? Probably. We can see there was not as much caution put into the 950 than it has been into the 920...
I'm still deeply in love with my old 920 (tho it has passed away...).

The camera is as well the weaker point. Not the image quality, clearly. I love the quality! But at some point i'll launch Camera or take a pic, and my phone would reboot. It doesn't happen everytime, luckily. But kinda randomly.

Since few months now, I got those random reboots, as well. I bought a new battery from eBay, still waiting for it to be delivered (stuck at the Customs since July 4th...). I would blame W10M for that, tbh, cause some battery problems occurred on my laptop as well, around the same time. Like my laptop battery wouldn't fully charge since I updated to Creators Update. And my battery problems on my phone started when I upgraded it to Creators Update, as well...
I'm not a technician, so I won't say it is for sure W10M, but that's what it seems to me. Maybe it kinda killed the battery at some point and there's now no turning back?
No idea...

I also experience lags, bugs, needs for a reboot, sometimes. The Facebook syncing with People app doesn't work really well (probably a software problem). I'm still really mad at this Apple apps bridge. Why developers should bother to make a W10 Universal Ap, if they can just use this bridge?

Never had those problems with my L920. We sure didn't have all those fancy apps, but it was more reliable, and that's what I'm personally looking for...

L950 has a great hardware, though it has been less taken care off than previous Lumias. Really bad software in my opinion. Would give it a 4.5/10 : 8/10 for the hardware (cause it's not all good, but mostly), 1/10 for the software (cause it's not all bad, just mostly).

I wish I could have my L950 with Windows Phone 8.5 on it... *_*

 

[MARTY1774]

have you done a hard rest/ check for update to the firmware on windows device recovery tool.

 

[ScubaDog]

My wife and I both bought a 950 not long after they came out. First thing, they were WAY overpriced for the cheap, cheesy quality in design, build and capability. Neither of us misses a week that we don't complain about some issue. We are both running the latest Insider builds, and both understand the growing pains of using early flights. We both hate W10M compared to WP8, which is why my 1020 remains my daily driver (my wife has no choice but to use her 950). Hardware performance is inconsistent at best, with random, frequent lock-ups, reboots, LONG pauses for doing simple things like scrolling. Battery life is now the worst we've ever seen on ANY device... averaging four hours. The camera is a HUGE disappointment in terms of picture quality, video quality (strange re-focus problems, random instant-zooming in then back out while recording, freezing when trying to save a video or picture, HUGE delays in registering a recently taken picture or video in the Photos app). There's just basically nothing we are satisfied with on the 950 and W10M. But, even as horrible as W10M and the 950 is, it's still better than lowering ourselves to switch to an iPhone or Android product.

 

[tribexx]

Sorry about your issues. I have a S8+ now, but still daily use my 950XL for it's "pinning to start" feature for certain Facebook pages, pinned 6tag tags and people, and pinned web sites. I also use it to connect to additional active email accounts, photos and for my son to play games and such.

Now, if I am not mistaken, the 950Xl was supposed to process pictures better than the regular 950. It sounds like you have a bad 950, but maybe an XL would have been better.

 

[Richard Toft]

I've had my l950 for 7 months and tbh no real issues. I'm running insider prod release sometimes seems slow than my 930 but in general its fine.

 

[AtOmIc031]

I feel like Lumia 950/950xl are actually phones that were designed for excellency but were developed poorly, released too early(undercooked both fw,sw and hardware wise) and then abandoned quickly by their creators.

I had L950XL, two of my friends bought 950s. XL had constant freezing issues especially if you used camera a lot, it also got hot for no apparent reason, and to my surprise was so badly optimized that in the beginning it was a bit slower than even my old L930 which was a shock to me at the time. It had big battery and that was needed sorely because it was draining battery like crazy. I don't remember it ever lasting me through a day.

friends 950s both are a bit better fw and sw wise, almost no reboots and phone was very rarely overheating, but on the other hand their battery life was abysmal. For both of them it was completely normal to recharge the phone at least once during the day and then again before they went to sleep.

Also just a small mention about the app situation which is terrible. Even the apps we do have are mostly terrible in quality and seriously lacking feature wise.


I've been windows fan and owner since windows mobile 6 and had more than 20 smartphones and Lumia 950xl is top3 worst phones I owned, maybe even the worst phone I've owned. That's my subjective opinion and is probably affected a lot by my desire for win mo 10 and L950XL to be a hit and market success and the price I had to pay to get it.

Now rocking iPhone 7, a dull slab of a phone but hey at least the phone works properly and I have all the apps I want and need, and all of them work nicely and are updated regularly

 

[Henry Linc]

I did hard reset twice. And running the creators update. Windows Recovery Tool keeps loading for hours searching for firmware.

 

[Dusteater]

I bought a Lumia 950 XL last year because of the dual SIM capability. I had a personal and a work SIM, both on AT&T. Of course no sooner do I buy the phone than AT&T shuts off their 2G network. Since the 2nd SIM can only operate at 2G, it effectively isn't a dual SIM phone. Dumped it for dual iPhone 7's in January.

 

[vzzbuckz]

I have a 950XL and bought it about a year and a half ago. At first - it was very quirky but seems to have calmed down. One of the most important things I've done is (after installing and uninstalling stuff from start:

1/ Backup Phone (just in case)
2/ Install Windows Device Recovery Tool and reset phone to default
3/ When setting up phone for first time, do not log in with Microsoft Account
4/ Upgrade phone to latest available version 'Creators Update'
5/ Now 'Reset Phone' using 'Settings -> About' and now log in as usual with your Microsoft Account

You should now have a fresh install of Creators Update, with latest firmware and you will have access to your 'Creators Update' backup.

Next (if you want), join the Insiders program and upgrade to fast ring. All updates so far have been bug fixes so in my experience, this is fairly low risk.

 

[romaink]

Too much bad to report. I was really hoping that Microsoft could pull this together after a horrible launch, but it doesn't seem like this is ever going to happen.

The latest issue that drove me to switch is the Bluetooth audio quality. I can't even listen to a song and browse the web simultaneously.

You would think that with all these insider updates, the team would at least create some stability and eliminate the major bugs, but it's almost as if they don't care because the major issues are still there. I upvote issues on the feedback hub, but my expectations are very low.

 

[sporosarcina]

I got my 950 at launch and have been on the Fast Ring Insider most of the time. I only have two complaints. First, it does get warm at times, but I think that is more a SD808/810 issue than anything else. Second, battery life has started to drop off, but replacement batteries are about $20 so I'll probably just spring for one and see if it just the battery getting long in the tooth (possible consequence of the Quickcharge 2.0 protocols). Other than those i love the phone. Much like old Windows Mobile and even older Pocket PC this device is a business phone more than a consumer device. I work on a MS software college campus and this phone excels in that environment, easy connectivity and use across our whole ecosystem. I even use continuum to run lectures and spreadsheets in lab (usually through a wireless adapter and BT entry). I'm not a real gaming on the phone type (find that a 3DS or Vita are much better), but from a consumer end my A/V, camera, browser, and social media needs are perfectly met.

 

[levy shikukui]

I feel hurt

Iam a die heart windows fun from Nokia till now,that's from the lumia 620,the devices I have bought for the love of windows are more than 10 since windows 8 to 8.1 and now W10,I do have both 950 and 950xl,lets talk of good side first..the OS is grown now and we are a proud of windows 10 compared to the previous OSs.The frustration on 950s as you guys have sayed is the camera performance,the image quality is good but then I wonder sometimes if my 1020 is first or 950,they sometimes lag in taking picture,take time to save,fail to process some images,the the WORST comes when recording video,WHY WHY Microsoft"YOUR DEVICE IS OVERHEATING ONLY AFTER 1 MINUTE,@ 1080P 30FPS,not even 4K I have never recorded a 5 minutes video on this devices,before it overheats even with the cooling pipe on the 950xl.I love this devise but plz MS do something.

 

[mexluthor]

I've had the 950 for about 1 1/2 years. I am ready to leave...This is my 2nd windows phone and have been on the OS for about 4 years now and considered myself loyal to WinMobile
The first phone completely just FUBAR'd. I sent in for repair and then they sent back without fixing and if it wasn't for the local MS store replacing I would have been without my phone for a few more weeks.
After losing numerous apps and software issues (unable to clear the voicemail log or call log, getting kicked off Insta repeatedly) I am leaving the OS in the next few months when I decide what I'm going to get...Maybe a Pixel2 or Nokia 8

 

[ph jezzy]

I live in France and I have this phone since it came out, I first thought the phone had software issues so I say with an update this will get fix, my biggest deception bar far. To me this phone has never been built to be a daily driver, im in the insider fastring and there is not one day I don't regret my trust in Microsoft. If someone believe that Microsoft have a future in the mobile world then stop right there. The number one thing to keep in mind is: We don't adapt to technology, technology adapt to us. There is NO FUN using a Windows phone like the iPhone or android phones.

 

[SantiagoTejedor]

I've had the Lumia 950 for a couple of years now I think, and by far the biggest problem is battery life. It sucks so much! I have a website about watches so I post some stuff on Instagram (though I am not a heavy user at all). Well, posting 5 or 6 short films on a Instagram "stories" equals to eating up to 60% of the battery.

In fact I go everywhere professional (say a trade show like this one) with 3! batteries, a portable charger and the normal charger and still struggle. Would a hard reset be of any help, I wonder.

There is also that "sorry I am not working now and I want you to turn off and on the phone" camera attitude, but not as frequently as others users describe. But it is still unacceptable.

Oh and, I can't read Windows Central News comments on the phone.

 

[thomasthomaslai]

950 xl, don't play games and messaging / social / news app pretty much satisfied. worried about less app but most trendy apps just come and goes before really dwelling on it.

probably iris scanner, and limited choice in wearable is the biggest thing. could use better battery life but i i think by a lot people use portable charger that's not limited to 950 or windows phone

 

[BatterseaDog]

I have both the 950 and 950XL. Whilst unstable and quirky, I still love them - especially the cameras. I use them for connectivity into the Microsoft Office 365 eco-system so apps aren't really a problem. Most web-based services can be accessed using the Edge Browser.

I'm tempted by the HP Elite X3, but it is the camera on the 950s that keep me from moving on. The 950s simply take gorgeous pictures.

My fear is dropping one and not being able to replace it.

 

[QBiG1970]

I live in the Netherlands and before my 8 months old 950XL, I had the Nokia 1320... now that was an awesome phone! Did everything I wanted, and then some.... I had it for over three years... was still running like hell. Till Microsoft decided it didn't get the upgrade to W10M! (damn) Looked for a worthy successor, found the 950XL! Bought it second hand at Webuy.com at a massive reduced price! (couldn't afford $600,= for a new one) Now I couldn't be more happy with my fast phone and I can't wait for the FCU (Fall Creator Update)!