Hands-on Experiences with the 950XL

[Waughy]

Re: My Experience with the 950 XL

Thank you for the explanation. I think that i can work with that set-up.:winktongue:

You'll like it, it's quite handy. I'm itching to get an XL and move over from my iPhone 6+. Wish I'd kept my 930 now. Hopefully the wait in Australia isn't too long.

 

[hapishyguy]

I just preordered mine today Dual SIM 950 XL Black. Yes, dual SIM is available in US. I took the pictures too. RM-1116

 

[tumahler]

I went to a nearby MS store to try out the 950XL. I have been using the 1520 for about 2 years and recently got a Note 5 because the battery was going on the 1520.

Some impressions:
- Device is light like everyone is reporting
- The edges are sharper than I expected. The buttons also have sharp edges. This doesn't bother me that much - it provides me a more reassuring grip.
- I put the phone through some processor heavy tasks. I loaded some heavy websites and I couldn't tell if the network was slow or if it was the browser but the sites were overall faster than the 1520 and rendered better as well. Core apps from MS like email and calendar loaded quickly. I tried switching between apps quickly and it handled well. There were some sluggish moments but that seemed to be because of the software / OS issues and not the hardware because the MS apps in general were very solid and quick.
- I played with the display scaling setting. By default it is at 350%. When I lowered it to 200% i noticed that the Calendar app scaled to show more content and additional views / features. Universal app scaling in action right on the phone!
- Heat was surprisingly low. Candy Crush always causes my 1520 to heat up quite a bit. The 950XL didn't heat up that much even with a bunch of app loading and browsing. Maybe it was spread out more because of the liquid cooling. In my short time playing around the battery life seemed good. I know the Note 5 would have taken a hit and heated up quite a bit.

Conclusion - I'm going to return the Note 5 and stick it out with the 1520 until the 950XL is released.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Who does a 2 year zero deductible?

I bought a bunch of Lumia 640s as gifts. Happened to be at Walmart. I bought 2 year Asurion warranties for the accident prone recipients. They were $24 dollars if bought online but $18 if bought in the store at time of purchase. Zero deductible. The cost depends on the value of the phone, in this case $100, but isn't linear (i.e. a policy for a $500 phone is not 5 times that).

From the policy:

What does my Mobile Care Plan cover?

• It protects your prepaid and post-paid mobile phones from failures due to mechanical and electrical breakdowns including those due to normal wear and tear, power surges, dust, heat and humidity and Accidental Damage from Handling. We'll repair, replace or reimburse you for your failed phone via e-gift card, or send you a check reimbursement for the original purchased price, including taxes, as indicated on your receipt in the event of a covered breakdown. A service fee may apply. See terms and conditions for details.

The fees mentioned in the terms are things like damage before the policy was purchased (you have 30 days form purchase), diagnostics when no problem found, etc..

 

[Gamely Lounges]

Kevin,
Thanks or the photo comparos between the 950xl and your 1020. From the video interview with the camera designer I recall he talked about creating algorithms to make the colors really pop but keep skin tones realistic ... and you can certainly see the colors popping on the 950xl.
Looks pretty good. Would love to see similar comparos between 950xl and iPhone6 and leading Androids.
Sam

 

[wasim sallam]

anyone played with the phone heavily for 15 minutes or like that?
how is the heating with SD810??

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Re: Not as bad as I thought

They claimed the retina scan is faster than entering a pin.

I understand MS increased PIN sizes to 64 digits so they could say that.

 

[NoviMajster]

Did annyone feel any heat coming from the back of the lumia 950XL while playing with it? (Daniel Rubino was mentioning some warmth on the back where the prcessor should be in the video at the MSFT hardware presentation)

 

[Bill Harvey1]

I felt no heat from anyplace. I had you tube videos playing in one tab, and surfing in another tab in Edge browser, some racing game running and was using the camera all at once. Not a definitive test I know, but I worked the phone as hard as I could for a good 10 minutes and no heat.

 

[JPDVM2014]

I finally got to play with one yesterday at a MSFT Kiosk. It is a great looking device. The screen is amazing. Camera was fast. No perceptible heat, but I only played with it for like 5 minutes. I can't wait to pick one up!

 

[Clinton_O]

Got a chance to go to the Microsoft store today to look at the 950 XL.

Overall I was really impressed with the phone. It looks very nice in person. I was thinking I was going to like white the best but after seeing it in person I prefer the black because it looks sharp with the silver around the camera and the buttons. The button placement wasn't as bad as I thought but I would have liked the volume up and down buttons to be larger, they seemed too small.

I was concerned that the size of the phone was going to be overwhelming but it was not. The phone is thin and light. Coming from a 928, reaching the whole screen is definitely more challenging. No more walking and using it with one hand like I do with my 928. Not that this is a bad thing but just something new to get used to. I know having the option to shrink the screen by holding the windows key will help alleviate this. The phone is pretty wide also. I had a hard time when holding it in one hand and trying to press the back button with my thumb (it doesn't help that the input region for the buttons seems small- have to hit them dead on). Guess I would get used to the onscreen buttons eventually.

Speed was good. I was testing loading times for apps and comparing it to my 928. Being honest here, things weren't opening that much faster on the 950 XL. My messaging app loaded faster the first time than it did on the XL (I am running the latest version of 8.1 on my 928). I know that this is not final software on the XL, just my observations. Once they get 10 optimized and ready to ship I am sure it will be great. My 928 runs great still (got it soon after it was released) so I wouldn't be worried about speed on the XL or 950 for that matter.

Hard to speak about the software since I know it is not done yet. Once again I understand that this is not final software, just giving my observations! I played with the photos app a lot . Wasn't impressed. It was pretty slow. I would take a picture and go look for it in the photos app and they wouldn't appear. Took a while for it to show up sometimes. Also when opening the photos app, occasionally the images wouldn't load and they would just be all gray squares. Used the camera app also. Speed of the camera was good and opening the app was fast. For the most part I was able to take multiple photos quickly but sometimes it would do that thing where the circle pops up on the screen indicating that it was focusing and then it took a little longer. Of the two models on display, I noticed that on one of them when I took a picture and wanted to go preview it by the button on the camera app itself the photo would not load. I would have to exit out of the camera and find it in the photos app. This didn't seem to be a problem on the other device though.

Now to some of the bad things. First complaint is not against the phone. I just wished they would of had the 950 on display so I could see the size of it and play around with it. Now on to the phone. First thing I noticed was that the phone was very warm. I am not joking about this at all. Yes I know that the phones have been on all day, plugged in, and being used, but still I was not happy at all. When I first got there one of the two phones was very warm, the other one not so bad. Someone else even mentioned that to a person working there. I mostly used the one that wasn't too warm. Even with this said after playing around with it and testing out the apps and camera etc., the phone heated up very quickly. I came back to the store after at least an hour and played with the phones once again. I went back to the phone I was using before (the one that wasn't very warm when I first got there) and noticed it wasn't warm at all. I wanted to put the phone to the test and see how much it would take to make it warm up and let's just say it didn't take much. I opened the maps app and used the aerial view with 3D and that was easily able to make it start heating it up (yes I know that app is pretty 'heavy' but I was still surprised how fast it warmed up). I do not believe that this heating issue was from too many people using the phone because I was there for a while and not many people were looking at them.

The only other 'issue' I had with the phone was the camera quality. Coming from the 928 I have no doubt that the 950 and 950 XL will take better photos. Once again I know that the software and algorithms for the camera are not complete! I took a photo of the display area that the new phones were sitting on. It was no longer than an arm's reach away. Without zooming in the photo looked fine but after zooming in things were definitely blurry. I thought they would have a lot more detail especially since the object of focus was close. Taking a photo of the store and zooming in on things like other people you could tell that the photos were not very sharp. And yes I did check to make sure the photos were being taken at the highest resolution possible. I was a little disappointed because after seeing the video Windows Central did with Juha Alakarhu I was blown away. The images he showed were amazing. I wonder if he was using a more polished version of the camera software, I can't remember if that was said or not.

That was my impression with using the phone. They definitely have things to work on but I know they will turn out great. I am looking forward to getting one. I am torn between the 950 and 950 XL. I would like to get the XL but the issue about heat concerns me. Guess I will be switching to At&t.

Seems like we had similar experiences. The phone i used actually frooze for about good 15 seconds ont he start screen i couldnt believe it, showed that to the other dude using the other 950xl and he couldnt either. Both of us have the preview on our personal phones but we thought it would be a lot faster and more stable on these new high end phones. I also encountered a good amount of lag and still saw the loading/resuming on these new phones. Yes its preview software but man none of that filled me with confidence. I been trying to hold out since my 920 has been on its last legs and im currently using an iphone 5s but would like to get back to WP. But they are being far to vague with release dates and the os might not be in shape in time. I like the black one more than the white one, just seemed cleaner.

anyone played with the phone heavily for 15 minutes or like that?
how is the heating with SD810??

I played with it for about 30 minutes and it definitely warmed up within the first 5-10 minutes for me.

 

[o4komodo]

I didn't play heavily with the phone as I was already sold on it.
I was mainly there to explore what it did and didn't have compared to my previous Lumias (also to preorder it).
I was also mainly trying to quickly familiarize myself with W10. The menu is cleaner but now coming from W8.1 it's a little confusing. And because it was a little confusing I couldn't find where Windows Hello was (the phone wasn't locked either).

Few things I noticed:
There was a setting for 'typing, inking and something' in the extras. INTERESTINGGGGG.
There was no double tap to wake setting.
There was no touch screen sensitivity setting either. I didn't have gloves on me... but I tried typing with my news-boy-cap and it wouldn't register my touch. I'm actually a little worried there isn't the super-sensitive-touch feature.
edit: According to the canadian full spec website the 950/XL do come with 'super sensitive touch'. So right now it's not in the menu that I can find. So either I couldn't find it or it is currently missing in the settings and will be appear once the OS and phone is available.
[FONT=wf_SegoeUI]

Display

[/FONT]

[FONT=wf_SegoeUI]5.7" WQHD (2560 x 1440)
TrueColour (24-bit/16M)
OLED, ClearBlack
518ppi
Orientation sensor, sunlight readability enhancements, easy to clean, high brightness mode, Lumia color profile, wide viewing angle, Corning Gorilla Glass 4, automatic brightness control, Super sensitive touch[/FONT]

The rogue icon in the notifications bar only appears on the XL.
In the Glance settings you can set to have background images on or off as well as in B/W or in color.
The new camera is FAST. Not just to launch but to focus as well. Wow, super impressed. Everything through the viewfinder appeared sharper and more true to color than my 1520.
As I suspected, the slit on the bottom left between the screen and case is a slit for you to shove your nail/finger in to pry the back casing off. Great design aspect and relatively hidden unlike the L830.
I also noticed a setting labeled as "Smart SIM" or something. Couldn't do anything as there was no sim in the phone though.

The L950 felt AMAZING in hand. I didn't play with it much though as I already knew I wanted the XL.

I hope these features come when the phone is released.

950XL on top of 1520 (with case)

950 on top of 1520 (no case)

all 3 stacked on top of each other (no case on 1520)

I definitely want to return and spend more time with the phone. I was there for about 15 minutes this morning mainly just browsing apps and settings. Everything was super fast on both 950 and 950XL and remained cool (because I didn't do anything intensive).

Also I asked about packages and the rep said (i'm paraphrasing now)
"I heard that they originally wanted to do some sort of Continuum package with the 950/XL but there has been no news about it for a week now. We don't even know exactly when in December we will receive the phones. Truthfully, it seems like you follow up on this and will know first or even more than I will because they haven't told us much about anything."

 

[seBarron]

I tried one out, but it felt cheap it my hands. Don't know if it's a mental thing and it's very light or if it's the plastic. Internals are what's making me buy it. I think I can purchase a third party back for it and I'll feel better.rly:

 

[o4komodo]

Re: Not as bad as I thought

I just handled one at the store. Unfortunately they couldn't demo Hello but otherwise it wasn't as bad as people at making it out to be. They claimed the retina scan is faster than entering a pin.

I did notice something funny. The demo unit had the people app on the small tile. Not sure if that is on purpose to hide those animated tiles.

Maybe because the new people tile (in my opinion) is ugly.

 

[anon(8532178)]

Re: Not as bad as I thought

Maybe because the new people tile (in my opinion) is ugly.

It's terrible I'm going to keep hidden in a folder or keep it small.

 

[o4komodo]

Re: Not as bad as I thought

It's terrible I'm going to keep hidden in a folder or keep it small.

Hahah glad I'm not the only one who thinks so too. Circles don't match the Windows theme at all. Shame they changed it (and those half circles? UGH)
I'm thinking of keeping it as a small tile too.

 

[anon(8532178)]

Re: Not as bad as I thought

Hahah glad I'm not the only one who thinks so too. Circles don't match the Windows theme at all. Shame they changed it (and those half circles? UGH)
I'm thinking of keeping it as a small tile too.

It doesn't like right at all yeah those half circles **** me off. It's not the same UI design anymore.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Not much new to add but unless I missed it, nobody mentioned that the 950XL is quite flexy. Other than that, I was impressed.

Now to wait for it to get here. I ordered black because I have had a bunch of white phones before my yellow 1520.3. Not that it matters much since the back gets replaced right away. Not going to use a case. I normally don't but put the 1520.3 in a case just to stiffen it because of the reports flexing it could lead to problems. Which is why I was not happy the 950XL was even easier to flex than the 1520. Hopefully, it won't fail from normal flexing like some 1520s did.

 

[gahbmwm5]

I just hope that AT&T will carry the 950XL...I will NOT pay the current asking price @$690....from a Microsoft store...

 

[sanien]

Re: My Experience with the 950 XL

it has, also nfc