Hands-on Experiences with the 950XL

[xrs22]

Something else I noticed is when you pop the back off there are two connections to the phone. There is a big "plate" on the bottom 2/3 of the back which I assume is the Qi charging. Then on the top there is another coil that goes around the camera hole that has a separate connection to the phone.

Does anybody know if that is a second Qi coil? Or is it maybe one the 2 antennas?

It's supposed to have 2 antennas for attaching to the best signal.

 

[Keith Wallace]

Re: Played with the 950XL today, Wow!

The overheating thing isn't a hardware problem. Firstly, the phone is still on a technical preview software that occasionally runs into glitches, which causes the phone to work really hard, and the battery to overheat. All phones running the technical preview will occasionally have this problem. It'll likely be fixed before the actual OS is released.

Secondly, demo units are prone to heat. They're constantly plugged in, with the display on, and people playing with them. Opening apps, running media, running the demo software they have playing on it non-stop.

Heat = Slow & laggy experience.

Of course, the XL runs a chip (810) that was also known for topping 100 degrees (I think it peaked at 109) in HTC One stress tests.

 

[ksj1]

Re: Played with the 950XL today, Wow!

I call BS. The 950 isn't found in any store yet...

 

[xboxonthego3]

Re: Played with the 950XL today, Wow!

Of course, the XL runs a chip (810) that was also known for topping 100 degrees (I think it peaked at 109) in HTC One stress tests.

Hopefully their "liquid cooling" I have read about will prevent the high temps. Otherwise it will throttle badly. Would like to see some temps of the phone during and after stress tests.

 

[PepperdotNet]

I preordered one and they said it should be in 10/26. (I said I thought they were coming in November, and she went and checked with her manager and came back and said nope, 10/26.) I don't believe it, but if it comes in that soon that would be great, but that is barely over 2 weeks for Microsoft to get the OS finished.

October 26 is the opening of the new store in NYC. I expect they want to be able to sell top-of-the-line product on day one.

 

[gtg465x]

So I played with a 950XL today and as someone who loved Windows Phone 7 and 8 and owned several Windows Phones before switching to Android for the past few years, what the HELL happened to Windows Phone?!?!? Apart from the home screen, Windows 10 on the 950XL looks nothing like Windows Phone 7 and 8. It looks like crap! I always thought Windows Phone had great, modern, clean, polished design throughout, but that seems completely gone now. Every app, from Settings to the browser to the clock to Messaging to Maps looks different than it did in Windows Phone 8, and not in a good way. Spacing doesn't seem right, sizing of UI elements is off, fonts don't look as good, animations are sometimes janky, everything seems more cluttered and less polished, and in general, the whole OS just looks like it was designed by engineers now instead of sophisticated UI designers. I mean am I alone in this? Windows Phone 7 and 8 were beautiful. Windows 10 on a phone reminds me of Android 2.3 Gingerbread... no polish and generally a designed by engineers feel. Also, the phone was so light that it just didn't exude the quality of Nokia Lumiad of past. The screen looked good, but didn't get very bright. Honestly though, I went in thinking the hardware would be the reason I wouldn't like the phone, but the software turned out to be what I didn't like. I mean when and how did Android become more beautiful than Windows Phone? What the crap Microsoft?

 

[MP3Mike]

Oh, and the store had a SKU for pre-ordering the 950, but only in Canada. And that is the one I want...

 

[tangledW]

One man's "janky"...

I like it and think it looks much better than Windows Phone 8.

So there you go.

 

[Lundon44]

I had my chance to tinker with the 950's today as well at my local flagship store (Toronto, Eaton Centre). The way they had the phones displayed was actually quite unattractive. The USB-C was in the base of the stand but coming out about an inch out of the stand meaning the phone couldn't rest flush with the stand. So they all sat there flopped over and looking beaten. The XL was the first device I went to. Esthetically it was not that attractive. Mind you it was a black demo unit as written on the back so I assume the build quality wasn't as what it should be since the Microsoft logo on the back plate was missing one of it 4 pieces of the silver Windows logo. So again, after only being on display a few days it looked beaten and abused. If I came into the store knowing nothing about these devices, I'd take one look at that 950XL, then at the $849.99 (CAN) price tag and laugh my way out the store. On the other hand, the camera was quick and impressive. Front facing camera was also impressive. I have a white one preordered. Let's see how the retail model looks in hand.

 

[JaimitoFrog]

Re: Played with the 950XL today, Wow!

It brought a smile to my face when i saw the title of your tread ending with ,Wow! I was going to start one with only that "wow" word as a title. But for a totally opposite meaning than you did.

Before i go any further let me point out that i have bought 5 Lumias in the last 43 months. 4 of them for my personal use, so it is not like i can't appreciate the product
But holy crap, the 950xl that i did play with was seriously struggling. Just scrolling trough the home screen that thing was totally jumpy, lagging ,like really bad. I then went to nhl.com to watch a highlights video for about 2 minutes. The back and the screen of the phone got totally hot. When i tried to quit full screen mode the phone was not responding. I closed the screen of and regained control with that. I then tried to open onedrive and got a white frozen screen. Talk about a way to present a new product...

I had better luck with the 950 that was behaving like a high end phone should. I only had 5 minutes to spare there. The sp4 looks stunning.

Maybe it was a lemon.
I went to Pacific Centre mall in Vancouver, and that unit was super fast and smooth. Ran videos from TSN, Sportsnet, CNN right off the browser.

Camera is amazing, can shoot about 5 frames per sec.

I have Lumina Icon, 1020, 920. The 950XL is by far the fastest.

The unit is lighter and thinner than the Icon. The feel is ok, not as solid like Icon. The MS logo on the back look cheap, like silver paint or something. Kinda glad the back is removable, and the after market covers look pretty good.

The other bad part was the buttons. Even though they are metallic, they look and feel almost like plastic. Icon is better.

I plan to get one anyway, the camera performance is great and won't make me miss my 1020, which I recently destroyed while walking in a river. And the promise of universal apps will make the app gap less relevant. Being able to watch video on any websites is great,

 

[Cyril Richard]

So I played with a 950XL today and as someone who loved Windows Phone 7 and 8 and owned several Windows Phones before switching to Android for the past few years, what the HELL happened to Windows Phone?!?!? Apart from the home screen, Windows 10 on the 950XL looks nothing like Windows Phone 7 and 8. It looks like crap!

I am using Windows 10 in Insider preview on my Lumia 920 and, despite the fact that the OS and the interface needs to be polished, I generally prefer the Windows 10 interface. For me it feels much more modern, even if yes it's probably a bit more complicated. Of course I would change some things in some apps, I made a few Insider comments about it, but globally I like it.
But coming from Win 8.1 the learning curve was really quick, I find what I want very quickly. And as I said, for me it also looks more modern and I prefer it aesthetically.

 

[HyperKid]

Hi
Since all have checked the camera, the frames which are to 1080p are only limited to 60fps, what about 720p? Are the fps the same as 60 or 120 is included?

 

[John McIlhinney]

Mozo have confirmed on Instagram that their replacement backplanes or the Lumina 950 and 950 XL do support wireless charging. Pre-orders start next week.

 

[richv77]

The 950XL was very nice. I could not get the iris scanner to work properly. I tried a few times. The unit felt warm and the Microsoft representative said it was on the charger all day. The camera was very snappy. I did notice some glitches with the OS and it did crash once. There are still bugs to iron out. I was told only the unlocked version will be dual SIM. The model on display was for AT&T. The 950 will not be available initially but after the XL arrives. I was surprised to hear that. I hope that's not the case.

-Rich

 

[JW888]

The 950XL was very nice. I could not get the iris scanner to work properly. I tried a few times. The unit felt warm and the Microsoft representative said it was on the charger all day. The camera was very snappy. I did notice some glitches with the OS and it did crash once. There are still bugs to iron out. I was told only the unlocked version will be dual SIM. The model on display was for AT&T. The 950 will not be available initially but after the XL arrives. I was surprised to hear that. I hope that's not the case.

-Rich

If you buy from MS store, it would be the unlock and dual SIM version

 

[Alex Zapata]

Re: Played with the 950XL today, Wow!

I got to play with a Lumia 950XL yesterday, and for the most part loved it. The only thing that concerned me was that it seemed to lack the double-tap-to-wake feature. Am I just crazy or is this really the case?!?

 

[Captpt]

Re: Played with the 950XL today, Wow!

I'm almost positive it is suppose to wake with double tap, mayebe check settings to see if it was disabled??

 

[realwarder]

Re: Played with the 950XL today, Wow!

The demo unit I tried didn't wake up with double tap either. What did you think of the side buttons?

 

[aliencatos]

i'm sad, carrier don't believe in the products, no canadian carrier will have those phone and only AT&T in US... that don't give a lot of chance to Windows 10 Mobile...

 

[Fleon]

Also went into the MS store to look at the 950XL. I'm looking to upgrade a 1020, so figured the 950 (either the XL or the non) would fit the bill, even with the lesser camera. Came away a bit concerned.

Windows 10 is still a bit of a mess. The UI is inconsistent (I knew this going in), but I thought that on the demos they'd be showing in the store, the OS would at least more free of bugs. The 950XL failed to open the camera app multiple times, some buttons in the apps didn't register, the start screen was sometimes more sluggish than I'd expected... there are just some decent sized bugs left with only a month to fix them.

The bigger problem was that the phone was uncomfortably warm. With nothing running. I made sure that there were no apps running in the background, so there wasn't anything eating the CPU/GPU. The unit hadn't been on a charger in a couple of hours, at minimum (I asked). Let it "cool down" for about 5 minutes and the thing went right back to running pretty hot as soon as I picked it up again. Probably now going to wait a while and see how the 2-3 month reviews go. Not confident at all to get one myself.

The good part- the camera is shockingly good. Doesn't have the ability to zoom in that the 1020 does, but the imaging algorithm is excellent and the OIS seems fantastic.