Lumia 950

[mary beth hale]

i love my Nokia 930!

Oops...wrong thread....

LOL... Even though the battery sucked and I wanted a bigger scree, I thought my 930 was so beautiful.

 

[Elky64]

There seems to be multiple different experiences on Windows updates, which is not a good thing.

And that is one big annoyance for me about the new reiteration of WM compared to 8.1 and earlier, it's so darn inconsistent. Not only are you hearing about the differences many users are experiencing, but even my personal day-to-day experiences differ on same device.

Couple days ago tried using my 950 w/SIM and within 3-4 hours we had enough of its shenanigans. As I mentioned in some of my previous posts here on WC, my LG G4 that is very similarly spec'd, and 8 months older, trumps my 950 by a wide margin in performance and consistency. Want to love the 950 and do to a degree, just falls way too short in the OS department... Can't say its physicality has disappointed me, yet.

 

[William Tadekawa]

I've had the 950 since launch day, and I know exactly how you feel. W10M is the most unreliable OS ever released. I usually don't let people use my phone for photos, etc because I already know it's going to lag, freeze, crash, or reboot, and it's an embarrassment. I never really had this problem with WP7 or WP8. This phone has made me want to throw it out the window so many times already. My favorite game is probably wordament, and my 950 overheats and lags while both my old 925 with 8/8.1 and current budget Android phone with a garbage SD400 don't. I have no issues with the actual hardware, but the OS is an embarrassment. I thought MS was supposed to be a software company?

 

[Drael646464]

I've had the 950 since launch day, and I know exactly how you feel. W10M is the most unreliable OS ever released. I usually don't let people use my phone for photos, etc because I already know it's going to lag, freeze, crash, or reboot, and it's an embarrassment. I never really had this problem with WP7 or WP8. This phone has made me want to throw it out the window so many times already. My favorite game is probably wordament, and my 950 overheats and lags while both my old 925 with 8/8.1 and current budget Android phone with a garbage SD400 don't. I have no issues with the actual hardware, but the OS is an embarrassment. I thought MS was supposed to be a software company?

Get in the slow ring, or insider preview, to get those 80 odd bugfixes they've been working on.

 

[Bloodyspasm]

I'm from Belgium and bought my 950 at launch, but it's disheartening to see the price dropping by 2/3rds a few months later. The hardware feels to cheap for the original price (buttons and use of plastic)

I love the camera (AMAZING quality) and the screen (watching Final Fantasy 15 Kingsglaive on it blew me away!) and I'm a fan of the tilebased OS. Having Xbox Achievements on many games was also a draw to me.

That being said I've had many issues with it:
- keyboard placement in portrait mode: I constantly press the windows home button by accident instead of the spacebar
- camera app crashes often
- pictures take a while to be visible in other apps when trying to upload (twitter, instagram, facebook)
- phone heats up when gaming (especially when it's charging)
- battery life is poor now, I have to charge it halfway through the day or it wont last me
- the store has no new apps or games and none of the good ones
- sometimes have to soft reset to get rid of crashes

All in all I would support a new phone and OS from microsoft, as I love the OS for the most part. But they need to seriously UP their game, put some money behind this, MS!!

 

[Elky64]

Get in the slow ring, or insider preview, to get those 80 odd bugfixes they've been working on.

Or 80 new bugs... Sorry. couldn't resist lol.

Seriously though, there are things that were prevalent on my Windows Phones on day one that still exist today now running Creators Update.

Like when the screen flashes at top of the display, most noticeable when switching or closing apps, initially thought it was an 830 thing but when i got the 650/950, nope.

Or the delay showing the full content of an email message, 950 is a bit better than my others but still quite slow for what it is.

A browser that can't access certain sites no way no how, actually any browser I've tried on the platform in attempts to resolve are unable, and we've tried many... Kind of negates the usefulness of the device when that happens especially if there's no app substitutes.

The store that has a mind of its own working when and how it wants, just about everytime we access it multilple interactions are required by me to complete a simple task such as updating an app or apps.

Photos app that slow to display thumnails, or the delay interacting with a recently taken photo.

So these are only a few of my gripes that, imo, MS has failed to address w/any updates to-date. They are important to me because they are in ones faced on a daily basis which taints the overall user experience.

Was running Release Preview on all but just recently went Production with my 950 (prior to installing CU), including a complete wipe w/o backup. So you see "been there done that" without much success in addressing my previous, and still present, issues/concerns.

 

[oldgreygeek]

sorry Android Fanboys. My wife and I both use daily 950xl's. One is running the latest fast ring OS, the 2nd is on the production OS. the 1st phone only had 1 problem and that is when I threw it across the pool at a evil horse fly and had to get the screen replaced. We also have two high end Android devices. The 950xl's are fine, work great, and as far as I am concerned have a more user friendly OS than the Androids.

 

[hans-martijn]

@oldgreygeek, I completely agree with android being at least not very intuitive, but it has a way better support for things like hue, spotify, social media apps, etc. You don't have to be young to use these apps; I'm 47 and use them daily, because they're important for my work. Thus far the best app support is with Apple, but their devices are way overpriced. It's sad that Nadella pulled the plug on Windows Mobile, showing Microsoft doesn't believe in their own product either.

B.t.w: Phones and pools don't go very well together ;-)

 

[adrian_molcan]

Well I am really surprised with all of the complaints I read in this thread. I have never experienced any of these bugs with camera or something else like this. I own my L950 for 10 months and I am absolutely satisfied with this phone. I bought it for 270 eur and for this price it it just amazing, especially camera and display. Yeah, battery is now draining a little bit faster compared to when I bought it, but still, great phone and I will use it till Microsoft stops supporting windows 10 mobile. Also I have no issues with app gap, to be honest, I have two bank accounts in deferrent banks and both have great windows phone app, so I am missing no app that I use reguraly. I know, that Microsoft messed all this windows 10 mobile strategy and so on, but I am really satisfied with my phone and especially with live tiles and connection with my PC with apps like Photos and Mail. Sorry for mistakes, but english is not my native language, best regards from Slovakia

 

[goncaloncpinto]

I should be the only one satisfied with the Lumia 950. It had some issues over time, all related with software, but they are getting corrected fairly fast. I should mention that I'm in the fast ring for more than one year now.
The only thing I'm not happy about has to do with sound: Equalizer does not support bluetooth Headphones, there is no Bass boost option, no Dolby Atmos, no Dolby Atmos app for mobile. This is very important for me as I listen to music a lot and that is the reason why I still hold an Android device as the sound is much better, there are lots of apps for bass boosting, sound effects, and the possibily to get dolby atmos working.

 

[William Tadekawa]

I've always been in the fast ring, so I get the latest bug fixes. And of course, I'm always raging in the feedback hub (that nobody probably looks at anyway) about all the bugs I experience. I've mentioned this in a separate thread, but I also had my mom (Lumia 650) in the fast ring as well, as the official build has really annoying bugs that were only fixed in preview builds. It was going fairly alright until MS decided it would be a great idea to release an update to brick everyone's phone. Since I check this website everyday, I was able to prevent the update on my 950, but unfortunately not for my mom's phone. So now she's on Android, where she doesn't have to deal with this buggy, no-apps nonsense anymore. But I'm fine with that, since recent budget Android phones have some pretty decent hardware compared to a few years ago. I don't like the iOS or Android UI, but at least the OS works properly most of the time.

 

[Sean Cua]

Weird, it's the reverse for me. Bought it around 5 months ago too, and it has only gotten better with the AU and CU. Most of my issues where it would hang and bluetooth issues are gone now. I don't even bother manual rebooting my phone every now and then.

Edit:
Same issue with the guy above though with no support for bluetooth normalization of audio. When I'm driving I have to turn my speakers way up when talking to someone.

 

[Rev1979]

My biggest issue is NO wi-fi calling even though specs indicate the capability. I've tried three different carriers on my unbranded 950xl (bought at a Microsoft store) ... no joy.

 

[Wevenhuis]

I am sorry that your experience with the 950 is not good. I use a 950XL as a daily driver. I don't have issues with frequent crashses. I do notice the camera gets warm quickly when I use HDR and that it sometimes hinders performance and apparently uses up some system resources for processing. It can get a bit slower. But I see it as the price to pay for having the power of HDR, as is having support for high quality settings on the camera in general. It's asking for more processing power. So I think perfomance is partly dependent on knowing the devices limits and expecting performance issues when pushing the limits.
I have not had an issue where I could see my HDR images in HDR. But I can imagine it is frustatraing when you need that feature and it doesn't work.
In my experience I have noticed that windows 10 mobile and the camera app have improved over time. I'm not sure why your experience has worsened. could your device be defective? Have you dropped your device?

 

[Hophead1994]

I've had my 950 for a little over a year. I've had to do a hard reset once due to a bad update on the insider program, other than that I am extremely happy with this phone.

The OS need work to bring it up to pace with Android and iOS, more features are badly needed but it is still very solid.

 

[Texas8412]

Microsoft eventually corrected any initial issues I had such as Bluetooth connectivity. My 950 started having hardware issues a while back and someone on this site said get a new battery. Problems solved. Still very happy with the 950 except for the lack of Disney park apps. I have everything else I need.

 

[Gaiden96]

Came from a galaxy S5 two years ago and love my 950. I actually think the battery is awesome as well as just about everything else. Windows 10 mobile is probably one of my favorite features. I really like the ability to customize my home screen unlike how Android and Iphones are just pages upon pages of circle icons. I also like being able to pin websites to the home page for reading later. It also seems like features that were implemented are just now being added to popular phones such as the charging features and the living images or whatever they are called. I love the phone. My gripe and why I am going to get an Android within the next year is the apps. I have bought several electronics over the last few months that cant be used fully without an app. I dont use many apps but man its hard to get excited about a lot of the stuff comming out because most things use apps. Heck I cant even use my banks mobile check deposit feature.

 

[pepsicocom]

I would have switched carriers on my personal SIM before I went to carrying two phones. Sorry about what happened to you.

I have a dual SIM 950XL. I only use data on one SIM at a time. It's inconvenient when I switch out a SIM for travel because sometimes I forget to change which SIM (1 or 2) I am using for data but all in all not a big problem.

 

[vsnake]

I just love it!
I bought my 950 SM one year after it was launched and i use the fast ring canal.
First of all, I love the OS, the glance screen, Windows Hello, Live tiles...
Secondly, the camera is great, you really can make great pictures with it and the screen is pretty good too.
I also use Continuum quite a lot. I plug it to my tv and i watch series on Edge. Works great!
I love how many people just don't know that these phones exists and what they can do...
Uptil now, the battery life is great, I use my phone a lot and I only charge it at the end of the day. I tend to close apps and put off the things that i dont use...
For me, there is only one app that is missing and that is Snapchat because I have a lot of friends using it... I hope they all shift towards the instagram app )

I noticed maybe 2 times that my 950 rebooted randomly, that's nothing.


Apps that I use the most:

Baconit - can read reddit threads and it changes my Lockcreen and Background picture everyday. - Love it
Edge
Instagram
Banking apps
Facebook-Messenger
Onenote

Im very happy with this phone, I don't want to change

 

[Rokczar]

Sounds like a lot of people really don't like their L950 but other than missing a few apps not made for WP and the phone getting warm after heavy usage, I'm pretty happy with mine. I've had my phone since March 2016 and it syncs well, is responsive, no lag, etc. I'm on the most recent creators update. I do agree that the 920 was better build quality but the phone was much heavier. The photos may not be as superior as I remember my 920 being but that was years ago and all phones seem to take better photos across the board now. Looking at these other reviews, I'm kinda shocked. Maybe I need to switch to another OS to see what I'm missing but when I get a new phone, I use it until it frustrates the hell out of me and that definitely hasn't happened. Thus far it does everything I need it to do and when it can't, I use a computer. I don't play any game more resource heavy than something on the level of Candy Crush so maybe that's the difference? I like that it syncs with my computers and Windows 10 in general and that is mush more important to me than the other reasons users are citing. Now, I will say, it's disappointing that MS hasn't to committed WP but they seem to bring out things, get people excited about the potential for them and then abandon them. That has nothing to do with my single unit's performance but an overall criticism of how MS runs it's business.