[Quick Impressions] Who Just Got The Lumia 950 XL?

[abivaanenopi]

Also filmed a short unboxing from both 950 and 950xl still feeling strong about this purchase!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQrNOBl4yVo

 

[lovesurface]

I got my 950XL a couple of days ago. Bought on 25th, free shipping, supposed to get it in 5 to 7 days. If I wanted faster, it would be 13 euros, but I chose not. They open the gate saturday 28th, and then... the microsoft store stated it was supposed to arrive on tuesday BUT.. monday, one day before, it was already in my hands, just 48 hours after the official release date in italy! Bought it from Microsoft store, 699 euros plus continuum free. And I have till january 31st to give it back no question asked.
Now, my opinion.
I come from 1520, definitely the best phone I ever had. But the screen cracked and so I went straight to the top one.
All this words just to fill the space, as I have really nothing to say other then: "GREAT PHONE" no problem at all so far. just a couple of times in the message area, clicking on a group chat from skype, it went back to the start screen (btw the skype integration is definitely fantastic now... why waste all this time from the first release, to get this usability?). That's it.
The only thing to add is that it lacks a bit of personality not like the 1520 that was a very special phone.
I definitely like the white back cover, I like that I can change it and so make it look new. I dont miss a metal one at all. It is lighter and I can change the battery if I want. And it looks to me that it can be repaired easily.
I think w10 is good, but i miss the general consistency of w8.1 design.

Now I have my surface pro 3, band 2, and 950 xl. Nothing more to buy as i dont find the sp4 or surface book appealing. What next? hololens? a slicker version of xb1? dont know... for the moment I enjoy the 950xl
francesco

 

[ubo69]

My 950XL finally arrived yesterday. Perfect day to forget my old phone at home that I needed to get the package out the "Packstation". But with a quick detour I finally got it. :grin: First things first, Battery app reports it was 12 hours ago that I pulled the charger plug and I still have 50%. I must admit that I did not use it for about 7 hours during the night and I had turned Battery Saver on during the night, also.

My very first impression of the plastic backplate was that it does not appear particularly precious. This concerns especially the buttons. They feel sharp-edged and just cheap. I recognize that they are just part of the cover, but still the buttons (especially the power button) on my Xperia Z2 felt A LOT better. So OK, it does not win a design award but I will get used to it. The screen is so gorgeous! It is so much sharper than the screens of any phone or tablet I had in my hands so far. I have not really looked for a red hue yet .

From the software side I probably will need a lot of time of getting used to it and learning my way around. I already found out that you may not copy ringtones with on-board file explorer in the appropriate folder but have to do that via PC and USB. I was not able to see holidays and birthdays in the calendar yesterday. I looked up the web calendar of my MS account this morning, there they were. And when I came back to the phone they had miraculously appeared. So many things I still need to understand... But that is what you guys are for, are you not? :angel:

 

[Michkol]

Got mine today.
Sweden

 

[Krystianpants]

thank's again, one of the reasons i am considering buying a lumia 950 is using it as a little gaming console, but i know that there is actually small number of universal apps..
could you precise if there is any universal game that works with continuum ? and if so, is the experience smooth?? and is watching videos and films also smooth?

thank's again

Videos are smooth no doubt. And running it in general is smooth but I haven't been able to find a single game that supports it. MS needs to have a category for games/apps that support the feature.

 

[lovesurface]

I got my 950XL a couple of days ago. Bought on 25th, free shipping, supposed to get it in 5 to 7 days. If I wanted faster, it would be 13 euros, but I chose not. They open the gate saturday 28th, and then... the microsoft store stated it was supposed to arrive on tuesday BUT.. monday, one day before, it was already in my hands, just 48 hours after the official release date in italy! Bought it from Microsoft store, 699 euros plus continuum free. And I have till january 31st to give it back no question asked.
Now, my opinion.
I come from 1520, definitely the best phone I ever had. But the screen cracked and so I went straight to the top one.
All this words just to fill the space, as I have really nothing to say other then: "GREAT PHONE" no problem at all so far. just a couple of times in the message area, clicking on a group chat from skype, it went back to the start screen (btw the skype integration is definitely fantastic now... why waste all this time from the first release, to get this usability?). That's it.
The only thing to add is that it lacks a bit of personality not like the 1520 that was a very special phone.
I definitely like the white back cover, I like that I can change it and so make it look new. I dont miss a metal one at all. It is lighter and I can change the battery if I want. And it looks to me that it can be repaired easily.
I think w10 is good, but i miss the general consistency of w8.1 design.

Now I have my surface pro 3, band 2, and 950 xl. Nothing more to buy as i dont find the sp4 or surface book appealing. What next? hololens? a slicker version of xb1? dont know... for the moment I enjoy the 950xl
francesco

mh... maybe I was to happy and didnt realize that my band 2 has been 2 full days silent. No notifications at all! it is connected but nothing else!

 

[Mark Kaplan]

mh... maybe I was to happy and didnt realize that my band 2 has been 2 full days silent. No notifications at all! it is connected but nothing else!

Make sure its not in airplane mode. I found that after leaving mine on the charger for a while, some settings got changed and that was one of them.

 

[Kissanviikset]

Coming from Lumia 1520 i was quite bit underwhelmed. First of all i expected phone to feel much lighter but i guess smaller frame diminish that impression. Oh and it looks so small :unhappy:

Secondly i immediately noticed sharp edges from display and angular design of back cover. Phone feels quite blocky compared to 1520 which have very smooth feel all around. And i have also creaking back cover which feels quite plasticky compared to 1520 shell. Phone feels overall like it's meant for testing purposes before final design. I think MS dropped ball on this one :eck: I do like how the back of phone looks like compared to 1520 but they could have thought this bit more and frankly considering they are multi billion dollar company... oh well.

The screen looks really great and it is very bright. Actually it is so bright that i had to drop it to 0% and still i feel it could be dimmer. So the talk about 950 screen isn't bright enough, whats that about, at least not on 950 XL case. Colours aren't that saturated considering this is amoled screen. Black isn't that black like you would expect, since display unit itself isn't actually black, more like slightly grey when powered off. Not that a big deal for me but worth of noting.

Performance is great although there is slight delays when changing between system menus. Nothing that could not changed by software update. No resuming screens so far and scrolling is very fluid.

Can't comment about battery life yet since too much fiddling around still compared to my normal use. I noticed very heavy battery drain when using edge browser and especially when watching utube videos. Battery drained like 20% just in matter of 20 mins or so and phone did get very hot. At least heat is well distributed.

Camera is fast but no deeper commitment to it yet.

Everything else but build quality is great on this phone and i did get remorse about spending 699€ on this phone. Frankly it is too much and 599€ and 499€ is more like what this should cost. Nokia did set bar high when it comes build quality and Microsoft needs to up they ante. I'm getting use to this phone and most definitely change back cover to it for higher quality feel. I'm keeping my 1520 around cos it is wonderful device and i check it back when WP10 is released to it for comparison to 950 XL.

 

[dKp1977]

I finally got my 950XL yesterday evening. It's early on to write a decent review, as I haven't had the time to do much with it yet. But here are my first few observations:

build quality: seems really great to me. Even though metal certainly has a more premium feel to it, the 950XL doesn't feel cheap at all. In my opinion.

battery life: it had like 43% out of the box, which dropped down to 22% within 1.5 hours, while performing hard resets (more on that later), installing and updating apps and fiddling around with the settings. Usual behavior. It charged from there to 100% in about 1.5 hours, being still downloading apps/maps, an Audible audio book and furthermore still being played around with. So I consider this damn fast.

performance: noticeably faster than my 1520. But that's of no big surprise considering the hardware difference. No doubt a very fast and fluid experience. No resuming/loading screen so far.

camera: can't say anything about front- and back camera, as I've neither taken any pictures nor videos yet. Launches very quick though.

software issues: just those I already knew from the past insider builds on my 1520. Nothing very concerning.
hardware issues: none so far.

Now about those aforementioned hard resets.. I performed one right out of the box. Why? Dunno, I always do that. Upon first setup the store didn't show any apps in "my library". I've had this happen before on the 1520 and only a hard reset could fix it. I posted a topic here looking for an alternative but to no avail. After the hard reset it didn't even recognize my Microsoft account, even though I set it up correctly. It was missing from the store, Outlook mail and calendar, Cortana, Groove, TV & Music app and so on. No way to add it either, as either the according app just crashed upon try or tapping a certain option didn't do anything. So another hard reset. This finally solved it.

All in all I'm very happy with my device and I don't regret buying it. We'll see how it's gonna be over time, but I doubt my opinion will change.

 

[lakrisnisse]

Coming from Lumia 1020 and have had the 950XL for 2 whole days now, I can only say that everything is awesome

 

[Milan Secerov]

Got my phone a couple of days ago. Had the HTC One M9 before. So the first thing when I got the phone was admire how good it looks, clean and minimalistic. The build quality is great, apart from the corners squeaking a bit, even though the build materials aren't so premium. Just wish the Mozo leather back was available to get in my country. In hand feel is great and I will get used to the size quick because before the M9 I had the Note 4. Camera is on a different level than its competitors. Having used many android flagships including the s6 for a few days I can say that the 950 XL's camera is something to admire. Sure, its not miles ahead like Lumia phones were in the past. But it still manages to surpass the competition. The display is amazing, blacks are deep, its vibrant, the resolution makes everything look so crisp. Even the tiniest of dots...

Now for the software part. Windows 10... Oh boy do I have mixed feelings about this one. On one hand the look of the OS is very refreshing, the tiles, the animations, the design of Microsoft apps. It looks very professional and sleek. No cartoonish elements or colors like in its competitors and for me that's a good thing. On the other hand, the bugs... The random app crashes, notifications not being consistent. In my case it is Viber. Sometimes the notifications are perfect, other times late and sometimes I don't even hear them. Sure the live tile updates the counter, but what's the point if I don't hear them coming. The app gap is not really an issue for me as all the apps I need are here and look great... Can I live with these bugs? Sure I can, and I will. I am a windows fan, and am in the Microsoft ecosystem. I have Windows 10 on my PC, an Xbox One and I always loved windows phone. Used them a lot, bought the HTC HD7 when it came out and the phone I had the longest was the 1520, almost for a year. For me that's a long time as I like to switch phones every 2 or 3 months. But can the average consumer willing to spend $600+ for a phone? I'm not so sure. But I do hope updates are fast and plenty as that is crucial imho.

I think there is hope for Microsoft with these products. Just as long as they don't mess it up by not updating the software in a timely matter.

 

[Corvodin]

It looks small? How in the hell is that a complaint? It's a 5.7 inch display.

 

[sudakoma]

Got mine yesterday and so far I'm loving it but I do have 1 thing to complain about and that is the crappy buttons on the side. I have no idea who came up with the configuration but it just sucks. The power button is the most used and to have it where it is and to feel as bad as it does (it feels sharp and cheap) just annoys me. I guess I'm being picky because its the 'only' thing I have to complain about. The rest of it I love, the screen is amazing and the camera will make a good replacement for my 1020. Its a pleasure to be able to snap a picture and then snap another one without waiting a few seconds like I had to do with my 1020. As for WP10, well for those of us who have been part of the preview builds, we know how much things improved with the last 2 builds and running on the 950XL I have no issues whatsoever.

Looking forward to my Mozo case which is due around Dec 16th, maybe that come with better feeling buttons! :grin:

 

[abivaanenopi]

Took this short 4k video with 950 from windows hello beta. Works even at dark! Epic stuff going on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cno-w6_fEz4

 

[bells0]

Picked mine up last night. UK, single sim.

Didn't use a backup from my 8.1 Lunia 930 as didn't want any problems, so took some time to get it set up how i wanted.

Happy days. Must admit, it doesn't blow my 930 out of the water, that is still a great mobile. But having glance, space for my music on an SD card and a stable W10 has made up for that. Wi-fi has been solid, no restarts, no app crashes.....so far!! Hello has worked brilliantly so far. Heading out to an Xmas themed park tomorrow, so looking forward to trying the camera alongside my Sony A6000. 1 thing that has frustrated me with testing is the processing after each shot - it takes bloody ages! - why??

Happy with my purchase so far. Looking forward to playing with the dock, but seems to work well with the MS display adapter i have plugged into the tv. Now, hurry up Mozo and make more cases!!

 

[sudakoma]

1 thing that has frustrated me with testing is the processing after each shot - it takes bloody ages! - why??

You don't have to wait for the processing, just keep snapping away and the processing will carry on in the background.

 

[erzhik]

Got my XL, coming from 1520. I was expecting something very light based on reviews, but I actually love the weight of it. Not heavy and not super light. Also, like it more than I did my 1520 already, snappy and fast and love that Win10. I stayed away from Win10 Insider Program on purpose until retail release. Also love the fact that the corners are not as sharp as on 1520, 1520's corners made it hard to hold it for long periods of time. Apart from software bugs, I absolutely love this thing even if the screen is slightly smaller.

 

[peachy001]

Looking at getting the xl, but have any tech sites reviewed it? Not seen anything but first impressions from WC or Neowin.

 

[WoodyPWX]

I have accidentally ordered Dual SIM variant from MS store (it wasn't labeled in any way) and then replaced it for single sim later. Eagerly waiting for Windows Insider .29 release

 

[hingethunder]

Got my 950XL but now returning it. Whilst I can't fault the OS and performance, the actual phone leaves a lot to be desired. Having to take off the back and remove the battery to install the SIM card is very retro, didn't happen in either the 930 or 920. The case itself squeaks when given a gentle squeeze in either bottom corner (I googled this to make sure it wasn't just my one however I found people offering solutions for the squeaking on reddit so it must be widespread). I don't mind the texture of the case but for a premium device, it falls way short of the quality and feel of previous Lumias. Am now back to my 930 and happier for doing so.