I just upgraded from a L920 to a L950, picked up a brand new one quite cheaply.
After 4 and a half years of the L920, I can still say that's the best phone I've ever had!
Long post of opinion ahead...
I can't say what it was like with W10M previously, because I've jumped straight into the creators update, which from what I hear, has resolved most of the usability issues. For the most part, it's fine. I'm having some issues with SMS being transferred over, it has large gaps, but not really end of the world.
Now, on the whole, W10M/L950 do certain things a lot better, but there's also a few gripes. Chiefly, battery life is worse than my L920, and that's a big concern. The L920 has a 2000mAh battery, the L950 a 3000mAh one. That's 50% bigger for the L950, and it's still worse... I may revisit this as I sort of get into regular use, so it may still have to stabilise a little.
Also, the feel just isn't anywhere near as premium as the L920. The larger screen is nice, but also just that little bit too large such that single handed operation is no longer easy. I also have an issue, my wireless charging car cradle doesn't appear to line up right, and doesn't charge up the phone properly.
Web browser is much improved, and considering the absence of many apps, this is important. It was getting quite annoying on the L920, as it was slow, pages didn't load or work properly and if there were ads, it would generally struggle with it. Not noticing this on the L950. Lack of an ad blocker is a bad thing though.
In general, UI smoothness is worse. WP8.1 on the L920 was buttery smooth, it isn't the case on the L950. UI changes are annoying at times, because they haven't completely followed through. The hamburger menu is often used in the top left, and that's the worst possible place to access with one hand, when right handed. The old WP8 style with all that stuff accessible at the bottom right '...' was far far better.
Keyboards are slightly improved, which is good. It's annoying to get used to a keyboard and then have to change. Fortunately they didn't tinker too much with something that isn't broken. You can now long press the top row to get numbers, but you can't see what the numbers are. They should fix that.
Social media integration is worse. What once was a brilliant feature, is now for all intents and purposes gone. You can still link some profiles together, but on the whole, nothing is integrated anymore. The only reason to link the FB profile in your phone book is to get their picture in it. Otherwise, the people app is barren, as facebook doesn't provide any info to it. On WP8 I used it as a way of narrowing down people I'm closer with, through the filters. I suspect FB wants you to go into the app instead. Meanwhile, other social media platforms have no integration whatsoever, and I really doubt that will change.
Camera, obviously much better, with the app also much better. Panorama is integrated, and nice to use, previously it was incredibly slow, and crappy. Overall, the camera isn't as fast as many android phones now, but not so slow that if you want to take a quick snap, that you'll miss it. It mightn't be the best camera around, but you'll always have a good usable shot. I'm no photographer, but I can tell that it takes good photos. With that said, I still thought my L920 took decent photos, as long as you didn't need to zoom in on them. With 20MP, it's not so much a problem anymore.
At the heart of it, I think the big problem is, W10M doesn't really offer anything really great that couldn't have been done to WP8.1 and looking back with hindsight, it was really counterproductive, if not just a botched delivery. I presume the buggy and unfinished state in which it was released, the abandoning of the older phones, when MS said they wouldn't, has all more or less shown that MS completely stuffed up and trashed it in the process.
The rumour mill now suggests that the W10M era hasn't got long left with a reboot of sorts on its way. I personally hope they don't just abandon the windows mobile, I think it will still have its place. Battery life is something I tend to want as much as possible of, and the 1 day standard is kind of poor when for most that one day means 18 hours tops. I can only envisage that the windows on arm phones are going to be large, and probably have poor battery life in comparison, hence why I think there's still a place for windows mobile/phone as it is. With this said, it may mean jumping on the L950 bandwagon now, consider that it may become obsolete this year.
The other point I'd like to make is, considering that I was using a L920 up until recently, a phone almost 5 years old, and only changed because the facebook messenger app got retired, really shows how stagnant mobile phone development has become. You can just see that across the board, nothing much is improving; innovation barely exists, and change is being forced through software obsolescence. Again, if the L950 is retired this year, it will be only because of software, nothing else.
And I also gained time till Microsoft shows what's next in the mobile department.
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