Worth picking up in late 2018

[NightOrchid]

My local store has a used 950 xl in great condition for £100, but now at this time... Is it worth picking up?

I know its still getting OS updates in line with Windows updates, but what about MS apps?, Are the core apps from MS to run the 950 functions and app store still being updated and maintained for the phone, such as..office, mail, groove audio, phone, messaging, camera...etc?

Thanks all

 

[Dwarf_King]

From a person who absolutely love my Lumia 950 XL I would say not unless you can settle with less apps, a pretty slow OS(compared to Android and IOS), a battery life below nor.al expectations and you just want a fine phone with a decent camera. I now use a Samsung galaxy S8 and the difference is HUGE when it comes to battery life, apps and options. Lumia phones are not seeing much love from Microsoft and developers now at days. Core apps are seeing updates but also only so. I still use my Lumia 950 XL as a phablet though.

 

[NightOrchid]

Thanks for the reply...

I absolutely love WP as well and have used it on and off for years, up untill about 6 mnths ago, when i tried an iphone... Im not bothered about apps really as i have a lenovo android tablet...

But from what your saying, it sounds as if MS are just letting it run down.. hmm

 

[sd4f]

Just stay away. There are monthly security updates, but that's about it. Apps barely ever see any updates, no new apps come around, broken features in the OS appear to be left unfixed.

For me, it has finally hit the point where it is just a burden to use. Many apps I use are just painfully slow and buggy.

 

[spicypadthai]

It's still working well for me. I'm not a heavy app user, no social media, and I rely on a similar "core" as you. Two I use a lot, Mail/Calendar and OneNote, were both updated within the last 2 weeks, and everything I need works great: phone calls, messaging, email, light web browsing, and news/sports/weather/radar apps. I did a hard reset mid October which, as it always does, makes a big difference. Performance has been fine, no complaints, and battery life is as good as when I first got it 18+ months ago. 30+ hours with my normal use.

 

[fin11]

Still working perfectly for me too. Also got updates for the other office apps (word, excel and power point - I use office 365), whats app, duplex media player and my tube the last 2 weeks. Core apps are still updated frequently by Microsoft. I dont use any socialmedia and my lumia 950xl is also fast and fluid, but I have also done 2 hard resets after Anniversary Update and Creators Update. My only concern is that new phones are hard to get these days, so I bought a used spare lumia 950 xl in good condition recently to keep me going if this one would break. I payed about 200€, so the price seems good to me if its in good condition. I also bought 2 extra batteries (I had to replace my battery on this unit after about a year of use because of random restarts). Groove works well for playing music stored on the phone but you cant buy music from Microsoft anymore, I never did that anyway because I always used spotify for streaming and that still works fine for me.

 

[AtuljitK]

Where did you spare battery from? I want one for my Lumia 950. I M not in USA BTW

 

[NightOrchid]

Well after what you guys said... i did pick it up today, couldnt resist it for £100, and it has a working screen in all 4 corners, which is brill and the screen and white back cover in unblemished and unmarked or scratched...

I dont care about apps, i am quite a down to earth guy, so dont like people invading my everyday life and space on FB or twitter (i use them on my PC and tablet and thats enough)... I use a phone for phone calls, txt'ing, Potography, music and news..

Iam just sick of Google asking me if i "accept / consent" to cookies or permissions or data collection 5 or 10x a day for every damn app....

Btw, what News/RSS apps are you folks using or recommend?

 

[spicypadthai]

Btw, what News/RSS apps are you folks using or recommend?

I mostly use the MS News app. If you want something more advanced, an oldie but goodie is Nextgen Reader. It's a Metro style app that hearkens back to the halcyon days of 8 and 8.1. It's held up well.

 

[sd4f]

I did a hard reset mid October which, as it always does, makes a big difference. Performance has been fine, no complaints, and battery life is as good as when I first got it 18+ months ago. 30+ hours with my normal use.

Can you give me a quick run down of the hard reset procedure?

I've never done it, though I'm on a L950, also want to know whether I have to reinstall everything.

 

[spicypadthai]

Can you give me a quick run down of the hard reset procedure?

I've never done it, though I'm on a L950, also want to know whether I have to reinstall everything.

Hard reset is a clean install using whatever version you're currently on, vs. using the WDRT to do a factory reset.

To hard reset, go to All Settings > System > About, scroll down and tap "Reset your phone"

You'll see a warning message asking whether to continue so tap "Yes", your phone will restart, and it will go through the reset which is similar to what you see when you install an update. After it finishes, you'll be auto prompted through the phone setup, same as when you first did it. You'll have an option to restore from a backup and assuming your phone is currently auto backing up, you'll see the most recent one. It's a good idea to manually back up prior, just in case. Whether to restore has been debated over the years. It saves some time b/c most of your apps will automatically be resinstalled and it'll restore most of your settings - start screen layout, wallpaper, live tiles, known WiFi, etc. I'm not sure if it'll re-install apps no longer available in the Store, which is a reason people avoid hard resets nowadays unless it's necessary. But if your phone is having issues with apps crashing, laggy performance, and/or bad battery life, the chances are a reset will clear up the problem(s). I usually don't restore from backup b/c I'm doing it to fix a problem and not restoring is the only 100% gurantee for a clean install, but everything needs to be set up again from scratch.

 

[NightOrchid]

Just finished setting up.. after about 4 hrs... I forgot how long setup and OS updating is... because i bought it pre-owned, i did an OS recovery through the recovery tool, then had to re-install 4 OS updates... then did all the store and app updates... which all drained the battery... and so far, its great, runs great...nits a little sluggish at times, but no more than a Samsung or LG..

The camera is stunning, ive never seen an Android or iphone look as crisp and sharp as this, it phenomenal...

The only issue/bug ive had was, when i restarted the phone after finishing setting it up.... the Notification panel wouldnt pull down on the honescreen, yet worked perfectly on the lockscreen... However, by opening Cortana... it fixed it... so it works perfectly now... strange...

So far, so good... but still testing, but its good to be back...

For those who say WP is dead, the app store looks pretty good to me... and d/l'd well over 50 updates for the xl.. most core and system apps and all updated in the last 2 - 4 wks

 

[sd4f]

Just finished setting up.. after about 4 hrs... I forgot how long setup and OS updating is... because i bought it pre-owned, i did an OS recovery through the recovery tool, then had to re-install 4 OS updates... then did all the store and app updates... which all drained the battery... and so far, its great, runs great...nits a little sluggish at times, but no more than a Samsung or LG..

The camera is stunning, ive never seen an Android or iphone look as crisp and sharp as this, it phenomenal...

The only issue/bug ive had was, when i restarted the phone after finishing setting it up.... the Notification panel wouldnt pull down on the honescreen, yet worked perfectly on the lockscreen... However, by opening Cortana... it fixed it... so it works perfectly now... strange...

So far, so good... but still testing, but its good to be back...

For those who say WP is dead, the app store looks pretty good to me... and d/l'd well over 50 updates for the xl.. most core and system apps and all updated in the last 2 - 4 wks

Overall, the hardware is great, bit dated now, but still quite competent. I really like WP/WM UI, but in my case, I use FB messenger a lot, and like instagram, and both those apps haven't had an update in a long time. Problem is they crash often, and certain features are just awfully slow or don't work.

Camera is very hard to beat. Newer phones are doing low light better, but still, daytime photos, very few people are saying that the photos look bad. But also the L950 camera is slow.

Additionally, regarding your comment for the store, a lot of those apps aren't available on the phone. Sometime this year, MS stopped bothering to segregate the apps for mobile, so the activity may be misleading.

Now don't think I hate the platform, MS really did try (definitely with WP7 and WP8/8.1) W10M is kind of where, while they did put effort into improving the platform, it appears that eventually they started to give up. Things that previously would have been corrected and improved, or mostly just worked, started to have issues. The thing is you just can't get a phone like these anymore, they're beasts, with pretty much every feature you could want, unfortunately the HW is from 2015.

I'll do a backup now and reset it today. Got nothing better to do, so might as well see if it improves it.

 

[LuxuryTouringZone]

Great to hear that you went ahead and bought it. Outside of apps, Windows Phone flagships are actually really solid.

 

[TechFreak1]

Well after what you guys said... i did pick it up today, couldnt resist it for £100, and it has a working screen in all 4 corners, which is brill and the screen and white back cover in unblemished and unmarked or scratched...

I dont care about apps, i am quite a down to earth guy, so dont like people invading my everyday life and space on FB or twitter (i use them on my PC and tablet and thats enough)... I use a phone for phone calls, txt'ing, Potography, music and news..

Iam just sick of Google asking me if i "accept / consent" to cookies or permissions or data collection 5 or 10x a day for every damn app....

Btw, what News/RSS apps are you folks using or recommend?

You can use Nokia Reading dowloaded via sysapp pusher.

There are some back end changes that have caused the Amazon app to be a hit and miss, when you first run it and it pins a live tile. You need to use the live tile to use it without issues as the launching from the app list causes it to crash for me. This behaviour started a few days ago and app was not updated - I manually update every single app. It however works fine on the W10 desktop...

For £100 it's a decent buy, I am using this screen protector (www.amazon.co.uk/atFoliX-Protector-Microsoft-Screen-Protection/dp/B016FTU8V0 ) - as it's the only screen protector I have found that covers the entire phone along with a £1 TPU Gel case and this memory card: Samsung MB-MC128GA/AMZ 128 GB 100 MB/s Class 10 U3.

 

[NightOrchid]

Overall, the hardware is great, bit dated now, but still quite competent. I really like WP/WM UI, but in my case, I use FB messenger a lot, and like instagram, and both those apps haven't had an update in a long time. Problem is they crash often, and certain features are just awfully slow or don't work.

Camera is very hard to beat. Newer phones are doing low light better, but still, daytime photos, very few people are saying that the photos look bad. But also the L950 camera is slow.

Additionally, regarding your comment for the store, a lot of those apps aren't available on the phone. Sometime this year, MS stopped bothering to segregate the apps for mobile, so the activity may be misleading.

Now don't think I hate the platform, MS really did try (definitely with WP7 and WP8/8.1) W10M is kind of where, while they did put effort into improving the platform, it appears that eventually they started to give up. Things that previously would have been corrected and improved, or mostly just worked, started to have issues. The thing is you just can't get a phone like these anymore, they're beasts, with pretty much every feature you could want, unfortunately the HW is from 2015.

I'll do a backup now and reset it today. Got nothing better to do, so might as well see if it improves it.

I think youll find after your hard reset, itll run great... Im finding no issues so far, also the Notification panel problem has fixed itself.... working perfectly now... Wierd..

I see what you mean about the app store, it could do with an overhaul..., but that camera.. its fantastic, but, its poor in low light, although ive seen worse from an xperia xz2...

I was lucky, the £100 one i got has none of the defects some people have had... No shut downs, all points on display work perfect, the back cover is solid (no creaking), battery life for me seems really good... so far... Im quite pleased with it

 

[NightOrchid]

You can use Nokia Reading dowloaded via sysapp pusher.

There are some back end changes that have caused the Amazon app to be a hit and miss, when you first run it and it pins a live tile. You need to use the live tile to use it without issues as the launching from the app list causes it to crash for me. This behaviour started a few days ago and app was not updated - I manually update every single app. It however works fine on the W10 desktop...

For £100 it's a decent buy, I am using this screen protector (www.amazon.co.uk/atFoliX-Protector-Microsoft-Screen-Protection/dp/B016FTU8V0 ) - as it's the only screen protector I have found that covers the entire phone along with a £1 TPU Gel case and this memory card: Samsung MB-MC128GA/AMZ 128 GB 100 MB/s Class 10 U3.

I actually already have a couple of cases from my last 950xl outing, so using them, also a bog standard Sandisk 64gb 80mb/s SD, which the xl handles great, but would like to upgrade for better speed...

Ill look into Amazon app, and let you know how it goes for me... As i have a kindle, i pick up the daily deals, so ill try it... I have noticed Edge browser can be sluggish when looking for a website, and the WM UI has minor, and i mean Tiny, stutters and hiccups.... but compared to Android bloat, its great...

You know, MS could save WM...if they werent so obsessed with Xbox and Xbox Live... but they wont, even Nokia has pulled itself back and is slowly becoming a market force.. MS could as well

 

[TechFreak1]

I actually already have a couple of cases from my last 950xl outing, so using them, also a bog standard Sandisk 64gb 80mb/s SD, which the xl handles great, but would like to upgrade for better speed...

Ill look into Amazon app, and let you know how it goes for me... As i have a kindle, i pick up the daily deals, so ill try it... I have noticed Edge browser can be sluggish when looking for a website, and the WM UI has minor, and i mean Tiny, stutters and hiccups.... but compared to Android bloat, its great...

You know, MS could save WM...if they werent so obsessed with Xbox and Xbox Live... but they wont, even Nokia has pulled itself back and is slowly becoming a market force.. MS could as well

1) Personally prefer Samsung SD cards due to the reliability of the NAND flash they use and especially since Western Digital acquired Sandisk.

2) Edge is a different story imo as it was supposed to be updateable via the app store but it needs O/S level updates due to the browser integration in the Windows O/S. This is not new, it stems back to internet explorer days and thanks to this you can actually launch a web page via any window in file explorer.

3) I disagree, it's two fold as the certification process for xbox live titles was far too stringent and costly. Xbox is making a massive resurgence under the guide of Phil Spencer et al and it's been their sole saving grace for the entire company as a whole. Because as it stands Microsoft is a company is not a viewed as being "hip", "trendy" let alone "chic".

There is alot that went to the death knell of Windows Mobile most of which has been rehashed ad nauseam so I won't get into the nitty gritty. Many people did not use Windows Phone completely, they only used some functions so therefore do not remember the lacking - let alone the issues at first launch from the rebrand form WM 6.x to 7.x. Again these have been rehashed and I see no point in dredging up what is now ancient history (kernel switch, phones eating / flipping the secure bit in msd cards, the stringent UX requirements, the lapse of UX requirements for OEMs etc etc).

From that history there is one crucial aspect that has put where UWP and WM10 is today - that is the axe of the mobile division. Ballmer's vision would have saved WM10 however talking about that is frankly pointless, a waste of time and a futile exercise without in depth comparisons and understanding the complexities involved for both CEOs - The current CEO Satya Nadella and Steve Ballmer.

The only thing to do is to ensure Microsoft does bring a foldable and pocketable device to the market. A device that is transient beyond smartphones thus laying the foundation via UWP.

 

[MrockNroll]

Glad you found your 950XL, I have been considering getting one as a backup as well. Cheers. AL

 

[NightOrchid]

Glad you found your 950XL, I have been considering getting one as a backup as well. Cheers. AL

I would definetly pick one up if you can... but a few pointers for you to consider....

1) Whereever you live in the world.. Dont pay anymore than 200 (your currency) for one

2) Check the 4 corners and the touchscreen for dead points.

3) Check the SDCard reader works (take your own if the store dont have one)

4) use it for a little while.. Camera, Menus.. etc and as you do check it isnt heating up because replacement batteries are harder to get now..

5) When you buy it.. make sure you use Microsoft recovery tool..and do a software Recovery on it


Its still a great device .. App store is lacking apps, camera suffers a little in Low light, but its better than SONY can do... but, even in the p20pro and Pixel cameras... its phenomenal in daylight shots.. as good as a Pixel 2 xl..