[TLRtheory]

My launch day Lumia 950 never really gave me problems from a functional/stability standpoint... and neither did the Lumia 950XL I recently upgraded to (sans one update that made my camera exceptionally unreliable which came and passed in a matter of a couple weeks).

Still though, I'd definitely agree that WM10 is getting better. AU brought our NFC payment back (which was a HUGE deal for me) and in a manner where Google can't just buy it and rip it off our platform as they did with Softcard (did they even do anything with that acquisition aside from snatch it from WM?). Then just today they resolve one of my biggest grievances as SMS relay in Skype brings that iMessage-style messaging uniformity to all my Windows devices.

Unfortunately, my dream to see Xbox-empowered gaming grow on Windows 10 Mobile gets further away as Microsoft retrenches from the mainstream mobile market. I've found apps to pay my bills, get me where I need to be, organize my life, entertain me and improve my professional life... but Microsoft's missing out so hard on the opportunity to make W10m their "Xbox Portable"... which is sad, 'cause the first time I got an achievement on my phone that counted towards my actual XBLA GamerScore I kinda flipped my lid.

[abhishek singh21]

its building up slowly but steadily, fast ring has become more reliable as the base of windows 10 or call it the core is very stable now and everything now is been prepared or built around it or on it. Hence no major device breaking bugs which we saw during early builds of windows 10 mobile n 2015.

[gerrymad]

Most of it is working quite well, but the battery life on my 950XL fast ring has been horrible for the last two builds. If I'm charging off USB on my computer it can't keep up with the drain. My car charger (2.1 amp) used to be able to charge fairly quickly even while running Waze and listening to podcasts. For the last two versions if I use the phone while charging in the car it is slowly losing ground.

[Joe920]

Ironically I read this thread, then tried to shut down the phone, and five minutes later I noticed the hot-pocket syndrome. Turns out it failed to shut down, and it was still on the Goodbye screen. It mostly works well, but still plenty of bugs around. Feels like at least once a day something goes wrong on my 950XL.

[pankaj981]

Windows 10 Mobile (the platform and experience as a whole) can only get better with apps. Its a work in progress and it does look like its going in the right direction, the builds have really become polished and fast with few bugs. Hopefully at some point when Microsoft sees the platform picking up they start focusing back on the social aspect rather than enterprise and work. And hopefully OEMs pick up the momentum and release some good high-end devices rather creating something lackluster like the Lumia 950 series.

[unmorphed]

People are stupid.

Not you guys, you're cool.

[anon(50597)]

People are stupid.

Not you guys, you're cool.

Gee thanks. I think.

[sidtek50]

I think for me, as someone who has followed the Lumia range on and off for a long while, the 950 I'm using is good overall.

For me, the biggest downside is that copying and pasting is different depending where you are in the OS (not consistent).

When you highlight text, we seriously, seriously need the magnifier like on iOS. That, I feel, gives you pinpoint precision. I don't feel like I've got that precision on W10M.

I want to see night mode immediately. I have no idea why Microsoft even need to question it. When iOS got it, W10M should have got it. Once you've used it it's hard to go back to a phone that doesn't have it.

Apps crash a lot - I've done hard resets, been on slow, fast, release preview and public build - and still, apps crash. It's the most frustrating thing.

Live tiles not updating - self explanatory.

Screen too bright - maybe I'm the only one who feels this but for me, the screen is blindingly bright, even on the darkest setting. If anything, this is why I'll probably sell the phone on. I keep getting headaches. Again, like iOS, we need a brightness slider. Not a % or darkest/brightest button - the lack of logic from Microsoft astounds me.

There are probably more things but for now, if that was sorted, I'd be extremely happy!

[Joe920]

When you highlight text, we seriously, seriously need the magnifier like on iOS. That, I feel, gives you pinpoint precision. I don't feel like I've got that precision on W10M.

You know, there used to be this cool feature where could grab the cursor, and drag down on the screen a bit without the cursor following. Basically you could move your figure out of the way to see what you were doing. Only if you moved your finger down a lot (like two full lines) would the cursor jump to the next line. I don't know when or why they killed that, maybe it was too unique. (sigh)

[CraigCole]

To the OP: Ummm, no, not at all, actually. If anything W10M has been WORSE lately. In my experience, battery life has gone down, there are still tons of UI inconsistencies, animations stutter, it gets hot for no reason, etc., etc., etc.

Well, the chip design is somewhat specific to iOS, but that probably doesn't mean what most people think it does. At it's most basic level it's still a standard ARM chip which is the same ISA everyone else in mobile is using. There is nothing specific about that.

At a higher level Apple has the freedom to combine SoC subsystems in ways that are best suited to their devices, e.g. if Apple designs a new phone where the pixel count of the display is doubled, then they can incorporate a GPU that completes raster operations exactly twice as fast while keeping the CPU as it is. This results in a user experience that is very consistent across devices (in terms of performance) despite the specs differing. It also makes it much easier for developers as they can ignore the performance impact that higher resolution displays otherwise have. In that way their SoCs are designed specifically for their devices, but none of that has anything to do with CPU efficiency. Apple does great work on that front too, but it's not any better than the great work Qualcomm does either. It's very much comparable.

What I'm referring to has almost nothing to do with software optimization however. It's about how the OSes are designed and what their developers decided was particularly important. Android and WP/WM both have run-time environments that sit between the hardware and the app. These environments provide runtime services for apps, like memory allocation and garbage collection, security monitoring, memory defragmentation, run-time type information and a whole host of other stuff. This makes it easier to program for Android and WP/WM and makes those developers more productive, but those services come at performance cost. iOS apps don't have that sort of run-time environment, so those apps run far more efficiently, but developers are required to do more work. Those run-time environments are also what allow Android and WP/WM apps to run on both Intel and ARM chips, whereas iOS apps are limited exclusively to ARM. That flexibility is nice, but it too comes at a performance cost. None of that has anything to do with optimization, but with different design priorities and goals.

THANK YOU FOR EXPLAINING THIS!!! I had no idea there was a runtime environment slowing W10 and Android down.

I would agree that lately (overall in the past 3 or so months, maybe 6, whatever) that it has gotten better but recently i have had so many bugs. Over the past few days i have had reboots, fail to display keypad to unlock the phone, screen freezes, my 950 XL has been worse than its ever been even when i had 10586.0

I totally agree with you. It's been getting worse lately and I have no idea why... My 950 has been performing poorly and I haven't changed my usage at all.

it helps a little, but if you go back a few years, when microsoft cared about wp, at least a bit, you see their range of underpowered 3rd party phones outperforming everything else on the market, smoked by wp! and when it came to smooth operation and stability WP was the one to beat, even iOS seemed buggy in comparison, thats what the world's biggest software company is capable of...

And those hoping the "creators update" will finally make this mobile OS competent, have you ever thought that apple and google will just sit there? by the time w10m reaches their current user experience standards, they will be on to the next level

AMEN! When MS cared about WP it was an amazing OS, smooth, responsive and blazing fast on even the most basic hardware. Today, an eight-core processor and gigabytes of ram aren't enough to keep it competitive with iPhones that are generations out of date.

I too have a pessimistic outlook on future updates. Windows Phone was always 20 steps behind iOS and Android when it came to functionality. It would gain 10 paces in a big annual update just as its rivals sprinted ahead another 15 steps. It really was an unwinnable race for Microsoft and us. They just didn't (and still don't) move quickly enough...

[sidtek50]

Agree with the post above me. Microsoft just don't move quickly enough. Most of my posts rant about night mode on iOS, and for good reason. I saw a post from Microsoft saying they're considering it but won't promise.

What's to consider?? To me, that was MS saying We'll see if we sell anymore phones before we get around to that!'. To me, the second iOS got it, Microsoft should have shamelessly copied it. I get so frustrated with Microsoft because they could have done so much better in the mobile space but they have made and continue to make poor decisions.

[nate0]

it is, but I realized it was mostly placebo effect after getting used to how bad it was, it feels like now its so perfect, but my gf's iphone showed me how wrong I was

just got me thinking, iphone 5s is a dual core 1gb ram device, 92x lumias are the same, yet see how they run, that iphone can keep more than twice the apps than my icon in background and resume all of them instantly, and they are richer apps to boot, steve on AAWP says RS2 is way faster, and it excites me but at the same time I'm like.. yea, it should be, its no celebration matter really, its just catching up to stuff

sure it must run perfectly on some 950's and X3s, but mind you, if you don't pay a performance penalty on w10 over 8.1 you pay a battery life one, no way around that, just imagine how long would that 950 last you if it was on 8.1

I try to never compare two platforms to each other. iOS is a whole other ball park, whole other game altogether. The way iOS manages RAM/On screen app usage is somewhat proprietary, so you should expect it to be totally unique or better in this case. The only other major closed source mobile OS out there. Truth is there is none like Windows Mobile, so either you like it or you don't. Same for iOS. Android on the other hand has so many stinking flavors out there it is insane, probably why just about anyone can like or use it.

I have enjoyed Windows Phone/Windows Mobile since I started using it, and that is only about 3 years now. I use iphones too, my work phone is an iphone, they are fun just too plain in some ways. Honestly don't think I will ever get another android phone, unless the maker dual boots it with Windows.

[KrisYYC]

I bought the Lumia 950 at launch and it has been pretty smooth since day 1. The odd random reboot in the first month, but I applaud MS for pushing out updates so frequently.

My main issue is the lack of apps, and losing some apps that were pretty crucial to me meant I ended up getting an Android phone a couple months ago.... However, I STILL use my 950 about 50% of the time. I just like Windows Mobile period.

With Windows 10 gaining popularity especially with well received products like the Surface Pro 4, Surface book and now Surface Studio I hope the app situation improves. I just hope the next phone MS comes out with has camera tech equal too, or better than the Pureview/Zeiss tech on the 950/XL.

[Achyut Arjun]

Well, the chip design is somewhat specific to iOS, but that probably doesn't mean what most people think it does. At it's most basic level it's still a standard ARM chip which is the same ISA everyone else in mobile is using. There is nothing specific about that.

At a higher level Apple has the freedom to combine SoC subsystems in ways that are best suited to their devices, e.g. if Apple designs a new phone where the pixel count of the display is doubled, then they can incorporate a GPU that completes raster operations exactly twice as fast while keeping the CPU as it is. This results in a user experience that is very consistent across devices (in terms of performance) despite the specs differing. It also makes it much easier for developers as they can ignore the performance impact that higher resolution displays otherwise have. In that way their SoCs are designed specifically for their devices, but none of that has anything to do with CPU efficiency. Apple does great work on that front too, but it's not any better than the great work Qualcomm does either. It's very much comparable.

What I'm referring to has almost nothing to do with software optimization however. It's about how the OSes are designed and what their developers decided was particularly important. Android and WP/WM both have run-time environments that sit between the hardware and the app. These environments provide runtime services for apps, like memory allocation and garbage collection, security monitoring, memory defragmentation, run-time type information and a whole host of other stuff. This makes it easier to program for Android and WP/WM and makes those developers more productive, but those services come at performance cost. iOS apps don't have that sort of run-time environment, so those apps run far more efficiently, but developers are required to do more work. Those run-time environments are also what allow Android and WP/WM apps to run on both Intel and ARM chips, whereas iOS apps are limited exclusively to ARM. That flexibility is nice, but it too comes at a performance cost. None of that has anything to do with optimization, but with different design priorities and goals.

I hate how we can only have 7 apps open in the background, and also so much irritated with "resuming" screens. Can't Microsoft do something about it?

[ejbrod1]

To the OP: Ummm, no, not at all, actually. If anything W10M has been WORSE lately. In my experience, battery life has gone down, there are still tons of UI inconsistencies, animations stutter, it gets hot for no reason, etc., etc., etc.



THANK YOU FOR EXPLAINING THIS!!! I had no idea there was a runtime environment slowing W10 and Android down.



I totally agree with you. It's been getting worse lately and I have no idea why... My 950 has been performing poorly and I haven't changed my usage at all.



AMEN! When MS cared about WP it was an amazing OS, smooth, responsive and blazing fast on even the most basic hardware. Today, an eight-core processor and gigabytes of ram aren't enough to keep it competitive with iPhones that are generations out of date.

I too have a pessimistic outlook on future updates. Windows Phone was always 20 steps behind iOS and Android when it came to functionality. It would gain 10 paces in a big annual update just as its rivals sprinted ahead another 15 steps. It really was an unwinnable race for Microsoft and us. They just didn't (and still don't) move quickly enough...

Have to agree with this.

W10M got bad, then got better (probably because it was so bad for so long), then got bad again. Then a little better, now, for me it has gotten worse than ever.

Device: 950
OS: 10.0.14393.448(non insider)
FW: 01078.00053.16236.35022
HW: 2.1.6.2

[Grodelj]

Have to agree with this.

W10M got bad, then got better (probably because it was so bad for so long), then got bad again. Then a little better, now, for me it has gotten worse than ever.

Device: 950
OS: 10.0.14393.448(non insider)
FW: 01078.00053.16236.35022
HW: 2.1.6.2

Same here. OS: 10.0.14393.448(non insider)
A lot of strange bugs that never appeared before (sometimes freezing during alarm clock or playing tunein radio, auto rotate stops working, camera gets black screen..), after one year the phone is worse than ever before, excluding first two weeks with catastrophic bluetooth bug.

Lumia 950XL,

[RBX27]

Same here too. My 950xl has been awful on 14393.448, the worst it's been for a long while. 3 hard resets and using the WDRT have settled it a bit but I just hope the next update gets it at least back, stability and battery wise, to where it was. Interestingly I have a L730 on R2 with insider and apart from some of the obvious beta bugs, the phone it a lot smoother and more stable than the the 950 on .448....

[Joe920]

Same here. OS: 10.0.14393.448(non insider)
A lot of strange bugs that never appeared before (sometimes freezing during alarm clock or playing tunein radio, auto rotate stops working, camera gets black screen..), after one year the phone is worse than ever before, excluding first two weeks with catastrophic bluetooth bug.

Lumia 950XL,

Yeah exactly! I thought I was the only one.. I was on a trip, and I can't count the times I was a bit embarrassed with all the stuff not working on my 950XL. I ended up rebooting because of bluetooth not connecting to my car, auto rotate stopped working, one time after pinch zooming on a photo it wouldn't pan, the camera app would give a crazy washed out preview, but then looking at the picture in the photos app it looked fine, etc. What happened?!

[Rosebank]

.448 and I am enjoying my experience, I have never had a crash or reboot, not once, as things are at the moment I am happy with W10M and .448, I think we are due a new update very soon so we will see what that brings?? (L950)
Loving the forum support too, very good place for W10M advice etc,

[ejbrod1]

Frost (weather forecast) now has stopped working. Has anyone else experienced this? Also AccuWeather live tile will not display current location.

[ejbrod1]

On 10.0.14393.693 and the phone is getting increasingly unstable. Unlock not responding, apps not responding, Edge freezing and not loading pages, TuneIn just stopping at 02:48:05 every time. Has anyone experienced these issues?

[xrs22]

14393.726 no probs except for satellite on my map that struggle's to show anything, could be where my location is sometimes when I'm working.

[ejbrod1]

14393.726 no probs except for satellite on my map that struggle's to show anything, could be where my location is sometimes when I'm working.

Is that on insider preview?

[anthonyng]

Is that on insider preview?

yea Insider Release Preview ring....

the updates had come pretty quickly so I didn't even get to try too much on 14393.693. I knew I didn't like the auto brightness on 693 and I felt it was rebooting often. My daily stuff otherwise was ok, don't remember if I used Maps, I normally don't unless I'm traveling.

14393.726 was good for me with less reboots (still happens) better auto dimming but everything works fine, including maps when I was in Northern Ontario (Timmins) and driving around there I got everywhere great! Well some POI I had to manually find and fix a few things.

I try to fix Maps POI everytime I see something. A lot smoother to do right on the phone now instead of relying to go back to desktop website to do it.

[Chippy757]

I also noticed on production build things stop working more often I am having to restart the phone. Main apps like camera, Cortana, email. Performance feels slower also. No improvement here...