I just came back from my travelling in Cuba and I used my Lumia 950XL all around to help me with my trip. Now I want to say something about my experience. I used phone primarily for following interests:
Taking photos
I used much more phone camera comparing with my preview phone, the image quality is superior in general. But I did encounter some other glitches.
Offline map
I downloaded offline map before my trip. The GPS could be locked fast, I can find myself on the map easily. But the map data source isn?t very helpful. My wife brought her iPad with maps.me offline map downloaded, it proved to be FAR MORE useful than Bing map. With the amount of details (restaurants, points of interest, banks, super markets and so on) it almost made Bing map useless other than GPS navigation. I visited online Bing map to check the places I visited in Cuba it is the same result, other than street name there is nothing more. Google online map is also better than Bing map.
BTW, there is a new neighbour not too far from my home, it is 2 years old but it does not show up in Bing map properly.
Tracking my activities by using GPS
About 1 year ago when I still used BLU Win HD (Windows mobile 8.1) I used Caledos Runner app while I was climbing Kilimanjaro. I still used the same app on my Lumia 950XL, but I still have exactly the same issue. I don?t know it is bug from the app or the phone. What I tried to do is to record the GPS coordinates of all the places I been to.
I usually turned on the app to start tracking in the morning until I completed the day. But the recording results showed too many missed spots (there could be hours between 2 locations on GPS file). I used to the app to record 1 entire day?s activities but the GPX file probably only contained less than 100 coordinates. I tried another app ?GPS Hiking Mate 10?, the result is similar. It leads me to think all these apps probably rely on the OS to get data, somehow the OS stopped GPS functions from time to time.
Back to my home when I have cell/data services these apps never fail me. But once I was out of my service area (air plane mode or not), the problem appeared.
Other observations
My phone usually is very stable at home, but on my trip it had unexpected restart almost every day. It looks like it happened more often after I used the camera app.
Taking photos
I used much more phone camera comparing with my preview phone, the image quality is superior in general. But I did encounter some other glitches.
- Camera button won?t unlock the screen. This actually started to happen a bit while before my vacation. After I pressed the camera button I had to double tap the screen to use the camera app. I am on insider preview slow ring, not sure one of the upgrade screwed something. To me the camera button is a killer feature, but now it is half useless. It still has the issue as of today.
- There are many times after I took the first picture and the screen was still on, the phone wouldn?t able to focus or react to the shutter button until almost 1 minute later. It does not happen all the time but quite frequently.
Offline map
I downloaded offline map before my trip. The GPS could be locked fast, I can find myself on the map easily. But the map data source isn?t very helpful. My wife brought her iPad with maps.me offline map downloaded, it proved to be FAR MORE useful than Bing map. With the amount of details (restaurants, points of interest, banks, super markets and so on) it almost made Bing map useless other than GPS navigation. I visited online Bing map to check the places I visited in Cuba it is the same result, other than street name there is nothing more. Google online map is also better than Bing map.
BTW, there is a new neighbour not too far from my home, it is 2 years old but it does not show up in Bing map properly.
Tracking my activities by using GPS
About 1 year ago when I still used BLU Win HD (Windows mobile 8.1) I used Caledos Runner app while I was climbing Kilimanjaro. I still used the same app on my Lumia 950XL, but I still have exactly the same issue. I don?t know it is bug from the app or the phone. What I tried to do is to record the GPS coordinates of all the places I been to.
I usually turned on the app to start tracking in the morning until I completed the day. But the recording results showed too many missed spots (there could be hours between 2 locations on GPS file). I used to the app to record 1 entire day?s activities but the GPX file probably only contained less than 100 coordinates. I tried another app ?GPS Hiking Mate 10?, the result is similar. It leads me to think all these apps probably rely on the OS to get data, somehow the OS stopped GPS functions from time to time.
Back to my home when I have cell/data services these apps never fail me. But once I was out of my service area (air plane mode or not), the problem appeared.
Other observations
My phone usually is very stable at home, but on my trip it had unexpected restart almost every day. It looks like it happened more often after I used the camera app.