I Can't Deal With The 950XL Anymore...

Witness

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This 950XL that I have waited so long for is definitely going back - I just can't deal with it anymore. This phone was released with many bugs and we're expected to just live with it and wait for the updates. I did. I installed the .36 update hoping that it resolved just enough issues for me to keep it. I'll be back eventually, but this thing has got to go and here's why.

I'll just list the dealbreakers first. These are ranked from the most dealbreakerest to the least, but each of these are almost equally bad for my case and combined brings me to kicking it to the curb:

  1. The camera: The hardware itself is good, however the software behind it makes me want to throw it to the ground. Not only does it take in excess of 30 seconds for it to "Add finishing touches," but snapping a photo has crashed my phone more than just a few times - about 3 times yesterday and once today. That is completely unacceptable. As for the post processing, I cannot delete nor zoom in a photo while it's doing its business. You have this guy who touts WM as a great phone OS, but when this stuff like this happens it is embarrassing. The moment the phone crashed several times yesterday, that was it for me. Update: u/Snakebitten suggested I allow background for the Camera app and it has not freeze/rebooted or taken more than two seconds for image post processing since. The time it takes to post process has been resolved, however the reboot issue is still happening.
  2. Rebooting in my pocket: Whip out the phone and stick it six inches from my face for Hello to scan my eyes only to see that it requires me to enter my PIN since it has been reset. WTH, this has been happening pretty often and not to mention that it is warm to the touch. Update: Since the last firmware update bringing my phone up to .36, it does not reboot nearly as often. Still warm for no reason some times, but mostly a non-issue now. Resolved.
  3. Doesn't play nice with Band: It is as if the Band and the Phone were made by two different companies. Incoming call that I try to dismiss so I can get my phone to be quiet - 70% chance it'll work. Incoming text I just need to type "Ok" from my quick response - 60% it'll actually work, so you better pull out the phone anyways to see if it actually went through which negates the usefulness of having the Band.
  4. Facebook: Yes, it's not made by the Zuck himself, but this dogpile app in both the regular and Beta is just dogpile. Post a photo and there's a chance it doesn't upload. Post a photo and the location check-in doesn't work, however you can work around it by doing a Check-In first, then add the photo which is bull. I use Facebook both personally and for business to extend my brand, so it is important enough that it breaks the deal for me. Other issues as well, but usability issues of just publishing my content is enough.
  5. MS Office: Just a few days ago, I fire up Excel to enter some mileage only to find that my license expired for Office 365. Expired? I've never had to pay for Office on my phone since Windows Mobile (the CE 1.0 WM), so WTH is this? I check it on my iPhone which is signed on the same account and it's fine. Maybe it's just me and someone here can clarify it for me, but I just don't have time to go looking for a solution - I already did spend some time already. Update: u/Xandros9 suggested I reinstall the app and it seems to have fixed the issue. In reading on another post however, I learned that MS will be charging Office subscription for those who use Continuum starting in April. It makes me wonder if playing around with Continuum before lead to my expiration issue. Resolved.

I am not happy to go back to my iPhone 6 + Watch, but right now I just need something that "just works." That Apple quote, ugh. It is sad for me to come to this point - not recommending this phone to anyone and not recommending anyone go WM10... right now. I am a big supporter of all these MS things, but damn Windows 10 needs work all across the board - even my Surface Pro 3 is problematic since the upgrade. The other problems with this phone are:

  • Signal: The 950XL has worse signal reception than my iPhone 6. An unconnected phone is a useless phone.
  • Heat: Beside it warming up when it's doing nothing, it warms up on the Nokia wireless charger.
  • Power button: Some people like the placement, I don't .
  • Camera button: I love having a dedicated camera button, but not when it's too easy to activate in my phone or holster.
  • Hello: Putting the phone six inches from my face is hardly better than a fingerprint scan, because it's uncomfortable to look at the screen to see if it unlocked yet.
  • Outlook: iOS has Focused inbox, WM doesn't. There are many other features that WM Office gets shafted and needs to catch up, but &*#%$~!!!
  • iPhone 5 Battery Life: WTH is draining my battery?! Checks. Messaging + Skype has been drawing 33%+ of the battery? WTH!!!
  • No Waze: This is Google's fault, but raaage!
  • Quiet Hours: Quiet until Words With Friends wants to let me know that it's my move. Shut up!
  • Text Messaging: Rock solid, unless someone is texting you with an iPhone and then maybe you'll get it. Or, you're Group Texting and one of them is using an Android, therefore you replies doesn't always stay in the group chat. iPhone+Android = practically everyone else.
  • Text Messaging via BT: Cortana asks if I want to read the text and I say "read it" with a 50% success rate compared to 90% on my old L920. Better yet, it's a group text from iOS users so Cortana reads the message back as: "No Subject."
  • Emailing Photos: Trying to attach two screenshots for this post via the Photo>Share and it doesn't respond to my selecting the email account I'm trying to send from.

I feel like Microsoft might be spread too thin - fighting battles on too many fronts, so it pushes out products like Google. Everything is Beta. This phone is going back even though the Continuum dock will be delivered Monday. Doesn't matter. I'll repurchase this phone after I see some of these problems get cleared up and the inevitable price drop. I want to support and I tried, but I just can't hang with this, so back it goes.
Raaage!
Screen 1.pngScreen 2.png
 
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xandros9

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Reinstall the Office apps.

But yes, we can't fix or help with nearly most of those. Sorry to see you go. Welcome to the dark (or is it light, clean, white side?) side.
 

Witness

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Obviously you have some other & bigger issues, but Waze is available for WP. I just installed it. Is it lack of feature parity that's the issue?

Waze doesn't start navigation. I'll uninstall it and give it another go since I have time left for my return.

Reinstall the Office apps.

But yes, we can't fix or help with nearly most of those. Sorry to see you go. Welcome to the dark (or is it light, clean, white side?) side.

I'll try the reinstall today. If this works and if starting the camera didn't make the phone reset, I can probably continue dealing with it, rather than going back to the ... Gold side. They didn't have the Space Gray, haha. Sigh...
 

ReachJasonHere

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I've had phone resets due to shooting pictures but that was when I had photos set to store on my SD card only. Changed from SanDisk to Samsung card and so far, no more reboots on that. Sorry if it was failing for you on internal storage, that makes no sense.
 

snakebitten

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There are some faulty 950's out there. Nothing short of exchanging it will fix a "bad" one.

Having said that, there are some "good" ones that have similar issues to the bad ones.....the difference being that they can be fixed with various tweaks. (whether you feel you should have to tweak them or not)

On the Camera app being the number one complaint of yours, I have to tell you that I do not have the same experience. I use it a lot and have been anything but disappointed or frustrated. It's awesome. And I'm coming from a beloved 1520 that I wasn't sure the 950 could match.

If your 950 isn't actually defective, I'm convinced your camera should be stable and fast. (with some amount of processing time required for some pictures. But not most)

Is your camera enabled in background apps? And even if it is, disable it, reboot, re-enable it.........I seem to remember that more than a few folks were suffering long processing times relative to this background setting.
 

Witness

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Reinstall the Office apps.

But yes, we can't fix or help with nearly most of those. Sorry to see you go. Welcome to the dark (or is it light, clean, white side?) side.

Reinstalled Excel and it looks like that resolved that subscription issue. Thanks!
 

KyleGM

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While your experience is definitely a bad one, I don't think you should knock it until you try a replacement. I've been using mine for 2 weeks now and it is the most pleasant experience I've had to date on Windows Phone. Just going to compare my experience with yours for the sake of others reading this, and hopefully convince you to try again with a new phone, if it happens on the new device then I definitely encourage switching to something you're more comfortable with.

1. The camera on my device has never crashed my phone once. "Adding finishing touches" can take a little while sometimes, but as it doesn't interfere with taking more pictures it doesn't really bother me, I know I'm going to get a good pic with my 950XL so I don't need to review every one, and I usually take 2-3 just to be sure as it's so quick to do so
2. Again I haven't had a single reboot.
3. I don't have a band so I can't comment here.
4. I am a very light Facebook user, so for browsing and the odd status it works fine for me. My girlfriends iPhone does seem to have a superior version so I'll give it that.
5. This is a known glitch, it's unacceptable but there is some methods for fixing it if I recall correctly.

  • Signal: My signal is exactly the same as my 830, full bars at my house then varies from 2-5 while travelling depending if I'm in the country or not.
  • Heat: Phone is always cool when idle, however it does warm up when being used heavily but nothing I would consider alarming, my 830 did the same. Browsing internet and messaging it never gets warm. All phones heat up during wireless charging, it can't be helped.
  • Power Button: Personal preference but I actually like it, left hand grip feels very natural.
  • Camera Button: I have noticed the camera button is very delicate which is a good and bad thing, very responsive when you need it, bad when you don't. Can be turned off though when your phone is locked if it is a real bother so solvable.
  • Outlook: I love outlook, always turn focused inbox off as I really don't like it, personal preference again.
  • Battery Life: My battery life is great, 8am until around 10pm can vary from 40-70% depending on my usage, 40% being a lot of texting, browsing, reddit, music, picture taking and apps. Whereas 70% is just texting, calling and music with light internet browsing.
  • No Waze: It is availble as far as I'm aware.
  • Quiet Hours: Seems to be that app causing problems as it works fine here.
  • Text Messaging: My girlfriend has an iPhone and we text pretty often, never missed a text.
  • Text Message via BT: Never use this so can't comment.
  • Emailing Photos: I've emailed a lot of photos from my 4 different email accounts and never had a problem.

Google any other top phone with the word "crashing" after it, you'll get threads of people bashing the phone for not doing it's job. Everyone's going to have conflicting reports.

If Windows Phone is not for you right now that's ok! Just go for whatever makes you happy :)
 

anon(5326758)

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Wow, the experience you are having with the camera is absolutely not the case for me. I don't use SD for storage, just internal, but that said my pics take less than 5 secs to finish processing and I can take three shots per second. No reboot issues, no heat issues, battery isn't great but I use it a lot (it's about on par with my 930). I do sometimes have the Band 2 issues you mention (like if I try to text a reply from the band it sometimes doesn't send until I unlock the screen) but the camera and reboot issues sound like hardware. If you're using an SD card I'd pull it and try again, and if you're just using internal storage I'd exchange the phone.
 

Witness

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I've resolved the Office subscription issue from Xandros9's suggestion as far as I know. Snakebitten's suggestion to cycle the background operation for the camera seemed to have sped up the post processing, but only time will tell for the reboot issue. If Office works and the camera operates correctly, I can get by. Windows Phone has always been right for me since the WinCE palmtops and that's why the issues I've had in the last couple days have been so infuriating. Those five issues combined broke the deal, but I'm probably going to be down to three if all goes well and may hang on while continuing to complain about it.

Wow, the experience you are having with the camera is absolutely not the case for me. I don't use SD for storage, just internal, but that said my pics take less than 5 secs to finish processing and I can take three shots per second. No reboot issues, no heat issues, battery isn't great but I use it a lot (it's about on par with my 930). I do sometimes have the Band 2 issues you mention (like if I try to text a reply from the band it sometimes doesn't send until I unlock the screen) but the camera and reboot issues sound like hardware. If you're using an SD card I'd pull it and try again, and if you're just using internal storage I'd exchange the phone.

I'm just using internal storage, however Snakebitten's suggestion seemed to have resolved the post processing speed. The reboot remains to be seen. I'm also contemplating a hard reset as a last ditch effort.
 

Keith Wallace

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  • Signal: The 950XL has worse signal reception than my iPhone 6. An unconnected phone is a useless phone.
  • Heat: Beside it warming up when it's doing nothing, it warms up on the Nokia wireless charger.
  • Power button: Some people like the placement, I don't .
  • Camera button: I love having a dedicated camera button, but not when it's too easy to activate in my phone or holster.
  • Hello: Putting the phone six inches from my face is hardly better than a fingerprint scan, because it's uncomfortable to look at the screen to see if it unlocked yet.
  • Outlook: iOS has Focused inbox, WM doesn't. There are many other features that WM Office gets shafted and needs to catch up, but &*#%$~!!!
  • iPhone 5 Battery Life: WTH is draining my battery?! Checks. Messaging + Skype has been drawing 33%+ of the battery? WTH!!!
  • Quiet Hours: Quiet until Words With Friends wants to let me know that it's my move. Shut up!
  • Text Messaging: Rock solid, unless someone is texting you with an iPhone and then maybe you'll get it. Or, you're Group Texting and one of them is using an Android, therefore you replies doesn't always stay in the group chat. iPhone+Android = practically everyone else.

Signal: Sounds like a faulty phone. Mine's reception is fine.
Heat: This isn't a valid complaint. Pushing power to the battery causes it to heat up, that's physics. My phone heats up during charging as well, not sure why that's surprising.
Power Button: As opposed to which location, on the top? Shoot me in the face if I have to go back to that, because a tall phone with a power button in top is a pain.
Camera Button: There is a setting to prevent accidental launches, which stops the button from working if the proximity sensor is covered, not sure if you use that setting.
Hello: Trying having a bad astigmatism. The iris scanner is a no-go for me. It just doesn't work through my heavily curved lenses. Luckily, I've never been one to PIN-lock my phone, so it doesn't affect me, but it sucks if you're one who uses it and has Hello ruined by that.
Outlook: I don't even know what that is. Explain, please?
iPhone 5 Battery Life: What does that mean? Make sure you set apps to not run in the background. I don't use Skype, so I can't say what its deal is. I minimize the number of background apps I use myself.
Quiet Hours: I thought there were exception settings. Maybe WWF is being given an exception, or the developer needs to update to app to cooperate with the Quiet Hours setting. You should be able to go turn of sounds for the app in the settings as a whole, though not the best solution if you want them at times.
Text Messaging: I don't group text. However, I've had no issues getting texts from the 3 or so relatives I have who use iPhones, nor the couple who use Android devices.

Some of this sounds like faulty hardware. Some sounds like a need to re-install apps (like with Office, I had a similar issue at first).
 

Laura Knotek

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Outlook: I don't even know what that is. Explain, please?
This is an old article (Outlook for Android has been out of beta since spring), but the part about focused inbox still applies.

"The new Outlook app separates your mail into two tabs—Focused and Other. Important emails appear in your Focused Inbox, while the rest remain easily accessible—but out of the way. If you move email in or out of your Focused Inbox, Outlook learns this about you and gets even more tailored to your priorities. Are you no longer reading that newsletter you signed up for? Outlook has a one-click unsubscribe to help you stop unwanted mail."
 

Lumious

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I just noticed on my 929 that I have been missing A LOT of text messages from someone who uses an iPhone. And the only reason I found out is because she kept asking "didn't you get my text?" or "i sent that text already" and it's caused some problems. That's the only thing I can confirm is happening for me and I don't even own an 950 XL...yet. But I am getting one asap, it seems like this is a problem with Windows 10 Mobile OS, as is most of your problems probably. Software.
 

Qtweeder

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just get rid and go back to apple, at least apple stuff works, am getting fed up with this releasing stuff that isn't finished malarkey from MS - if their customer service was the best in the world, it would make up for it a tiny bit, when you had issues, but they have the worst CS i have ever known from such a large company.

i have gone from an exclusively MS array of kit in the last year, to less and less, because their attitude stinks and their equipment ALWAYS contains some idiosyncrasy that never seems to get fixed
 

RicKaysen

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I was very excited about the 950XL and couldn't wait to get one as soon as it was released. Sadly, it had to go back for many of the same reasons others have stated on this forum. I don't post much here since I no longer have the phone and I don't want people thinking I troll just to bash the device. I keep an eye on the discussions to see if there is any progress in areas that made the phone unusable for me. I'll keep hope alive that Microsoft can produce a stable device with a decent selection of applications. Seriously....any chance at all I'll ever see Android apps on this phone? That's the biggest stumbling block for me. All the other issues are annoyances...the apps go to the fundamental usefulness of the 950XL.
 

Ian_Superfly

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....if their customer service was the best in the world, it would make up for it a tiny bit, when you had issues, but they have the worst CS i have ever known from such a large company....

Most of their hardware has very good service in Europe (from Germany). I've been dealing with them for Surface Pro and the Band and they have always been fast and very correct.

Software wise and in Sweden... Gee, it is almost impossible to imagine how bad they are...
I'm at the moment in a loop of "Support board/registered service number" --> Chat --> Phone and back to the support board... The crew at OneDrive blames the Office 365 support that blames accounting…
I've done that loop for almost three turns in 2 weeks and my OneDrive is still not working

(lost my 1TB when the 12m 365 was out, bought a new 12m 365, registered but my OneDrive is stuck at 40GB)
 

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