[TLRtheory]

Bought the Lumia 950 day one... which is usually a huge no-no for me. Buying anything at full retail price usually doesn't fly with me, and I'm typically not cool with buying the first batch of anything... but I just couldn't wait.

And it went well. I've been enjoying it all since.

With that said, it's impossible to be in a Windows 10 Mobile community without talk of bugs destroying the experience. Watched the ever-popular PocketNow review with Michael Fisher and had a distinct lack of any of the mentioned problems: can't say I understand what LiveATC is, but it installed fine on my Lumia 950... as did MS-DOS Mobile. No 4K recording crashes, no stuck updates, none of it... then found that the comments section of that very video exposed tons of users who's experience reflected mine, as well as as loads of users here who have proven able to do everything Fisher said made his 950XL something he can't recommend to anyone.

The hardware was always promising, with the huge burden being on how good the software was... and the software was good for me too. So I went on to write a review of it (My Lumia 950 Review)... which was expectedly positive based on my experience.

It was brought up to me in a reply floating around here that the phones still collectively have high average scores, and that makes sense seeing as the UserVoice bug reports are a far-cry away from matching the "sold out for damn near 3 months surrounding it's release" status of the Lumia 950/950XL... but I still wanted to see if I could crack the secret on why some users were getting issues, so I began stress-testing the hell out of this phone to see if I could get it to replicate the issues other users were having. Doing things like setting my video destination to the SD card to see if that would give me 4K recording crashes, bumping my brightness up to max and playing horribly optimized games (ie any 3D game by Gameloft) from the SD card for hours to see if critical heat levels would make it restart, trying each any every app I could find in lists of things people said they were unable to install and snapshotting them post-successful-install, enabling an absolutely unnecessary amount of background processes while also having Hey Cortana and Windows Hello on... I just couldn't get this damn thing to lock up, crash, restart or anything.

'Til this Monday.

While using the Xbox app, it just cut off suddenly... Microsoft logo, then the Windows logo and I was back at my lock screen. Continued to happen three more times within a 30 minute window. I did discover that my phone was trying to login to secure organization WiFi without having up-to-date credentials. Took care of that, and I haven't seen it since.

Don't know if this'll contribute anything to those having random restarts, but it's the only issue I've gotten out of my Lumia 950 and it turned out to revolve around WiFi.

[ven07]

but I still wanted to see if I could crack the secret on why some users were getting issues, so I began stress-testing the hell out of this phone to see if I could get it to replicate the issues other users were having

You Sir are a saint lol, I would just leave my perfect phone the way it is.. perfect :p As for those having issues, instead of jumping off the platform immediately, it could be beneficial to just return the phone and ask for a replacement device (if that choice is available). we've had some users actually reporting success by doing just that. In the grand scope of things the 950 devices are starting to feel like a game of Russian Roulette tho lol. The XL variant seems to have less problems, but there are still problems nonetheless

[TLRtheory]

You Sir are a saint lol, I would just leave my perfect phone the way it is.. perfect :p As for those having issues, instead of jumping off the platform immediately, it could be beneficial to just return the phone and ask for a replacement device (if that choice is available). we've had some users actually reporting success by doing just that. In the grand scope of things the 950 devices are starting to feel like a game of Russian Roulette tho lol. The XL variant seems to have less problems, but there are still problems nonetheless

Really? I was getting the impression that the XL had more problems... but they could just be more vocal about it.

[Dewg]

My 950 was smooth for some time. I'm one of the anal people that hard-resets after each big update. But I decided not to with the 950. After the last firmware update (unlocked) I started having issues. Random restarts daily - Groove losing my playlist position, brightness issues, etc.

So last Saturday I did a hard reset - and it's been great since. Good battery, no random restarts, Groove is behaving so far (hasn't lost my place in days), auto brightness seems to be working more how it should.

So I'm back to my old habits, I guess. After each update - hard reset. :-)

[TLRtheory]

My 950 was smooth for some time. I'm one of the anal people that hard-resets after each big update. But I decided not to with the 950. After the last firmware update (unlocked) I started having issues. Random restarts daily - Groove losing my playlist position, brightness issues, etc.

So last Saturday I did a hard reset - and it's been great since. Good battery, no random restarts, Groove is behaving so far (hasn't lost my place in days), auto brightness seems to be working more how it should.

So I'm back to my old habits, I guess. After each update - hard reset. :-)

Now that's a really good practice, I'd say.

I don't think I could handle that every big update, but I definitely do want to establish the closest thing to a fresh install as I can get when moving from something like - say - Windows Phone 8.1 to Windows 10 (or any transition between 7, 8, 8.1 and 10 on desktops).