950 XL is it worth trying vs iOS or Android

[JOHNGAETANO]

Long time phone junkie. I've been on all the platforms at one time or another. Was going to pick up the 950XL on release, but there seemed to be a lot of negativity surrounding it, especially around the battery life and very slow opening apps.

I have since been reading that some firmware and software updates have helped improve, but maybe not cure many of those issues.

So is the 950XL worth giving a shot? I'm a business guy looking for a battery that will survive a long 5am to 10pm day. Need a good speaker phone, good ear piece and overall good true phone experience. Needs to Handle emails, texts and can surf. I'm not a big app guy. Currently on iOS, and came off a BB10 passport 4 months ago.

I should add, I currently use a SP3 as my main computer at work and am heavily embedded into the MS apps, but mainly office.

My music is iOS. Will that be an issue?

I appreciate any info or tips.

JOHN

 

[Mr Hyde]

Hi John. You will get a bunch of biased answers to your question. people seem to love or hate MS and windows for phones. Even though I have a 950xl and love it I will not try to convince you to get one. I WILL try to convince you to buy one and try it for yourself. YOU are the best judge of what will work for you so here is what I would suggest. Buy a 950XL. Pop your SIM in and give it a try for up to 30 days. As long as you buy the phone from Microsoft you have a 30 day window to return it. 30 days is a pretty good test drive time. If it suits your needs then keep it. If not, return it.

This is exactly what I did. I bought the phone and since I was on Verizon at the time I also purchased a prepaid SIM from T-Mobile which gave me 30 days of service. After my 30 day test drive, not only did I keep the 950XL, I switched my wireless service to T-Mobile since I really saw no difference in service for my area. The only difference I noticed with T-Mobile was that it was quite a bit less expensive. So for me it was a Win-Win.

I have had my 950XL since January. It is still the best phone I have ever owned

 

[Chippy757]

From my experience after owning XL for couple of months I could say following which may help:
Even if kept on production build it is not a finished product, so expect issues - not best idea for full time work device.
Had 930 before - this one is not a quality device, battery is average for Lumias.
Office apps as well as OS itself while getting better are work in progress and lack a lot of functionality hence having to resort to laptop.
Office apps would be better than ios or android as well as use of Onedrive which is more integrated on WP.
While screen is good, sound is poor really both speaker and with headphones, still has the odd crackling too.
One the plus side new updates add more options to sync with other devices and MS services.
App crashes and heating up is common for me too, overall everything is much slower than 8.1 was.

 

[JOHNGAETANO]

Thank you to the 3 people why responded. I appreciate your time and effort in responding. Based on those responses and the lack of responses, (wow) I think I've made up my mind.

Thanks again to all.

John

 

[signal-2-noise]

... Based on those responses and the lack of responses, (wow) I think I've made up my mind....

John

How many responses were you expecting or wanted to have?

Your original query based on the thread title is somewhat misleading. You're essentially pitting a single specific device up against two operating systems. The better question would be "Windows 10 Mobile is it worth trying vs. iOS or Android?". Or conversely you could ask "950XL is it worth trying vs. iPhone 6S or Samsung S7 Edge (for example)?".

I believe everything is worth trying as long as you have the resources and in some cases the patience. I've gone from iOS to Windows Phone to Android and now back to Windows Phone. The switch back for me is indeed the OS platform, not so much the hardware. If it were a strictly hardware decision I'd probably stay on Android (love that new S7 Edge and the upcoming HTC M10 looks great for music lovers). The iPhones are fine/solid devices but everyone owns the same damn phone, there's no diversity in Apple's world. As for Microsoft I liked what was WP7, then really loved WP8, and now in a love/hate relationship with W10M. Insider Ring updates keeps me interested/guessing and in for the long haul. I have both a Nokia Lumia 930 (better built) and MS 950XL (better features).

As for your question about having iTunes music being an issue...it's not. Since it's pretty much all DRM-free now you can easily copy your music over to Windows Phone using the desktop app or Windows Explorer.

Mr. Hyde summed it up for you. You will be the best judge. And returns are easy if bought from a good retailer.

 

[realwarder]

I use an 830 as my daily work driver and it's very usable and stable. A 950xl would only be better.

Windows 10 Mobile had a lot of poor quality releases but it is pretty stable now, providing you use the production ring. If you look 6 months down the road, there are some neat things coming - integration with your Surface - texting from it, proximity unlock etc. Great features in the pipeline.

But you already have a nice phone... only you know if you want to try something else

 

[Sergiusz Jasper]

Well I just got me Lumia 650, figure why not give windows 10 a try with out spending lots of money plus yes have 30 day test drive.
In my opinion windows is hate or love kind of decision, nothing at least for me in between.
Till W10 gets sorted I will be using my android as daily driver... Cos it just works.

 

[vader42]

As far as the 950xl goes, if you stay on the production build it is quite stable. I also had a bb10 passport - you wont get battery life like that, but it is quite good. I go off charger at 5:30, and bed around midnight. The 950xl just manages this. Of course, if you do lots of browsing/game playing things will be different.

Continuum is the games changer for me. I have the ms dock and have stopped using my laptop for almost everything. Office is great in continuum, edge is ok (can be slow with lots of adds on a page, but so is the desktop version sometimes). Outlook works as expected. You also charge while on the dock, so battery is moot. Treat the phone like a pc. Windows 10 is the same across platforms. It is just the gui that changes a bit.

I gave the xl a go, and kept it. Just for reference I am an ex bb10, Linux user, so windows would normally be out of the question. Lucky I tried it, as it is awesome.