From 640 to 950 & 950 XL on AT&T

[WillBthr]

After wading through too many threads on the subject I've created a new thread to briefly describe my experience in an effort to provide others this information:
After using three 640s for the past year (Insider Fast, Release Preview and Release - switching the MicroSIM) I didn't buy a 950 or XL in hopes of being patient for the Surface phone and reading about issues people were having with unlocked 950 and XL phone features on USA AT&T.
The 2-fer (plus Dock) offer from MS and another year maybe before Surface I finally jumped at the MS offer. 950 XL Dual SIM and a 950 Dual SIM arrived.
Because the 640 used a MicroSIM and the 950 series uses the MacroSIM I was concerned about getting a fully functional phone(s) on the AT&T network.
I didn't turn either on and took the 950 DS to my local AT&T (ie. real AT&T) store. The manager of the store was who I got by chance to help me get the MacroSIM and I explained my concern about ending up with a "fully functioning" phone. Specifically the IMEI issue. He understood. He went in the back and burned a MacroSIM using one of their IMEI 950 devices.
Inserted the SIM into the unlocked 950, plugged phone into AC and after a few minutes of bringing the battery level up a bit the phone started up. Setup went well until I tried to log into my MS account. This was over unsecured AT&T Store WiFi. I suggested switching to a secure WiFi and it worked. Thank you Bradley.
Went home and started the Update process. It installed one what I think was a Firmware update and then the W10m update. Download stayed at 0% throughout but I walked away for an hour, came back and the "Preparing to Install" was in process. Eventually REBOOT and the phone was at the latest Anniversary version. Turned it off, inserted a Samsung 128G microSD card. Turned on, card recognized. Good to go.
Switched SIM to 950 XL and repeat. Good to go.
I now have two unlocked 950 DS phones with all functions working on AT&T ie. double tap wake up, glance screen, LTE (when in a LTE area) and visual voice mail. I just asked Cortana from my Band 2 what the weather is in Monterey CA and it actually worked. Installed SquadWatch and it actually worked (again) with a 640.
What did I get for $500? Two really quick phones, two excellent cameras (ZEISS lens) Continuum and all functions firing on all cylinders. I hope this might be helpful to some. I lost my patience waiting for a Surface phone but I got a fix for the moment. The 640 is a good trooper but I am really liking these two "Last of the Lumia" MS phones. Day two has good battery life and no crashes, nor do I expect any!

 

[Shamshi-Adad]

That's great , man. Its nice reading a good success story here now and then.

Happy Trails.

Peace. Alan
Galaxy S7Edge [MM6.0.1] Full Dresser
Lumia ICON [Win10M 14965.1001] Sportster
Even when I lose, I win.

 

[B T C]

These were purchased during the recent Black Friday BOGO that seems to have just ended today?

Visual Voice Mail is working for you on AT&T, with both devices?

When you say MacroSIM, you mean Nano SIM,correct?

I also bought this BOGO as my 920 is dying. The more I've read, the more I thought I was ultimately going to regret my decision. Your post gives me hope and makes me think I should consider keeping both devices. I was thinking I would probably sell, or try to sell, the 950 just to recoup some of the expense, and I still might.

Thanks for posting.

 

[WillBthr]

B T C
yes
yes
yes, correct. Dude, where's my coffee?
I'll write about VVM setup in a few.

 

[WillBthr]

Here is how I set-up Visual Voice Mail (VVM) on AT&T:
My 950 and 950 XL came with Win10m Ver. 1511. Update to latest 1607 because VVM won't work with this version. Firmware too.

I've had a password (four digits) on my AT&T VM from when I originally set it up on my 640 a year ago and I had VVM working fine on it. If you don't have a password on your VM then create one. By the way, I switched to AT&T from Verizon when Verizon decided to not support Win10m. Best thing I did in 2015. I used to have a Nokia 822 with Verizon.

I opened the Phone App and clicked on the call Voice Mail.

Within the AT&T VM get to the main menu and from there get to where the administrative options are, and then select "change password". Say you want to change password and just type in the same password you had. Make sure you are using your password on your voice mail because optionally you CAN TURN IT OFF to access your voice mail.
Exit the call to vm.
Call your phone and leave a voice mail. Open Phone app on phone and click on vm icon.
NOW - A WINDOW WILL POP UP AND WANT YOU TO INPUT YOUR PASSWORD. TYPE IT IN.
DONE.
The fourth icon for VVM appeared in the Phone app top right and clicking on it shows (hence Visual) the voice mail and even some older VVMs from when I had the 640. Click on a name in the list of VVMs and it will play back.

Aside:
My "MacroSIM" error in my original post - I thought about correcting it but the more I thought about it the more my name (Macro vs Nano) made sense to me. A MicroSim is pretty same and sometimes difficult to deal with. I expected the "NanoSim" to be so small maybe it wouldn't even be visible to someone with bad eye-sight. Actually the nano isn't much smaller than the micro and therefore I want to start a movement to get the nanoSim renamed to macroSim.
Also, on the two 950s: the Sim removal is spring loaded so it is easy to switch between the 2-fur phones if you keep them.
B T C: If you can afford to keep both I'd do it. They are quite different from one another. Plus the odd phone out can be the Fast Insider.
PS. Patiently awaiting the Surface phone again. I'm hearing some interesting little hints floating about. Today's rumor was the factory that makes Surface computers is doing a pre-production run of the Surface phone.

 

[WillBthr]

As much as I liked the 640 the internet access via Edge is often (usually) painfully slow. These 950 models fly relatively speaking. It's a pleasure to use the internet on a phone now. OneDrive app is really fast too and I have over 600G of data on it.

 

[B T C]

After reading this thread, Hope springs eternal.

I can afford to keep both devices and I may. I'm just not sure I need two phones. I received the 950 and display dock yesterday. The display dock is a hefty little device.

Is a backup the best way of transferring information from one phone to another? I'm coming from a 920. I tried backing it up last night and it failed because it said it could not connect to OneDrive, but when I open Onedrive from the phone it seems to work fine.

I'm assuming AT&T will be able to transfer stuff? I'm really only worried about contact information.

 

[pazces84]

So you can get visual voicemail on Windows mobile? I need to try to figure out how on my lumia 650.

 

[WillBthr]

I did not use a backup (from my 640). A clean start was my decision. I didn't want to introduce any potential issues. The Store "My Library" makes app easy to reinstall any apps and the "clean" start concept required me asking myself if I really need/use a particular app. Unlike my 640 these 950 series have the onboard 32G plus I added 128G so space is no longer an issue.

 

[WillBthr]

I've had VVM working on four 640s for the past year and now two 950s on the AT&T Network.

 

[B T C]

I did not use a backup (from my 640). A clean start was my decision. I didn't want to introduce any potential issues. The Store "My Library" makes app easy to reinstall any apps and the "clean" start concept required me asking myself if I really need/use a particular app. Unlike my 640 these 950 series have the onboard 32G plus I added 128G so space is no longer an issue.

I certainly understand that sentiment and may end up taking that approach myself due to lack of options. Keying in all of my contacts might be a pain.

 

[WillBthr]

No need. If you use W10 ecosystem your contacts are always available on any device anywhere you sign into using your MS account. During setup sign in to it.

 

[libra89]

After reading this thread, Hope springs eternal.

I can afford to keep both devices and I may. I'm just not sure I need two phones. I received the 950 and display dock yesterday. The display dock is a hefty little device.

Is a backup the best way of transferring information from one phone to another? I'm coming from a 920. I tried backing it up last night and it failed because it said it could not connect to OneDrive, but when I open Onedrive from the phone it seems to work fine.

I'm assuming AT&T will be able to transfer stuff? I'm really only worried about contact information.

What are you trying to backup? Everything? Text messages?

As long as you have text message backup on way before transferring phones, your texts will slowly populate, regardless of if you started fresh or not. The other OSes should learn from WM...

Edit: Also what @WillBthr said too.

 

[B T C]

I'm coming from a Lumia 920, which is Windows 8. My personal computers are all running Windows 10. Maybe my contact information is stored somewhere under my Microsoft account.

 

[satishn]

Because the 640 used a MicroSIM and the 950 series uses the MacroSIM I was concerned about getting a fully functional phone(s) on the AT&T network.
I didn't turn either on and took the 950 DS to my local AT&T (ie. real AT&T) store. The manager of the store was who I got to help me get the MacroSIM and I explained my about concern about ending up with a "fully functioning" phone. Specifically the IMEI issue. He understood. He went in the back and burned a MacroSIM using one of their IMEI 950 devices.

I'm getting the 950XL DS in partnership with another WC user as part of this BOGO. I currently use a Lumia 830 with Macro(Nano) SIM on AT&T. When I receive my new Phone and start setting up, do you think I can use my current SIM or do you think I should get a new SIM just like how you did, to be able to have a fully functional phone?

I now have two unlocked 950 DS phones with all functions working on AT&T ie. double tap wake up, glance screen, LTE (when in a LTE area) and visual voice mail.

Are you indicating issues people were reporting around double tap wake up, glance screen, VVM are somehow related to firmware? Would it download AT&T specific firmware when following your process?

Thanks for taking time to answer.

 

[B T C]

What are you trying to backup? Everything? Text messages?

As long as you have text message backup on way before transferring phones, your texts will slowly populate, regardless of if you started fresh or not. The other OSes should learn from WM...

Edit: Also what @WillBthr said too.

I believe I just tried to backup apps and settings. Text message backup is set to off and auto upload of photos and videos is off.

 

[satishn]

I'm coming from a Lumia 920, which is Windows 8. My personal computers are all running Windows 10. Maybe my contact information is stored somewhere under my Microsoft account.

Go to http://people.live.com and login using your MS account. You should be able to see all your contacts there, provided every time you added a new contact in your phone, you chose to save it under the MS account.

 

[B T C]

Go to http://people.live.com and login using your MS account. You should be able to see all your contacts there, provided every time you added a new contact in your phone, you chose to save it under the MS account.

Thanks. It looks like a great many of my contacts are there, and perhaps some that aren't even on my phone.

 

[satishn]

Thanks. It looks like a great many of my contacts are there, and perhaps some that aren't even on my phone.

So you do not have to key in your contact info on your new phone. Login to it using the same MS account and give it a few min to sync to the web. You should have your contacts ready.

 

[WillBthr]

Satishn,
1. I've read it is ok to reuse a SIM from another phone on the same carrier but I've not tried it.
2. My phone received two update files at the same time I did the Check for Updates and they were both FROM Microsoft. The first was called something like microsoftphonedc (It definitely wasn't that name but somewhere along that line.) and the second was the current 1607 Anniversary Update latest build. Never anything ever from ATT even during the last year on my old phones.

B T C - If you have a MS account and you sign into it when you setup your computers/phones your contacts are on MS Servers and are in the People app. Some of mine come from Outlook from years ago. Same with Calendar, OneDrive etc.
If you don't use MS Account I have no clue. Never not used it.