The Lumia 950 XL simply isn’t for me or the vast majority of smartphone users out there. I use Windows 10 on a daily basis on a PC, but the experience on mobile is just lacking. Microsoft has done an excellent job on its apps for other platforms, and my iPhone home screen is full of them. The Lumia 950 XL needed something exciting and unique to convince me to switch back, but it failed.
That might change if a rumored Surface Phone arrives next year, but right now it’s the same old waiting game for Windows on phones. A year ago I was tired of waiting, and today nothing feels like it has changed. Windows 10 papers over the cracks, but unless developers buy into Microsoft’s vision of universal apps then it won’t change much. More and more high-profile apps are disappearing from Windows Phone, and the Lumia 950 XL won’t help bring them back.
When your flagship Windows Phone fails to entice even Microsoft enthusiasts, you know you’ve got serious problems. Love the money quote: “If you’re someone that believes Windows Phone is dead, this is the casket you’d bury it in.”
Damn that’s cold.
It has this generic OEM phone feeling. Indeed, it looks a lot like Intel’s Merrifield reference design smartphone.
For Christ’s sake, it does not even appear to be well made or solid!
I have a 950 myself, and I like it alot. Amazing camera, and continium is, imo, the coolest thing to happen in mobile phone tech in a long time.
How much cool ? Like, dead cold ? I mean, Continuum have a sense only if used in the same eco-system. Since we’re back in the late 80s, early 90s with dozens of competing systems having little to no inter-compatibility, I see no reason one would put all the eggs in the same basket, becoming platform dependent.
If Microsoft toying vision fits you, then right, that a cool thing. I remember a demo in the late 90s running on a heterogeneous multi-computer system, the guy moved a windowed Doom or Quake across the monitors that all had different screen resolutions and color depths. Without a frame skip and a glitch.
Now almost in 2016 the technophile find cool that systems with 1000x more power can actually run a flat monochrome interface on its smartphone as well on his computer. Well, at least I hope so, I guess. What’s the next step, color printers ?
Edited 2015-12-22 13:41 UTC
Continuum is only half baked… Give us an Intel based Surface device where one can run win32 programs on that big screen (with a keyboard and mouse) that is connected to the phone.
I have no experience with the 950 or 950XL. I just got a 1520 a few months ago very cheaply (so cheaply that I just went out and got my mother one as well as her first smartphone). There is no way I would have spend 500 Euro more on a slightly better phone. In the verge review the camera gets an 8 and the display gets an 8 although “The 5.7-inch display looks great thanks to its Quad HD resolution, and it has good viewing angles.”
“If you’re someone that believes Windows Phone is dead, this is the casket you’d bury it in.”
Yes, that is going to happen a lot. The 1520 was amazing when it came out, the 950/950XL seems just good although it seems to have by far the best low light pictures for which it doesn’t get nearly enough credit.
“unless developers buy into Microsoft’s vision of universal apps then it won’t change much. More and more high-profile apps are disappearing from Windows Phone”
No, that is simply not true anymore. There was this time when we got 5 new higher profile apps but 1 very high profile app disappeared (mostly in the US). But lately the universal apps have started to come rolling in to both Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile. Several of them very high profile (FaceBook, Reddit/Readit, CBS, Netflix, TeamViewer and even tech tools like Aida64). Basically the only higher profile app that disappeared lately was Comedy Central
The build-in apps from Windows 10 are also just more grown up than the ones from 8/8.1 without becoming overly complicated. My mom is a happy smartphone user now
Edited 2015-12-22 09:09 UTC
I still can’t understand your stance. You say you keep the design of this platform in high regard, yet you never miss a chance to point out some detrimental article / piece of news about it. Are Lumias the only mobile phones being reviewed as of lately? Why this kind of spotlight is never (or seldom) grabbed by other kinds of gadgets?
You have made your personal point on WP very clear since many, many posts ago. Why bother with stressing the message? IMHO it does not add anything useful for a discussion, only the occasional trolling / quarrelling from the same readers over and over again.
I would like to hear more about other phones and platforms (like the Samsung fridge), but it is quite logical that there are several articles coming out at the moment:
* There was a hardware event
* First the 950, then the 950XL got released and reviewed
* The mobile OS got released
* The mobile OS got a surprise update in a special way
Thom was a fan of Windows Phone and got disappointed, but that is not really the reason he posts like he posts. That is just his style on every post. Post a quote, add some insights, finish with a snarky comment. This is probably how he gets discussions started and it works quite well. Many times the discussion goes in the direction of the snarky comment instead of the actual post/article.
What I do hope is for Thom to post an actual indepth article about Windows 10 Mobile like he did for Windows 10. I am sure he has a capable device somewhere in a drawer and understands how Windows Insider works.
I am also sure that the next Samsung/iPhone/BlackBerry/Jolla news will get covered. HTC/Huawei/Xiami/LG….not so much
It’s just a phone, a commodity – and as a phone it is really quite good. My wife uses hers daily and loves the whole Windows tile experience. Metro flies here on phones and utterly disguises Windows. You’d barely know it was there.
As such it is a great ‘device’.
If you want it to be more than just a fully-featured modern phone (with all that other guff) then a cheap android tablet will do that extra stuff. A lappie might do the serious work but as a phone it really does work.
I am a serious critic of Microsoft and their attempts to homogenise the Windows desktop incorporating Metro into Windows everywhere, it was a crap idea. However, Metro is a very good GUI for a phone, there is no denying it.
The 950 is an ok phone and the 950XL is actually a really good phone, forgetting the current lack of quality apps…same old issue. They are just interstitial.
The real flagship will come when Microsoft ships the ‘Surface Phone’, sometime in 2016.
Edited 2015-12-22 19:54 UTC
Right… because this is not the same song we keep hearing year after year after year after year after year after year (yes, six consecutive years so far). In the meanwhile WP market share just got under 2% worldwide. But next year is going to be great.
Edited 2015-12-22 21:46 UTC
Yup, next year we’ll do phone call in surround 7.1 THX with ultra bass boost. When calling your mommy suddenly takes a whole new dimension. Soon in your theater…
Been hearing that kind of whistling past the graveyard since WP 7.
But now that you are saying it it’s more likely to come true?
And 2016 is the Year of the Linux Desktop. You’re saying pretty much the same thing.
I don’t see any phone being produced by Microsoft being more than perceived as a “me too” these days when Android and iOS are fully mature platforms with massive developer support. Windows on phones is largely an “oh… guess we should…” afterthought for apps, assuming developers even bother thinking about it at all.
There’s nothing behind Windows on the phone that distinguishes it with an “I’d much rather have… because…” over iOS and Android. The only reasons the few people who own a Windows phone give for owning one is that it’s neither Android nor iOS. Well, that’s not good enough to most people. I’ve never seen a Windows phone on display in any cell provider’s store locally, so without a physical presence, out of sight, out of mind. People aren’t going to buy it if they don’t even know Microsoft’s offering exists!
It is all about the homescreen!
Yesterday I tapped the “home” location tile that I put there. Maps popped up like it should. I touched directions and got directions. Then it asked me “would you like to put ‘Go Home’ directly on the homescreen?”
Tonight I will no longer need to start an app, I will just tap a tile from my homescreen.
I actually added a couple more “go to X” locations/directions on my homescreen and made a feature request “please make those tiles into live-tiles that show the estimated time”
In Windows Mobile I don’t go in and out of apps, I just have a look at my homescreen and get 50% of all the information I want. 25% more comes from the notification center. The rest finally gets me into the apps.
About apps…it is true that Windows Phone apps have become an afterthought for many developers because the marketshare is so small and that sucks. But Windows Apps, that is a different story. With Windows 10 the apps are clearly picking up and Windows 10 Mobile is profiting from that. So the story is no longer “should we develop for Windows Phone”, but “should we develop for Windows 10/Store”? The answer to that last question is much more likely to be yes
Edited 2015-12-23 08:52 UTC
Microsoft have won (on the PC desktop) when it comes to Win32. They should understand this now, forget the consumer-smartphone-user group held by Android/iOS and find a way of putting a PC in a mobile device such that it can act as a windows 10 workstation when paired with a display and bluetooth keyboard/mouse. Goes against the whole cloud setup though… I guess the device could be backed up to the cloud, at least.
Edited 2015-12-23 01:50 UTC
The absolute pinnacle of buggy whip design and manufacture.
Will Win32 speed up my new 64 bit device or make it do new things, like use less electricity? There must be a way to market it to make it appear as if it would …
*yawn* .. it’s (yet another) phone.
Yay..or something apparently. :-\