GPC reviews Microsoft Lumia 950

We’re reviewing Microsoft Lumia 950. Continue reading and find out more about this device, as well as spare parts & accessories we offer at GPC.

Specifications

Dimension/Mass: 145 x 73.2 x 8.2 mm i 150 g

Display: 5.2” AMOLED 1440 x 2560 (~564 ppi); ClearBlack; Gorilla Glass 3

CPU/GPU: hexa-core Snapdragon 808 1.82 GHz / Adreno 41

RAM / ROM: 3 GB / 32 GB + microSD up to 200 GB

Camera: Main 20 MP; 4K; Triple RGB LED; OIS; PureView / Front: 5 MP; 1080p

Battery: Li-ion 3000 mAh changeable; wireless charging

OS: Windows 10 Mobile

Design

Just as on Lumia 550, we have pretty basic square housing design with mat black back cover, which bends over edges all the way to the front. In this case, this can be counted as a plus side because we would only have to change the back cover to replace most of the physical damage. Additionally, manufacturers offer variety of back cover designs you can choose from so you’re not limited to standard design.

Front side is covered with Gorilla Glass 3 that’s protecting 5.2-inch screen. Above Gorilla Glass 3, you’ll find Microsoft logo with headphone speaker, sensors, front camera main eye and, now catch this, iris scanner! LED notification light is not available, and under the screen there’s nothing except little hole for main microphone.

Left side is clean, while the right side has pretty solidly done, still not perfect buttons for volume control, power button and 2-step camera button. Top edge contains 3.5mm headphone jack, and on the bottom we have lace for USB C sync and charging. Its back contains 20 MP camera with triple LED flash and perforated speaker on the other side. Just a little above that, there’s a hole of secondary speaker. Now below, we have PureView, Zeiss and somewhat bigger Microsoft logo. Even lower, we can find more holes of another microphone. Under the back cover, we have slots for nano SIM and microSD cards as well as changeable battery with 3000 mAh capacity.

Besides the device itself, Lumia 950 package offers instructions, battery, USB C cable for sync and USB C charger. Headphones are not included.

Camera

Another plus of this phone is camera. Windows Phone fans have been waiting quite some time for PureView camera on phone’s back. Lumia 950 has 20 MP sensor with optically stabilized Carl Zeiss lens from 6 elements and edge hole F/1.9 as on Galaxy S6, as well as triple RGB LED flash. While recording, it uses four microphones. Besides 1080p, you can record 4K videos with this device. Additionally, right side contains 2-step camera button. Front camera is 5 MP with possibility of recording 1080p video.

Camera application is pretty familiar. It’s possible to turn it on with delayed camera button click. Besides automatic way of work with rich recording options (pandan auto HDR), it also offers lots of options as well as auto focus + manual focus by touching the screen.

Software

Lumia 950 uses Windows 10 mobile and it shows good results.

Locked screen looks, more or less, just as it looked before. Next to desired background image, it shows missed calls, messages, mails and events from calendar. You can use standard PIN protection in combination with Windows Hello feature, which uses integrated iris scanner. This feature is still in beta test but it has proven to work properly in 90% of cases. It requires that you look at it from about 40 centimeters far, not longer. Also, you should open your eyes widely to make sure that iris scanner works properly.

Performance & Battery

Lumia 950, from inside, reminds a lot of LG G4. It’s using hexa-core Snapdragon 808 with core Cortex-A57 1.85 GHz and four core Cortex-A53 1.44 GHz. It’s backed up by Adreo 418 graphics card as well as 3 GB of ram with 32 GB of ROM, which is expandable up to 200 GB.

This device showed us a good, fluent and neat usage without frequent lags or minuses in terms of performance. We have to admit, it’s great.

GPS works fast and precise and phone’s battery ensures long lasting experience and fast charging backs that up.

Spare Parts available at GPC