Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Having previously used a Nokia 800 and a Nokia 925, I was keen to get the MS 950, but every mainstream review I read online was lukewarm at best. I then found out that Vodafone (UK network provider) was not stocking it outside a handful of large stores. I then found it on display at a Carphone Warehouse (UK outlet) (not a real phone, but an empty mock-up with a stuck-on screen shot) and it looked and felt awful. Having previously owned a Samsung and Nexus 7 and vowing never to use the appalling Android OS again, and having an iPhone 6 from work and not wanting another one, I decided to ignore the avalanche of criticism and the horrendous example on show at the store and order a MS 950 phone. I don't need the extra screen size of the XL, but my comments below apply equally to both phones. The bottom line: I am glad I did. - Unboxing and Getting Started Some people think the original box is important. Well, the box is very smart and the phone is nicely presented. Getting the back off the phone to put the sim card in was particularly tricky and the illustration in the get started instructions contradicts the MS directions online. At one point the phone flew out of my hand and landed on the floor and made my heart stop. The Nokia 635 has a removeable hard shell back that is simple to take off. This should not be so hard. Once the SIM card and 128GB Micro SDHC card were installed, the phone display said “Getting things ready” and was stuck on this for over 30 minutes before I gave up. An internet search indicates that this is not an uncommon problem (how can getting a new phone just to start be a problem?). Anyway, I followed the helpful advice of: take battery out (after spending 10 minutes trying to pry open the case again), put back in, hold volume down and power button until phone vibrates, then let power button go but keep holding volume down until exclamation mark appears on screen, then press volume up, then down, power, and then volume down again. It worked and then some whirring cogs appeared on screen as it started up. - Build quality I have to say, the phone that was on display in the store looked and felt cheap, light and plasticky. It was an empty shell with a stick-on cover which is never a good way to display a phone (MS really needs to spend money on its marketing budget to have a dedicated display for the phones in shops, it’s the only way people will consider it). In the hand with a battery and properly working, the phone feels much better and suitably weighty. It doesn’t have the premium finish of an iPhone 6 or the top Samsungs with their smooth edges and metal trim. The finish looks a bit more budget – a plastic back which is slightly smaller than the glass, leaving a 1 mm difference which looks slightly odd. However, in the hand, it feels fine. It doesn’t have the impressive, smooth metal finish of the Nokia 925 or the lovely rounded, smooth pebble feel of the Nokia 800, but it feels fine in the hand. A lot of the internet reviews complained that the phone doesn’t feel like a premium product. In practice, none of this matters as like 90% of owners, the phone has been put into a silicon skin to protect it from bumps, so all the guff about finish and feel are irrelevant anyway. - Screen After the Nokia 800 and Nokia 635 which I have also used and the 925, the screen on the 950 is STUNNING. It is a quad HD OLED screen and is tack sharp, contrasty and just beautiful to look at. I doubt there is much in it, but it looks sharper and nicer than my iPhone 6 – perhaps because of the dark background. Photos look incredibly detailed. The internet looks great and everything is super sharp and detailed. - OS For me, this is where ALL the mainstream media reviews are plain WRONG. The WX operating system is hands down the best system on any phone. It is an absolute joy to use. I hate the Android OS as it always looks so cluttered and messy. There are buttons, numbers, widgits and mess everywhere. It is not a clean looking environment, every phone looks a mess, with random bloatware added. I also hate the oversaturated look of every Samsung phone. The Apple iOS looks okay, but let’s face it, just like their computers (I am a long-time Mac owner), the OS has not actually changed in a decade or more. Okay, they have gone from jelly colours and faux 3D buttons, to a flat colour look, but other than incremental updates to the hardware each year, the OS on iPhones has barely changed. Compare Android and iOS to WX and there is no comparison. The 950 is so much more dynamic and looks so much smarter. The main attraction for me is the ability to re-size and position all the buttons. I want large phone, email, messaging and internet buttons as they are what I use the most, and I can make them the size I want and position them where I want. No-one else allows this. I am amazed that no-one points out that the ability to re-size tiles/buttons on Windows phones is great for anyone with impaired eyesight. I like photography, so I have a large Photos tile and it scrolls through my photos which look great. On iOS you have had a flower button that takes you to your photos and has stayed the same for nearly a decade and that is it. On WX your photos are shown on rotation on the photo tile itself. Having a photo as your background with invisible buttons is also brilliant (same as W8). Live tiles, like the Photo tile, really are nice, with the latest news scrolling on the News tile, latest apps for sale on the Store button etc. The start screen looks so dynamic compared to the iOS screen that has not changed an iota in nearly a decade. Everything is easy to use and navigate. I added a Micro SD card to hold all my music and it instantly recognised this and took me to a settings page so I could allocate everything either to the phone or the SD card. It was so easy to allocate all photos, video and music to the SD card. My iPhone has 16GB and no expansion. My 950 now has 150GB of storage and costs much less… It’s hard to express how much nicer the OS is to use compared to Android and iOS, you just have to use it. If, like me, you hate haptic feedback (small vibration when you press Home or Back), you can thankfully switch it off under Settings > Extras >Touch > Off - Camera For anything important, I use a top-end Nikon with prime lenses, but for videoing the family and taking snapshots, a decent camera phone is important. Again, the 950 excels. The camera is excellent. It has a Zeiss branded lens, which possibly helps, but the real winner is image stabilisation which really helps produce clear images in low light. The iPhone 6 has an excellent camera in good light, but in low light, I think the 950 is better. - Music Groove Music is much better than the W8 music player, it is less complicated to use, the album displays are smaller so more information fits on the screen and the album features on the start screen during play. Music sounds very good and certainly beats my old iPod Touch which I have been using since the iPhone only holds 16GB, whereas my 950 now has 150GB of storage. Only the Sony Experias come close and they have a fatal flaw (in addition to Android) - the volume up and down button is at the bottom of the phone making it impossible to adjust volume holding the phone with one hand, it is a bizarre design error. Admittedly, the 950XL choice of having on/off between volume up and down is also a daft choice. The 950 layout is more sensible. - Windows Store The WX windows store is so much better looking and professional than the W7/8 store. It looks just like Apple’s App store and that is not a bad thing. Again, I think Android lags behind in terms of style. In terms of the Apps available, this is the single biggest knock against Windows and Microsoft. And it’s true. But it really depends if you care and need the apps. The online reviews from tech magazines all focus on the Apps because they are techy geeks and apps matter to them because it is their job. In practice, I simply have no need to use any apps. I have 100s of games and Apps for Apple devices none of which get played or used and all of which have been deleted after a few hours or maybe days. One online review slammed the phone because of an issue getting a photo onto Whatsapp. I have no use for Whatsapp and this glitch is irrelevant to me and I suspect many phone users. But the techie review focused on it and slammed the phone as a result. Popular apps that actually have some utility, like Uber, banking apps etc, can be downloaded. But if you are worried that you cannot download the 56th iteration of Granny Run or the latest game being given away at Starbucks, maybe don’t buy this phone. All the adults I know simply don’t use that many apps and just want a phone that is easy to use and does the basics well while being able to browse the internet, take photos etc. They couldn’t care less about the 100,000s of pointless, repetitive apps available for other phones, but which people working in phone shops or at online tech review sites focus on exclusively. The most important app in my opinion is a decent map, and the 950 has a great and accurate map feature. I wish Here Drive navigation app was still available from the W8 store as I used that a lot too. - Conclusion Whether the 950 is right for you really depends on what you are looking for in a phone. If you prioritise a great screen, good camera, expandable memory and re-sizeable buttons/tiles with an easy-to-use and clean operating system, this is a great phone. If you want the latest games and apps and want to use the same phone as everyone else on the subway, train or bus, look elsewhere. If you are super-techie and want to hack your phone etc and don't mind an OS that looks like a primary school child designed it, stick with Android. I just wish Microsoft put more money into marketing the phone and into getting its Store populated with apps, so it had a fairer chance to compete as the OS really is wonderful.