In this gallery, we offer a photo-based first look at the Microsoft Lumia 950 XL, which was announced earlier this year and of which we've obtained a few days with a full UK retail sample. The flagship device for Windows 10 Mobile is a successor to the Lumia 930 and 1520 and has a 5.7" QHD AMOLED screen, a 20-megapixel camera with triple LED flash, and a 3340 mAh battery.
Although we have to return our retail samples fairly soon, we're expecting long term review units from Microsoft PR, which will enable completion of our full review, including camera comparisons and much more as we go through December 2015. (We also have a review sample of the smaller Lumia 950, as you'll see.)
As usual with the AAWP gallery tool, after clicking through, you'll find captions and comments below each image. On some displays with shallow aspect ratios you may need to scroll down just a fraction to see the comments.
Nokia Lumia 950 XL (click images to expand):
In the hand, the 950 XL is very manageable, though I can't wrap my hand around it and so qualifies as a 'two-handed device that needs to be handled carefully'! The screen is excellent, with ClearBlack Display and the usual sunlight enhancements. QHD works brilliantly at 5.7" and so was a good and competitive choice. Here I'm showing the default Start screen layout.
The biggest unique selling point of the Lumia 950 range in 2015/2016 - the back comes off, for battery swapping, for card insertion and for changing the look and feel of the phone with a replacement back!
The battery is big and keeps the 950 XL going for at least a day and a half in my tests so far. Note the way it slots in underneath part of the camera island - very neat!
Hopefully this battery will be more easily found in the accessories market than that of the Lumia 830 before it!
The retail packaging, no frills and quite large, very 'old school Nokia', almost!
Compared to the retail packaging of the Lumia 950...
The camera hardware looks bigger than it is in this shot of the 950 XL with its back cover removed. Cool engineering though, and note the mono speaker.
With the back cover on, the curves of the plastic soften the camera island's profile a lot. There's also a slight ridge around the camera glass, for extra protection.
The charger is supposed to be Quick Charge 2.0 compatible (and does charge very fast), though the small print on it doesn't reference the various voltages used. More testing needed!
The box contents include both a hard wired USB Type C charger and a separate USB Type A to Type C data lead, good to see.
Glance screen's here and working, though I didn't feel that contrast was quite as good as on older devices likes the Lumia 1020, probably due to the pixel densities and the use of Gorilla Glass 4 over the display.
Up top on my first visit to the Store. That's a LOT of background downloads for the user's first hour!
Here are some of them. And yes, even on fast Wi-fi they take a while to install. Happily all at low priority, so the main UI isn't impacted.
Made in Vietnam, interestingly. Not that it matters, of course, but always interesting to see where these things are made! Also shown here is the microSD slot, not always a given on moden smartphones but often a life saver!
