Microsoft Lumia 950 XL review: The Master Chief

Final words

The Microsoft's Lumia 950 XL is the face of the new Windows series and a reboot of the company's smartphone business. Microsoft may have been slow in adopting new tendencies and features, but it made sure everything is done right with the Windows 10 Mobile premiere.

And indeed the Lumia 950 XL lives up to all the promises and then some. The Lumia 950 XL is the most powerful Windows phone to date. Both the screen and the camera are absolute treats to use.

Getting into details revealed some great software tricks the new universal Windows offers, including the innovative Continuum screen expansion.

Windows 10 comes with a number of tricks up its sleeve with improvements both on the surface and under the hood. For the first time it unites the App Stores of the Mobile and Desktop OS and it's on their mobile devices where Outlook, Office, Cortana, OneDrive and Xbox all come together. And since most of those come with a UI that's much like that of their desktop counterparts, the unique Windows Continuum allows you to use the Lumia 950 XL as a PC replacement from time to time.

All the impressive scores and features aside, the Lumia 950 XL is somewhat lacking on physical appearance. It performs like a flagship champ, it's priced like a flagship champ, but it doesn't look the part - the matte polycarbonate just doesn't feel as premium anymore. Microsoft could have gone for glass or metal, yet it decided to stick to its root and keep it simple and durable. Perhaps it's for the better after all, as it allows them to keep the convenience of having a removable battery under that battery cover.

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL key test findings

• The Microsoft Lumia 950 XL offers great build-quality and clean simplistic design, but the polycarbonate back doesn't feel as premium as the phone's price tag would suggest.
• The flagship AMOLED display with Quad HD resolution and ClearBlack technology delivers high pixel density at 518ppi. Colors and contrast are gorgeous, sunlight legibility is top-notch.
• Windows Hello works as advertised and while it's slower in unlocking the phone than the current crop of fingerprint sensors, it is still feels really cool to use.
• Battery life is above average at 64 hours of endurance rating but not if you count only phablets in the results sample. The standby performance is somewhat underwhelming. The DualSIM endurance rating is even worse at a total of 47 hours.
• Windows 10 Mobile is on the right track, refining the interface and catching up with features and services. It has tight integration with Skype, Office and OneDrive, it offers an Xbox app and Offline navigation. Windows 10 Mobile is shaping up to be one of the most feature-rich mobile OS's right now.
• Windows Continuum also works as advertised, but you don't have an actual desktop with icons, you don't have true multi-tasking or side-by-side windows, plus you can't run Win32/64 apps. While all system apps are Continuum compatible, currently there are no games that support it, and the optimized third-party apps are very scarce, too. Since it's a new feature launching for the first time, we're willing to give it the benefit of a doubt - perhaps it will really take off once developers give it proper attention.
• Performance-wise, the Lumia 950 XL is a true powerhouse, equipped with the top-end Snapdragon 810 SoC. CPU and GPU performances are top-notch. The phone relies on a new liquid cooling system and indeed it helps take the extra heat off the infamous Snapdragon chip. The phone still gets warm under heavy pressure and when using Continuum, but it doesn't overheat.
• The speaker on the Lumia 950 XL scored Excellent in terms of loudness and indeed it's very loud. The speaker sound quality is very good, but not impressive, the sound is tinny.
• The video player managed to play almost every video format we threw at it, except those files with AC3 audio encoding. There is subtitle support.
• Audio output quality is very good, but not among the best out there.
• The still camera quality is top-notch - high detail levels, little noise and accurate colors and contrast. Lossless zoom, rich capture and RAW shooting support are very nice additions as well.
• The captured videos offer class-leading video and audio quality, 1080p videos and lower can use lossless zoom, too.

Although the Lumia 950 XL gets pretty much everything right, but the phablet market has flourished lately and there is plenty of competition already. The Androids have claimed this segment first and the growth of the segment made even Apple rethink its strategy and out a bigger iPhone. There was a time the Lumia 1520 was among the few big phones, but that's not the case anymore.

Samsung's Galaxy Note5 and the Galaxy S6 edge+ are the most immediate threat to the Lumia 950 XL success, especially now that the Note5 is rumored to finally make it to Europe. Both Galaxies offer premium glass designs with curved elements, Quad HD AMOLEDs and the fastest chips on the market. The 16MP snapper Samsung used for the Galaxy S6 series is equally capable as the 20MP PureView.

Samsung Galaxy Note5 • Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+

Meizu's Pro 5 also relies on a 5.7" AMOLED panel, but with a lower, 1080p resolution. This allowed the Exynos 7420 chip, the same as in the Galaxy S6 lineup, to outperform every other smartphone currently available on the market. Its 21MP camera turned among the best, too, plus you can get it with double the storage if you like. The best part about the Pro 5 is its tempting price.

Meizu PRO 5

LG G Flex2 offers a 5.5" AMOLED screen of 1080p pixels, it runs on Snapdragon 810, and packs a decent camera hardware. Its key selling features are the curved screen and self-healing rear coating. It costs half the Lumia 950 XL, which is also important.

There is also the OnePlus 2, which matches the G Flex2 screen, chip and camera, but comes in clean and simple shell, and runs on a rather untouched Android OS with Oxygen launcher. It's also a lot cheaper than a Lumia 950 XL.

LG G Flex2 • OnePlus 2

Finally, if Windows and Android are not your thing, then you're probably tempted by the Apple ecosystem. While the iPhone 6s Plus excels mostly design-wise when compared to the 950XL, Apple still offers the richest app repository around.

Apple iPhone 6s Plus

We couldn't ask for more with the new Lumia 950 series and the 950 XL model in particular. Microsoft has outdone itself in every way, delivered on every promise, and even succeed to surprise us. The Lumia 950 XL isn't the perfect flagship, and Windows 10 Mobile isn't the perfect operating system, yet the leap from the previous generation is tremendous.

It may not be perfect, but the Lumia 950 XL is capable of everything an Android smartphone can do, and then there is Continuum and universal apps. The benefits of the latter may not mean much to you right now, but it allows you to buy an app for desktop, smartphone and Xbox with a single purchase.

The Windows future seems bright as of today and so is the Lumia 950 XL path. It may be thorny, with many battles awaiting ahead, but it has every chance for a success. Hopefully, Microsoft will manage to keep this momentum going and we'll see genuine developer interest in Windows Mobile for the first time since its original release.