Yeah but the amount of battery it uses is minimal. On my LCD 640 I tried Glance at "Always On" and it only used ~10% battery per day. Set to "Interval" (15 min timeout), battery usage is down in the noise, i.e. unnoticeable... and there's still "Peek" (30 seconds) if you're compulsive. I'm sure battery usage by Glance is even less of an issue on OLED phones.
BTW the 640 has great battery life (probably thanks to its tiny CPU, but still)... 2-3 days typical, 4 if you stretch.
Anyway, big highlights for me: Removable battery, great camera, dedicated shutter button, best-in-class microSD support, Continuum, and Glance. The dedicated shutter button on a Windows phone is great, unlock and snap pictures almost instantly.
I would mention cost as a downside but next to Apple it looks cheap. A 16GB iPhone is $100 more expensive and obviously lacks the means to expand storage!
I'd still say cost is a downside; it's just an even bigger downside for iPhones. ; )
I'm the most interested in the 550, since I prefer one-handed use. Same screen size as the iPhone 6/6s with comparable resolution for $140. It compares favorably to the Moto E, which has been my go-to budget phone rec.
So is the Lumia 550 suppose to be an upgrade over the 640? 640 seems to have better specs (higher clock, better camera, bigger screen, better battery, same amount of RAM), but it's significantly cheaper ($80 vs $140).
It replaces the 53x and 540. Main advantages over the 535 and 540 would include Glance and LTE. The 532 has Glance but no Gorilla Glass (which the 535. 540, and 550 have). So the 550 is like the culmination of the best of all the 500 series, plus it has more of a premium look and (from what people are saying so far) a premium feel.
Price always starts out a tad higher for the new models. 640 for example has been on the market for some time, and also not all variants of the 640 have LTE. It will come down in cost and be an excellent budget smartphone. Interested to see if they release new 600 or 700 series early next year though. Still, they hit the important flagship mark off the bat for the Windows 10 Mobile launch.
Any word on if they will be sold by the carriers, and if so which one? I'm on T-Mobile, with a Jump plan ready to upgrade, if I could get the XL I probably would, but if I have to pay the $650 straight up, I'll just get an iPhone or Note 5 and keep on the yearly upgrade path.
Not sure about the rest, but removable battery = confirmed. Engadget showed a picture of the 950 at least with its cover removed, and the battery definitely looks removable.
These devices are outright impressing. I think finding a single Android phone with all these features (as opposed to hundreds with a few of them) would be hard, even if you discount the creepy iris scanning. Changeable back, SD card (with up to 2TB), removable battery, 3 GB RAM, an actually useful OLED display, a good camera (supposedly), docking support, wireless charging... well done!
I see the Continuum thing, question is, is it a full desktop in the sense it can run all the applications I normally have on my desktop and work with SCCM or will I be limited to Store apps only? This is a business feature but if you can't run the normal legacy junk programs and manage from MS own management tool it won't take off. Also needs to be able to run two monitors. Has the potential to be just another Surface RT stuck in the no man's land between consumer and enterprise products.
It's currently limited to Universal Windows Apps(aka, Windows 10 apps). Until they come out with Windows 10 Mobile for Atom phones, you won't be seeing x86 programs running on a W10 Mobile phone. Even when they do release an x86 version, they might not allow win32 programs to work for fear of fragmentation of the Continum concept. I think it's sad though, it would have been an incredibly strong selling point for businesses. Maybe the rumored Surface Phone?
Universal apps only, but as far as enterprise goes ->
a) there will be a way to publish internal apps for corporates. SCCM will be the delivery vehicle.
b) how long will it take to roll a citrix receiver/rdp app or similar for vdi? Not long. Goodbye single app, hello desktop.
c) those phones are just as much pointed directly at enterprise (so the local Msoft rep tells us) and about 2-4 years from now when Win 10 is across large enterprises in force... It will kill the iPad/iPhone/laptop trio that many travelling workers are hampered with atm.
d) I told a travelling exec about continuum and man you would have thought I had told him he was getting a new car.
The real problem is what to use for a bigger display... Some kind of miracast tablet?
Well I'm a traveling exec. Let me tell you what in my bag...2012 MacBook Air, iPad, and a Lumia 640. And yes, I use all three through out my day. Crazy I know.
Obviously YMMV. In our enterprise (multiple brands), most of our Regional Managers will have an iPhone, a Brand specific iPad for WebEx/email/comms on the run, and a Win Laptop for when they are at a desk. They would give much to ditch the laptop.
If the 950 has 4GB of RAM I will probably buy that as my next phone, even though it is pretty expensive and still has a stupidly high resolution screen. Seriously, there's NO reason to go beyond 1080p in a phone.
Even with those shortcomings, I'm gonna need a new phone in less than a year and there's literally no options in the world of Android right now.
The state of the smart phone market is just so incredibly depressing.
Just bowing to market pressure, or more correctly tech journalist and forum fanboy pressure... they'd get shelled if their new flagship(s) "only" sported 1080 screens. Hopefully this fad will pass as the megapixel fad has, sort of, somewhat, god-I-hope-it-doesn't-come-back, passed.
Do these ARM chips support something like PAE? Because they don't have any legacy drivers or software to worry about. Not that I think that would be necessary, when they need to go 64-bit for a phone with more RAM, they will release a 64-bit build.
Big removable battery, upto 2TB Micro sd card on which you can install apps too, Liquid cooling, Glance, Continuum, wireless charging, Good camera, 5th gen OIS and dedicated camera button. What more can we ask?? Will buy it as soon as it is launched.
Good flagship phones with great cameras and a modern OS. Whats not to like?
But why not move to a X86 based chipset and offer something close to the full windows experience through continuum? I am not a developer/programmer but shouldn't it be relatively easy to make the Windows 10 mobile OS compatible with Intel Atom chipsets, considering the OS is based on windows NT?
A powerful Intel powered phone with 4 GB RAM and support for legacy apps will offer customers a genuinely differentiated product and unmatched by any competitor.
I am sure all those smart people at MS have thought of this at some point.
Most likely the atoms still can't compete with ARM in terms of price/performance. The cheap, low end atoms are still pretty weak, and the chips worth their salt are probably too hot to run in a phone.
WP has also always used snapdragon, IIRC. Using an atom CPU would require new drivers and more R&D on a low volume product. The rumored surface phone would make much more sense to have an x86 core in it.
I'm hoping Microsoft addresses how they're going to do updates for...whatever this is called, Windows Mobile 10, or whatever.
They really, really need to support these with security updates like they support real Windows, not like how Windows Phone has been supported, Android style.
I assume "Continuum" only works on the two flagship phones? I'm excited about those, but also about a new low end one, as their low end phones are astonishingly good.
I am surprised that there was no mention of the fact that these phones feature liquid cooling in this article. If it really works, it could end all the throttling issues plaguing the snapdragon 810 (and the 808 to some extent). With little to no throttling the 810 might achieve performance parity or even beat the 7420 albeit at the cost of higher power consumption.
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
56 Comments
Back to Article
IanHagen - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
Okay I like those. They're pure voodoo.nathanddrews - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
I have never used Glance. OLED makes sense, but how does it work with LCD? Local dimming?testbug00 - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
very low brightness. Doesn't work quite as well, you have backlight bleed. That being said, it is far better than no glance imho.http://allaboutwindowsphone.com/features/item/1819...
http://allaboutwindowsphone.com/features/item/1773...
^
Some articles on Glance and also how it works on LCD in practice versus AMOLED.
StevoLincolnite - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
On my backup phone, Lumia 640... I turned glance off. It uses battery as the screen "lights up" once the camera senses you.EddyKilowatt - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
Yeah but the amount of battery it uses is minimal. On my LCD 640 I tried Glance at "Always On" and it only used ~10% battery per day. Set to "Interval" (15 min timeout), battery usage is down in the noise, i.e. unnoticeable... and there's still "Peek" (30 seconds) if you're compulsive. I'm sure battery usage by Glance is even less of an issue on OLED phones.BTW the 640 has great battery life (probably thanks to its tiny CPU, but still)... 2-3 days typical, 4 if you stretch.
abrowne1993 - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
Does it come in red? I ****ing love my red 920.Gunbuster - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
If you read the article you would find that they have changeable back covers.abrowne1993 - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
I did read it. Did you? No mention of red.kent1146 - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
" there were several colors to choose from as well."I'd say that there's a pretty good chance that red will be an option.
Alexvrb - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
Not to mention third-party options.Anyway, big highlights for me: Removable battery, great camera, dedicated shutter button, best-in-class microSD support, Continuum, and Glance. The dedicated shutter button on a Windows phone is great, unlock and snap pictures almost instantly.
I would mention cost as a downside but next to Apple it looks cheap. A 16GB iPhone is $100 more expensive and obviously lacks the means to expand storage!
StevoLincolnite - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
Give it 6 months and these will be half the price, it's what I did when I got my RED Lumia 920. :)Thank you Microsoft for finally releasing a successor to the Lumia 920, that is worthy of an upgrade, only took you how many years? :P
GatesDA - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
I'd still say cost is a downside; it's just an even bigger downside for iPhones. ; )I'm the most interested in the 550, since I prefer one-handed use. Same screen size as the iPhone 6/6s with comparable resolution for $140. It compares favorably to the Moto E, which has been my go-to budget phone rec.
xthetenth - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
Might want to cross shop with the 640 non-XL. I hear that one also has some pretty solid specs.testbug00 - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
The 550 has 1GB of RAM, the 950XL 3GB.I've heard various things of the 950 having 2 and 3 GB, but, the other two are officially confirmed.
jaydee - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
So is the Lumia 550 suppose to be an upgrade over the 640? 640 seems to have better specs (higher clock, better camera, bigger screen, better battery, same amount of RAM), but it's significantly cheaper ($80 vs $140).testbug00 - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
The actual cost of an unsubsidized price of a 640 is closer to 175 I bodied. 80 is the carrier price in the USA.Like when the Moto G came out getting it unlocked was 180-200 and with a carrier only $100.
EddyKilowatt - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
My 640 was $80 hanging in a blister pack on a hook at Target, no contract. Using it with a BYO plan on AT&T.xeroshadow - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
Same here but I found mine in Walmart.Alexvrb - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
It replaces the 53x and 540. Main advantages over the 535 and 540 would include Glance and LTE. The 532 has Glance but no Gorilla Glass (which the 535. 540, and 550 have). So the 550 is like the culmination of the best of all the 500 series, plus it has more of a premium look and (from what people are saying so far) a premium feel.Price always starts out a tad higher for the new models. 640 for example has been on the market for some time, and also not all variants of the 640 have LTE. It will come down in cost and be an excellent budget smartphone. Interested to see if they release new 600 or 700 series early next year though. Still, they hit the important flagship mark off the bat for the Windows 10 Mobile launch.
Laxaa - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
This one has full USB3 functionality out of it's USB-C port, right? I mean, Continiuum must be bandwidth-intense.ericloewe - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
Continuum uses USB and DisplayPort over USB Type C.Chris_Kez - Thursday, October 8, 2015 - link
FWIW, Panos Panay said the USB Type C port on these phones can do 5GB per second in/out.mkozakewich - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
I imagine you should mostly be using wi-gig or such.Sttm - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
Any word on if they will be sold by the carriers, and if so which one? I'm on T-Mobile, with a Jump plan ready to upgrade, if I could get the XL I probably would, but if I have to pay the $650 straight up, I'll just get an iPhone or Note 5 and keep on the yearly upgrade path.smartthanyou - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
AT&T is the exclusive carrier. You can buy unlocked models from the MS store but no other carriers will be selling it.NXTwoThou - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
CNET posted a correction. They were told incorrectly/misheard. They aren't exclusives. http://www.cnet.com/news/microsofts-new-lumia-phon...hrrmph - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
Removable battery?Dual-SIM?
Which LTE bands?
"No-look" Next Track / Previous Track / Mute physical buttons?
Moizy - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
Not sure about the rest, but removable battery = confirmed. Engadget showed a picture of the 950 at least with its cover removed, and the battery definitely looks removable.BMNify - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
Removable battery: YesDual Sim: Both 950 and 950XL will have dual-sim capability in India, don't know about USA/UK variants.
LTE bands: Will depend on your specific country just like Dual sim variant.
BMNify - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
Here is the Microsoft India Dual-Sim Listing: http://www.microsoft.com/en-in/mobile/phones/lumia...uhuznaa - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
These devices are outright impressing. I think finding a single Android phone with all these features (as opposed to hundreds with a few of them) would be hard, even if you discount the creepy iris scanning. Changeable back, SD card (with up to 2TB), removable battery, 3 GB RAM, an actually useful OLED display, a good camera (supposedly), docking support, wireless charging... well done!lorribot - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
I see the Continuum thing, question is, is it a full desktop in the sense it can run all the applications I normally have on my desktop and work with SCCM or will I be limited to Store apps only?This is a business feature but if you can't run the normal legacy junk programs and manage from MS own management tool it won't take off. Also needs to be able to run two monitors. Has the potential to be just another Surface RT stuck in the no man's land between consumer and enterprise products.
NXTwoThou - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
It's currently limited to Universal Windows Apps(aka, Windows 10 apps). Until they come out with Windows 10 Mobile for Atom phones, you won't be seeing x86 programs running on a W10 Mobile phone. Even when they do release an x86 version, they might not allow win32 programs to work for fear of fragmentation of the Continum concept. I think it's sad though, it would have been an incredibly strong selling point for businesses. Maybe the rumored Surface Phone?doggface - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
Universal apps only, but as far as enterprise goes ->a) there will be a way to publish internal apps for corporates. SCCM will be the delivery vehicle.
b) how long will it take to roll a citrix receiver/rdp app or similar for vdi? Not long. Goodbye single app, hello desktop.
c) those phones are just as much pointed directly at enterprise (so the local Msoft rep tells us) and about 2-4 years from now when Win 10 is across large enterprises in force... It will kill the iPad/iPhone/laptop trio that many travelling workers are hampered with atm.
d) I told a travelling exec about continuum and man you would have thought I had told him he was getting a new car.
The real problem is what to use for a bigger display... Some kind of miracast tablet?
Michael Bay - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
I haven`t seen a single one travelling iPad _worker_.Literally everything is done on laptop.
Schnydz - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
Well I'm a traveling exec. Let me tell you what in my bag...2012 MacBook Air, iPad, and a Lumia 640. And yes, I use all three through out my day. Crazy I know.doggface - Thursday, October 8, 2015 - link
Obviously YMMV. In our enterprise (multiple brands), most of our Regional Managers will have an iPhone, a Brand specific iPad for WebEx/email/comms on the run, and a Win Laptop for when they are at a desk.They would give much to ditch the laptop.
Hrel - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
If the 950 has 4GB of RAM I will probably buy that as my next phone, even though it is pretty expensive and still has a stupidly high resolution screen. Seriously, there's NO reason to go beyond 1080p in a phone.Even with those shortcomings, I'm gonna need a new phone in less than a year and there's literally no options in the world of Android right now.
The state of the smart phone market is just so incredibly depressing.
EddyKilowatt - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
Just bowing to market pressure, or more correctly tech journalist and forum fanboy pressure... they'd get shelled if their new flagship(s) "only" sported 1080 screens. Hopefully this fad will pass as the megapixel fad has, sort of, somewhat, god-I-hope-it-doesn't-come-back, passed.CSMR - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
It will be several years before phones will make use of >4GB RAM and need a 64 bit OS. Perhaps a decade given that Moore's law is slowing down.Alexvrb - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
Do these ARM chips support something like PAE? Because they don't have any legacy drivers or software to worry about. Not that I think that would be necessary, when they need to go 64-bit for a phone with more RAM, they will release a 64-bit build.xthetenth - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
Pretty sure 64 bit phones are already seeing benefits from register increases.doggface - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
I do wonder if Msoft have enough issues with the size of the O.S. without using the 64-bit versionBMNify - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
Big removable battery, upto 2TB Micro sd card on which you can install apps too, Liquid cooling, Glance, Continuum, wireless charging, Good camera, 5th gen OIS and dedicated camera button. What more can we ask?? Will buy it as soon as it is launched.Michael Bay - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
Jesus, where can I get a 2TB SD card?!LiverpoolFC5903 - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
Good flagship phones with great cameras and a modern OS. Whats not to like?But why not move to a X86 based chipset and offer something close to the full windows experience through continuum? I am not a developer/programmer but shouldn't it be relatively easy to make the Windows 10 mobile OS compatible with Intel Atom chipsets, considering the OS is based on windows NT?
A powerful Intel powered phone with 4 GB RAM and support for legacy apps will offer customers a genuinely differentiated product and unmatched by any competitor.
I am sure all those smart people at MS have thought of this at some point.
TheinsanegamerN - Monday, October 12, 2015 - link
Most likely the atoms still can't compete with ARM in terms of price/performance. The cheap, low end atoms are still pretty weak, and the chips worth their salt are probably too hot to run in a phone.WP has also always used snapdragon, IIRC. Using an atom CPU would require new drivers and more R&D on a low volume product. The rumored surface phone would make much more sense to have an x86 core in it.
theNiZer - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
950 looks great - when will we see a review by anandtech?andyd - Friday, October 9, 2015 - link
Not before they are done with iPhone 6s! :)Hiiklstt - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
Full specifications are listed for each of these on the Microsoft site (links below).950: http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/lumia950/...
950 (Dual Sim): http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/lumia950-...
950XL: http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/lumia950-...
950XL (Dual Sim): http://www.microsoft.com/en/mobile/phone/lumia950-...
Wolfpup - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
I'm hoping Microsoft addresses how they're going to do updates for...whatever this is called, Windows Mobile 10, or whatever.They really, really need to support these with security updates like they support real Windows, not like how Windows Phone has been supported, Android style.
I assume "Continuum" only works on the two flagship phones? I'm excited about those, but also about a new low end one, as their low end phones are astonishingly good.
Le Geek - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
I am surprised that there was no mention of the fact that these phones feature liquid cooling in this article. If it really works, it could end all the throttling issues plaguing the snapdragon 810 (and the 808 to some extent).With little to no throttling the 810 might achieve performance parity or even beat the 7420 albeit at the cost of higher power consumption.
TheinsanegamerN - Monday, October 12, 2015 - link
Meh. It's a copper heatpipe. If the phone cant bleed off heat fast enough (read:it's in a bulky rubber case) then it wont make much of a difference.blzd - Saturday, October 10, 2015 - link
Why are these more expensive than the new Nexus devices? Nexus 6p is thinner and all metal and costs less than the 950 XL.TheinsanegamerN - Monday, October 12, 2015 - link
Nexus also doesn't have an sd card slot, or removable battery, or wireless charging, or continuum. And it is subsidized by google's ad revenue.usama_ah - Monday, January 25, 2016 - link
So will these be reviewed by Anandtech?