My First Impression with the Lumia 950 XL Black

I got mine at the launch party for RM2999 and got a free Microsoft Display Dock (worth RM309) and Nokia Coloud Headphones Knock (worth RM129).

BUILD
The phone looks amazing in person. I always preferred matte poly-carbonate bodies compared to metal and the black looks really sleek especially with the metal silver ring around the camera piece. It is incredibly easy to hold and easy to put in the pocket, since it is smaller than the 640XL, which is smaller than the iPhone 6s Plus, despite them all having 5.7 inch screens. So far, no issues handling it. It is definitely less likely to slip out of my hands like my iPhone 6s and Nokia Lumia 1020. The button layout on the side is weird at first, because the power button is in between the volume rockers but after a while I got used to it and found it easy to find the power button since the power button is actually slightly shallower than the volume rockers. Kudos to Microsoft for doing a good job there.

However, I realized that after a few days, after taking the back cover off 7-8 times, the back cover doesn't sit firmly at the bottom of the phone anymore. It is very slight and easy to miss, but if you take a close look, the back cover doesn't stay flushed at the bottom of the phone. This is fine for me, because I'll be getting the Mozo leather covers to replace this, but I think this will be an issue for people expecting top and lasting build quality for a RM3000 phone who aren't getting additional back covers.

DISPLAY
Oh my goodness, this is the best screen I have ever seen, period. The 5.7 Quad HD screen is simply amazing. The colours look fantastic, and font is wonderful to look at. Every time I have my Whatsapp open, I just marvel at how clear and crisp the words look. This is thanks to the incredible 518 PPI using Samsung's screen mixed with Nokia's own Clear Black display. This blows the iPhone 6s and many other Lumias away. I changed my colour setting to Vivid, because the default colour setting seems a bit washed out. Vivid makes the colours warmer looking and makes the Start screen especially pop. Glance works really well, like with most other Lumias, so no worries to fans of Glance.

My one drawback for this screen is the lack of double-tap to wake feature. It was one of my favourite inclusions in Windows Phone 8.1,  and I'm sad to see it not make an appearance here. I sometimes forget this and try to double-tap the screen to wake it up and then feel a little sad inside. I'm hoping that Microsoft find a way to patch this back in, because I don't think the screen type is the issue, unless it is impossible because this phone is using Samsung's own screen tech.

PERFORMANCE
Zippy, quick, and smooth. I love how fast this phone is, coming from a Lumia 1020. It is slightly slower compared to the iPhone 6s in terms of opening apps, but that can be attributed to the fact that the software isn't optimized yet, so this can potentially go quicker. No problems with the performance specs. The liquid cooling is brilliant. I was playing Asphalt 8 for several hours and the phone only became a little warm. Nowhere near as hot as my iPhone 6s or Samsung Note 5. The only times the phone got really hot was when I was using Continuum for longer than an hour with Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Xbox, Edge and Perfect Tube open.

BATTERY
I cannot say much about the battery except that it is very unstable right now. I could game for 7-8 hours in one go to finish the battery, but then sometimes the battery goes from 100 to 45 on idle in 4 hours. This is definitely not a problem with the phone but with Windows 10 mobile and from what I heard, the newest update fixes the battery problems. I've heard that 950XL with the new update can go for a day and a half with normal usage, but I can't seem to get the update myself to see if its true. So for this one, hope for the best and that this issue is fixed for us fast. Besides that, the phone charges quickly on the wall charger but very slowly using a USB connected to a PC. It takes 1 and a half hours to go from 0 to 100 on the wall charger and 5 hours on the USB to PC. The good thing about the USB to PC, however is that you can transfer data very quickly because it is a USB 3.0 cable. Got my entire library of music (25GB) transferred in less that 5 minutes. This will vary depending on your PC, so give or take for yourself.

SOFTWARE
Windows 10 Mobile is nowhere near ready for release. Insiders would know this, and so do people owning the 950 and 950XL. Apps crash randomly, there are graphical bugs here and there and sometimes the touchscreen stops working for a few seconds. It isn't so bad on the 950XL, but I've had a random restart and a few app crashes in the past three days. Again, its getting better with every update and from what I heard, the newest updates fixes most of these problems.

Microsoft Edge, the new browser is very fast. Faster than Chrome on Samsung Note 5, so that's a big plus for internet surfers. Cortana is as usual very good, but still not available to Malaysia. You still need to set your region and language to US or UK for Cortana to appear. Hopefully, Microsoft thinks of Malaysia to add into Cortana's available regions list.

I thought the App gaps was still a big problem, but every day for the past couple of weeks, big names have been adding more universal apps. I believe that as time progresses, the Universal App idea is going to save the Windows 10 Mobile Store and that the App Gap won't be such a big issue in the near future.

CONTINUUM
I was excited for this, and I was wonderfully surprised by how well it works, though it does have some problems. With the Display Dock, there is almost no lag. In fact, I never noticed the lag at all. It is also really useful. I could use my full sized PC keyboard to type in Whatsapp and Messenger, for example. If you don't have a mouse or keyboard, the phone becomes a touchpad and gives you the phone's keyboard (which is amazing by the way). I'm going to go on a business trip where I will have to present something to some people and I know its going to be really easy using Continuum and Powerpoint to present. Besides that, I've been using it to watch Youtube in my grandparent's house, who don't have a computer and only a TV.

Now, the downsides. Firstly, Continuum starts slowing down once you open more and more apps. After 3 or 4 apps, it takes a while to open or switch between apps. Also, the phone starts heating up like crazy. This should be expected because at the end of the day, this is still a phone with a Snapdragon and not an Intel chip. Phones have never been able to open 3-4 desktop-styled apps at the same time, so what Continuum can do now is really insane. The problem with this is that Microsoft advertised that the phone works like a PC , which increases people's expectations of Continuum. So keep your expectations low and only open a couple of apps at a time. That way, Continuum is great. Don't expect full PC multi-tasking until the "Surface phone" is proven real. As of now, Continuum beats Miracast hands down.

MISCELLANEOUS
Windows Hello, or Iris scanning is cool, so long as you're not wearing glasses. It feels futuristic and you look freaking cool using it. But on a practical note, you need to hold the phone at a very weird angle and distance from your face for it to work properly. I've had very little problems for it finding me, because I keep doing the "Improve recognition" thing in as many different lighting scenarios. Oh, the iris scanning works in complete darkness, which was really cool to find out when I woke up early in the morning. I don't wear glasses, so I have no idea how well it works with people who do wear glasses or contact lenses. Also, one thing to note is that you cannot save multiple people. I have me and my fiance saved on my iPhone's fingerprint scanner, so its a bummer when I couldn't do the same for Windows Hello. Also, it takes a while for Windows Hello to scan your iris in certain lighting. Its faster than typing your PIN in very bright lighting and pitch black darkness, but if the lighting is very uneven, it longer than 2-3 seconds, which is usually longer than the amount of time taken to type in a 4 digit PIN.

The Camera is amazing, especially when you use manual settings. Still shots are wonderful, especially macroshots where you take a close up of something. The camera gets blurry in very active shots using auto settings, or if you're trying to take a picture on a very bumpy car ride, but otherwise colours are accurate and details are... very detailed... You can take rapid shots by spamming the camera button very quickly, so its almost as fast as the iPhone 6s. However, images take forever to process when you go to preview them. It takes like 5-15 seconds for an image to be completely ready, and while the end result is much better looking than whatever I can do on the iPhone, it still takes a while to get ready. Living images is available here, which is a cool feature to have. Your images, when previewed in the Photos app, show a 2 second animation that leads to the actual image. Really cool.

Speakers are a bit disappointing. It is nowhere near as loud as my old 1020 and the sound isn't that great. However, it isn't a big issue for me since I always use headphones and music sounds brilliant through headphones on this phone. In fact, music sounds better than my iPhone and my fiance's Note 5,  thanks to the virtual surround feature available in the 950XL.

OVERALL
I believe this is a great phone. I will definitely be using this for a long while. Most of the issues are due to the unfinished Windows 10 Mobile, but I believe that once W10M is released to the public, most of these issues would have been ironed out. I don't believe this is the phone for the people coming from Android and iOS, since the number of Apps aren't quite as great as on the other platforms, but again, this will be resolved as time progresses. Continuum is a useful feature for the working class and even university students with lots of presentations and work on Word. Camera is great, especially if you know how to use it to its fullest capabilities with manual settings. All in all, I would recommend, if not for the very high price for a phone running beta software. I'm happy, though, so that's that.
I'll post another review after a month or so. If you guys and girls have any questions, please ask me or send me a PM. I'll gladly answer.