Over the next month or so, I will be answering one rather simple sounding question in regards to the Microsoft Lumia 950: Is it daily drive material? It sounds pretty simple but there's actually a lot that goes into answering that one single question because we are all very different individuals and we all use our phones very differently.
The Lumia 950 you see here is actually contracted through AT&T so thank you AT&T for sending this unit out to me to review for all of you. This is my current daily driver, the iPhone 6s Plus. The reason I am switching to the iPhone 6s Plus is because I just finished reviewing the LG V10 and pretty much every app works with iPhones and the battery life is awesome and I haven't actually used this device that much because I've been testing out a ton of Android devices in the past few months. Basically, I'll be using two devices for the next month or so. Both of these two devices will be in my pockets at all times and in that period of time, I'll be comparing the two devices to see if the Lumia 950 can do everything the iPhone 6s Plus can do. And if it can, that's great. If it can't, I'll let you know where the Lumia 950 struggles to keep up as well as where it excels because there are some areas I believe the Lumia 950 excels over the iPhone 6s Plus.
If you've never heard of the Lumia 950 or maybe you're only familiar with the name, then you're in for a treat. The Lumia 950 is the most powerful flagship smartphone Microsoft has ever released. While I think the build quality is the most lackluster area of the device, the internal specifications are striking. It features a Snapdragon 808 hexa-core processor with 3GB of RAM, a 5.2-inch 2560x1440 resolution, AMOLED display, a 20MP camera sensor with an f/1.9 aperture, Carl Zeiss Optics and Optical Image Stabilization. There's a 3000mAh battery and it runs Windows 10. It's actually one of the first smartphones to feature Windows 10, which includes a host of new features and improvements. Whether it's up to par with iOS or Android, that's really for us to find out. But it does have many much needed improvements over the previous version of Windows. Some of the features include universal apps, an improved user interface, a new Microsoft Edge browser, iOS and Android apps, and a new keyboard-- all of which we'll go over in detail over the next month or so.
So is it daily driver material? I think for someone who maybe isn't very tech savvy or is rocking a Samsung Fascinate, the obvious answer to that question is yes. However, in my mind, a daily driver of late 2015 or early 2016 must be able to compete very closely with the smartphones launched around the same general time.
The Lumia 950 must be able to offer apps for all the popular social media sites as well as popular services. It must be able to take acceptable photos, last a full day of moderate to heavy usage on a single charge on the battery and perform similarly to Android or iOS devices of 2015. So I'm really looking forward to this challenge. I really do believe it will be a challenge but I also believe it's going to be one of the most underrated devices of 2015.
