Shipped from halfway around the world, Microsoft and the Lumia Voices have sent me the Lumia 950 XL to review and compare to the many flagship smartphones on the market as well as the standard Lumia 950. What's unusual about this package is that it's straight from the source. It's made for the price. You're not going to find this package on store shelves unfortunately but everything you see here can be purchased separately.
What we have in the box includes the Lumia 950 XL, the bigger brother to the Microsoft Lumia 950. There's some product and safety information underneath of that. Next we have a foldable Microsoft branded keyboard that is super duper portable. There's a Microsoft mouse that features a very stylish curved design then we have the display dock that is essential to the Continuum functionality found inside the Lumia 950 and the Lumia 950 XL. Underneath that stuff tucked away in their own compartments is the USB Type-C and power cables for the Lumia 950 XL as well as for the Continuum display dock. But that is really about it.
So what's so special about the Microsoft Lumia 950 XL besides the fancy extra letters at the end of the name? Basically, it's a lot bigger than the 950. It features a 5.7-inch QHD AMOLED display compared to the 5.2-inch QHD display found on the 950. What else worth mentioning is the processor used. The XL features a Snapdragon 810 octa-core processor which is slightly faster than the Snapdragon 808 hexa-core processor and with a bigger display and a faster processor. The device needs more power so the battery itself must be larger. Inside, it's packed with a larger 3300mAh battery but should help it last slightly longer per charge than the 3000mAh found in the 950. What's neat about these flagship smartphones is that they feature iris scanners that can scan your eyes to unlock your device. That's pretty cool right.
What's arguably even cooler than that is actually the support for Continuum. So Continuum allows you to turn your phone to a basic Windows 10 PC with the help of this little display dock. The display dock is the hub between your smartphone and HD display of choice. It features a port to USB 2.0 ports and a USB 2.0 high-current charging port to attach your must-have PC peripherals. Not only can you browse the web on a big screen but you can play games and work on spreadsheets as well, all of which is actually running on your smartphone.
As someone who is fond of massive smartphones, it goes without saying that I'm glad that I actually got my hands on the Lumia 950 XL. I've been using the 950 for quite some time now.
