SpecEagle review · Microsoft

Microsoft Lumia 950 review: Microsoft’s Windows 10 Mobile flagship — Continuum dock.

Item: Microsoft Lumia 950
Rating: 50
Author: SpecEagle Editorial

SpecEagle Editorial·Nov 2015·$549

Overall

50/100

Class rank

#2 of 2

Tier

Flagship

Buy?

Look elsewhere

The verdict, up front

A flagship caught on a sinking platform.

Lumia 950 had excellent hardware ideas — Continuum, PureView — but Windows 10 Mobile couldn’t sustain a developer ecosystem.

01Display

68/100

68/100 trails the 70-point cohort average for flagship phones of 2015.

TypeAMOLED

Size5.2 inches

Resolution2,560 × 1,440 px

02Camera

76/100

76/100 — right at the average for flagship phones of 2015.

Main20 MP PureView, f/1.9, OIS

FlashTriple LED

Selfie5 MP

03Performance

50/100

50/100 trails the 53-point cohort average for flagship phones of 2015.

ChipsetSnapdragon 808 (20 nm)

RAM3 GB

Storage32 GB + microSD

04Battery

60/100

60/100 trails the 62-point cohort average for flagship phones of 2015.

Capacity3,000 mAh (removable)

WirelessQi

05Build

60/100

60/100 — right at the average for flagship phones of 2015.

06Value

50/100

50/100 — right at the average for flagship phones of 2015.

What works

Continuum desktop mode.
PureView 20 MP camera.
Removable battery + microSD.
Liquid cooling rare for 2015.

What doesn't

Windows 10 Mobile died.
App gap killed it.
Plasticky build for the price.
Snapdragon 808 ran hot.

How this review is built: every section score, spec row and comparison on this page comes from SpecEagle's tracked catalogue — scores weight measured specs against the 2-phone cohort of flagship devices released around the same time. We don't publish invented lab anecdotes. Spot an error? .