Microsoft Lumia 950 goes official with PureView camera

Owners of a flagship Windows Phone have had their patience stretched thin, but those that held off have been rewarded. The Microsoft Lumia 950 improves on just about every feature of the Lumia 930. About time too, the 930 is a year and a half old.

The Windows 10 Mobile device comes with a 5.2" QHD screen – the sharpest on a Lumia yet. Like the XL screen, this one is an AMOLED with Glance screen and ClearBlack, except in a more compact footprint this time.

The camera is basically the same – a 20MP PureView sensor (1/2.4") with 5th gen optical stabilization and Carl Zeiss optics (f/1.9). It can record 2160p video natively with Lumia's traditional Hi-Fi audio recording. There's a 5MP/1080p selfie camera too, but without the LED flash.

The Lumia 950 is powered by Snapdragon 808 with liquid cooling and 3GB of RAM. Gaming performance will take a hit if devs want to use the screen's full QHD resolution, but for general app usage Windows was never picky about the chipset.

The phone comes with USB Type-C and wireless charging, plus a relatively big 3,000mAh battery. Using the Type-C connector you can hook up the Display Dock, which gives you HDMI and DisplayPort video out plus three USBs.

The Microsoft Lumia 950 will cost $550, available in November. There's a dual-SIM version too.

$139 Microsoft Lumia 550 is a 4.7" Windows 10 smartphone

Microsoft announced the Lumia 950 and L flagship pair and just as we though the devices event was moving from the Lumias towards the Surface, a Lumia 550 was briefly mentioned. An entire ten seconds of the spotlight were enough to announce the affordable smartphone will be available in December for $139.

The list of specs starts with a 4.7-inch LCD display of a 720p resolution, which seems to be the best part on paper. Computing power comes from a Snapdragon 210 chipset with a quad-core 1.1GHz processor and 1GB of RAM.

Storage is a rather limiting 8GB, but is expandable via microSD. There’s a 5MP/2MP camera combo and full LTE support, courtesy of Qualcomm’s chip.

   

Microsoft Lumia 550

The Microsoft Lumia 550 will be available in a variety of colors for its detachable polycarbonate back cover, a staple of the lower end Lumias. Battery capacity is listed at 2,100mAh, and the whole package measures 136.1 x 67.8 x 9.9mm.

The affordable Windows 10 device tips the scales at 141.9g, virtually the same as the new iPhone 6s. Apparently, that's the industry standard for a 4.7-inch smartphone.

Here's another look at the Microsoft Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL

"Leaks" and "promotion" are starting to blend together as yet more official images of the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL have "leaked" on Microsoft's own website. The list of images even include one of the actually unofficial leaks from earlier.

    

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL "leaks"

At this point little about the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL remains a secret, save for the price. They should be unveiled on October 6. The screens are 5.2" and 5.7" respectively, both QHD, 20MP Zeiss cameras and Windows 10.

    

Microsoft Lumia 950

Interestingly both the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL have USB Type-C cables and Microsoft plans to use the combined data-transfer and video out capabilities of the new connector along with the Windows 10 Continuum feature to turn the handsets into portable desktops.

Source (in Dutch)