Last year, at the Windows 10 Devices event which was held on 2nd October, Microsoft launched their most awaited new flagship smartphones, the Lumia 950 and the Lumia 950 XL. Both of these are the first Lumia flagship phones which came under Microsoft branding after the Nokia-Microsoft acquisition. The Lumia 950 XL (and the Lumia 950) comes pre-installed with Windows 10 Mobile and the phones continues to receive new cumulative updates which increases the performance of the Lumia 950 XL and introduces some new features.

The Lumia 950 XL is powered by Qualcomm MSM8994 Snapdragon 810 processor. Microsoft has also included a 3 GB of RAM inside the phone, coupled up with 32 GB of internal storage. Nowadays, we want a smartphone with a better camera, display and especially the battery life is our first priority. There are several new smartphones out in the market, which promise to offer long battery life. But, those phones are not as good as the Microsoft Lumia 950 XL when it comes to the build quality of the product. Yes, I know the Lumia 950 XL is made of plastic but it feels solid in my hands, and its pretty easy to hold it in my hands, even though the Lumia 950 XL sports a massive 5.7 inches AMOLED display. The company’s new flagship phone, the Lumia 950 XL packs a massive Li-Ion 3340 mAh Removable battery, which offers a pretty decent battery life.

Battery Life:

Lumia 950 XL Battery Specifications

• Replaceable battery: Yes
• Battery capacity: 3340 mAh
• Battery voltage: 3.85 V
• Charging⁸: Fast charging, Built-in wireless charging
• Wireless charging standard: Qi
• Maximum standby time with dual SIM:12 days
• Maximum talk time (2G): 25 h
• Maximum talk time (3G): 19 h
• Maximum music playback time: 75 h
• Maximum Wi-Fi network browsing time:11 h
• Maximum video playback time: 11 h

The Lumia 950 XL runs on Windows 10 Mobile, the new operating system from Microsoft which offers lots of new and cool features like Windows Hello and Continuum. We know that software plays a major role in the battery life of any smartphone, for example, a buggy Android phone’s battery drains out very quickly when compared to Windows 10 Mobile powered phones or the iOS devices. The Lumia 950 XL features 5.7 inch AMOLED display with 1440 x 2560 pixels resolution and 518 PPI pixel density. As stated above the Lumia 950 XL packs 3340 mAh battery. However, in my experience, the phone offers around 16 hours of 3G talk time, which is pretty nice. If you are addicted to the internet too much, Lumia 950 XL will impress you as it provides decent 9 hours of web browsing.

Both the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL are equipped with large batteries: 3000 mAh for the 950 and 3340 mAh for the 950 XL. That gives you up to 19 hours of talk time (3G) and up to 300 hours of stand-by time.

I also watched some HD Movies on the Lumia 950 XL, the phone’s battery lasted for 9 hours, which is not really bad as the device comes with powerful hardware support, so the battery drainage is normal. However, I am not really impressed with the battery standby performance of the Lumia 950 XL. When I left the phone powered on for the whole night, in the morning there was around 60% of charge remaining compared to 100% at last night. It is worth mentioning that the latest cumulative update for Windows 10 Mobile on the Lumia 950 XL improves the battery performance dramatically.

Fast Charging and Thermals:

Microsoft’s Lumia 950 XL is powered by Qualcomm MSM8994 Snapdragon 810 processor along with Quad-core 1.5 GHz, Cortex-A53 & Quad-core 2.0 GHz Cortex-A57, CPU, coupled up with the latest Adreno 430, GPU. We know that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 comes with serious heating issues which almost every phone with the Snapdragon 810 chips has suffered. Microsoft said that the Lumia 950 XL comes with liquid cooling technology this helps the phone to stay cool even though it is powered by the Snapdragon 810 processor.

The liquid cooling technology is an important feature on the Lumia 950 XL as the phone comes with continuum support, it can turn a TV into a full fledged PC, so the cooling technology will help the phone to stay cool. However, sadly the phone gets over heated while downloading new Windows 10 Mobile updates or performing some heavy tasks, sometimes even with normal uses, the phone gets over heated. The heating problem is a major drawback for the Lumia 950 XL, as it is very annoying to see such issues even though Microsoft has included liquid cooling technology. It is worth mentioning that future Windows 10 Mobile cumulative updates will reduce the heating problem.

“Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL can charge from critically low to up 50 percent capacity with 30 minutes of charging” – MICROSOFT

Lumia 950 XL supports Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 2 charging. The phone doesn’t charge as fast as claimed by Microsoft. The Redmond giant claimed that the phone will charge to 50% from 0% within 30 minutes. It is worth mentioning that the developer of the Battery Super Saver app claimed that the Lumia 950 XL charged to 50% in about 36 minutes and the phone took 1 hour and 39 minutes to get 100% charged. However, it depends on wall sockets as every country has different voltage support. For me the phone is not charging very fast, it took 30 minutes to charge just 34%, which is really slow. However, as stated above the speed of charging also depends on the wall socket, voltage power.

Conclusion:

Overall, the Lumia 950 XL offers decent battery life with average use. However issues like overheating are one of the major disadvantages on the Lumia 950 XL. Microsoft’s Lumia 950 XL supports fast charging which is not as fast as expected by me. It is worth mentioning that the Lumia 950 XL runs on Windows 10 Mobile, the new OS by Microsoft comes with a powerful battery saver. When I enabled the battery saver, the Lumia 950 XL’s brightness was reduced and the push notifications feature disabled. It will save the battery and the phone’s battery will last for several more hours.

Lumia 950 XL Full Specifications:

What’s in the box