Windows Phones are going extinct these days, and while Microsoft is not committed to its own mobile platform, the skilled developers are still working on an interesting project for such devices. A couple of weeks ago we reported that the Windows 10 ARM on Lumia 950 project is advancing, and today the developer Ben shared some videos showing off the project in action.
It’s always exciting to see what developer can find to give old Windows phones some new life. It appears that Ben has successfully booted Windows 10 ARM on a Microsoft Lumia 950 XL and it’s quite stable, but there are few UI glitches due to lack of appropriate drivers.
One of the recent videos published by Ben shows Windows 10 (ARM) booted on a Lumia 950 XL and the first-party apps like Cortana and Calculator are working flawlessly. Needless to say, the glitchy animation is noticeable. Ben is also planning to bring Win32 apps such as Google Chrome to the Lumia 950 with Windows 10 ARM.
The fans are apparently tired of hearing again and again that Windows Phone is dead but fortunately, the hacked Lumia phones are still more exciting than rooted Android and jailbroken iPhone. You don’t have to give up on your Lumia phones just yet as the project is taking shape quite nicely.
It’s likely that a good amount of Windows phone owners are interested in turning their Lumia handsets into full Windows 10 PCs. While such a project definitely sounds interesting, but installing it on a Windows phone means that you’ll have to live without the basic phone features such as voice calling and due to lack of drivers, most of the Windows 10 on ARM features might not work. Windows 10 ARM on a phone is not going to feasible in the long run.
The phone that can replace your PC(?) pic.twitter.com/OC9XBeWkdT
— Ben | imbushuo (@imbushuo) May 12, 2018
Last year, Microsoft confirmed that current Windows phones won’t be upgraded to Windows 10 ARM. At that time, Belfiore explained that Windows 10 Mobile offers “phone-like experiences,” and Windows 10 ARM is designed to offer a desktop experience but with more mobility.
It’s true that Windows 10 ARM is not optimized for phones, and you should have some technical expertise to run an unreleased OS on your phone, so apparently, it’s not easy to put it on a Lumia phone.