Lumia 950 XL, 950 and 550 hands-on: First look

Introduction

Today Microsoft held a press conference in New York and it introduced three new Lumia smartphones as part of its newly charted strategy. The Lumia 950 XL is the long awaited flagship entry, the Lumia 950 targets the business class and the Lumia 550 seems line an excellent value for money.

Last July Microsoft announced a major restructuring, which started by writing off the Nokia acquisition and laying off 7,800 employees. Then the Windows, Phone, Tablet, Xbox, HoloLens and Band divisions were all united under a single Microsoft Devices with Terry Myerson serving as the unit's chief.

Finally, Microsoft decided to focus on three different niches on the phone market - flagship, business and value, and those would get just one or two phones each year. By lowering the phone sales and putting the focus to specific niches, Microsoft is hoping of cutting the losses and eventually start making money from those. This is a complete shift from the previous plans that were basically 'sell as many as you can'.

So, today we got one phone for each category and they sure look promising. Those three Lumia smartphones - 950 XL, 950 and 550 are also the first to run natively on Windows 10 for Phones.

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL at a glance:

• Windows 10, Windows 10 Continuum supported via a dedicated dock
• 5.7" Quad HD AMOLED display, 518ppi, Gorilla Glass 3, ClearBlack technology, Glance screen
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chipset with 2 GHz quad-core Cortex-A57 plus 1.5 GHz quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, Adreno 430 GPU, 3GB RAM
• 20MP 26mm-equiv. f/1.9 lens PureView camera, ZEISS optics, optical stabilization, triple-LED RGB flash, hardware shutter key
• 2160p video recording
• 5MP front selfie camera
• Iris canner for Windows Hello unlock
• 32GB of built-in storage, expandable via the microSD card slot by up to 200GB
• Optional Dual SIM with LTE Cat.4 (up to 150Mbps), Cat. 6 LTE (up to 300Mbps), USB Type C port
• 3,300 mAh battery, QuickCharge and Qi wireless charging

Microsoft Lumia 950 at a glance:

• Windows 10, Windows 10 Continuum supported via a dedicated dock
• 5.2" Quad HD AMOLED display, 564ppi, Gorilla Glass 4, ClearBlack technology, Glance screen
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 chipset with 1.8 GHz dual-core Cortex-A57 plus 1.4 GHz quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, Adreno 418 GPU, 3GB RAM
• 20MP 26mm-equiv. f/1.9 lens PureView camera, ZEISS optics, optical stabilization, triple-LED RGB flash, hardware shutter key
• 2160p video recording
• 5MP front selfie camera
• Iris scanner for Windows Hello unlock
• 32GB of built-in storage, expandable via the microSD card slot by up to 200GB
• Optional Dual SIM with LTE Cat.4 (up to 150Mbps), Cat. 6 LTE (up to 300Mbps), USB Type C port
• 3,000 mAh battery, QuickCharge and Qi wireless charging

Microsoft Lumia 550 at a glance:

• Windows 10
• 4.7" 720p LCD display, 315ppi, Glance screen
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 chipset with 1.1 GHz quad-core Cortex-A7 processor, Adreno 304 GPU, 1GB RAM
• 5MP main camera, LED flash, 720p video recording
• 2MP front camera
• 8GB of built-in storage, expandable via the microSD card slot
• Optional Dual SIM, LTE Cat.4 (up to 150Mbps)
• 2,100 mAh battery

We spent some quality time with the Lumia 950 XL, Lumia 950 and Lumia 550 shortly after the event and our first impressions kick off right after the jump.

We also had some time with the new Band 2, the Surface Pro 4 and the Surface Book.