Microsoft Lumia 950, 950XL: Great specs, but Continuum is what should excite you

Both Lumia 950 and 950XL sport a ClearBlack OLED display with a resolution of 2560 x 1440. Lumia 950 is home to a 5.2-inch screen while 950XL has a slightly larger 5.7-inch screen. If you are calculating pixels , the Lumia 950 clocks a staggering 564ppi while Lumia 950XL hits the counter at 515ppi. But pixels per inch tells just half the story, right?

Both Lumias come with OLEDs that don’t require light to produce black, hence the blacks are always deeper than the ones found on LCDs. So they work better in direct sunlight.

[related-post]

At the event, Panos Panay kept repeating these lines “I’m so pumped” and they literally pumped these devices with Snapdragon 808 & Snapdragon 810 processors, 3GB RAM with 32GB storage, 20MP camera with triple LED flash, USB Type-C port with quick charging and an Iris scanner to support Windows Hello feature.

Microsoft calls it Continuum – a neat little trick that can turn any screen into a full fledged PC when tethered to a Windows 10 mobile device. (Source: AP)

But in 2015 nothing can pump you as much as a phone turning into a full-blown PC and Satya Nadella’s Microsoft did that without much fanfare. Motorola tried something similar with its Atrix Lapdock in 2011, but it never saw public appeal. Microsoft is so pumped that it might end up winning.

Microsoft calls it Continuum – a neat little trick that can turn any screen into a full fledged PC when tethered to a Windows 10 mobile device. In simple words, you tether your Windows 10 mobile device to a screen, mouse and keyboard via Bluetooth and boom, your phone is now running full-fledged PC apps on that bluetooth screen. That’s what Microsoft aims to accomplish with Continuum.

Microsoft knows very well that this ain’t really a feasible way of connecting the devices so it went ahead and designed a Display Dock. Display Dock hosts an HDMI, a displayport, 3 USB ports and a USB Type-C ports. Users can connect display through HDMI or Displayport and then connect mouse, keyboard and other accessories through provided USB ports. The phone connects to the dock via USB Type-C port and instantly the connected screen turns into Windows 10 PC.

The magic behind this is called Universal Windows Platform. Any universal Windows app will eventually be able to take advantage of this.

What works?

Right now only Microsoft apps will work. The best of them being Office apps. Word, Excel, Powerpoint will launch fullscreen and offer experience that is native to Windows 10 Pro version. Continuum also supports Task View on Alt+Tab as well as Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V commands. Thankfully, the phone can be used while it is connected to the display dock.

Say an app open on the screen is also accessed on the phone, the desktop app minimises and you can continue on the phone. While Microsoft did a good demo of this feature, we will try this feature for ourself before passing our conclusion.