It was… frustrating to say the least, especially if you were one of those people who fell under the spell of Microsoft’s mega-marketing blitz. Now, though, we’ve got two new high-end Windows Phones — the Lumia 950 and 950 XL — ready to bring the best of Microsoft’s new vision of software straight into our pockets. I spent a little time here at Microsoft SA’s offices – shorty after my radio insert on UJ FM – to play around with both, and one thing seems clear: While the hardware doesn’t feel like Microsoft’s best, there are plenty of good ideas here.

Starting with Lumia 950, between its light chassis and the 5.2-inch Quad HD AMOLED screen running up front, it’s an awfully comfortable thing to hold for a while; it was a welcome change after having used Huawei’s Mate S for a week or two. We were then told the 20-megapixel camera on the 950’s back is capable of capturing better photos than even the Lumia 1020 did (with the added benefit of fitting nicely in a pocket). That’s thanks in part to an f/1.9 aperture lens and optical image stabilization. Microsoft went with Qualcomm’s hexa-core Snapdragon 808 (clocked at 1.8GHz) with 3GB of RAM to power the show and it’s about as quick as you’d expect a high-end chipset to run in a Windows Phone.

On the Luumia 950XL, its Quad HD AMOLED display comes in at 5.7 inches diagonal, but it also packs a slightly snappier (on paper, anyway) 2.0GHz Snapdragon 810 chipset — again paired with 3GB of RAM.

 32GB CARRIER
Lumia 950 R10549 MTN, CELL C, WINDOWS STORE
Lumia 950 XL R11499 MTN, CELL C, WINDOWS STORE