Upgrade your phone from W8.1 to W10 smoothly.
Upgrade your phone from W8.1 to W10 smoothly.
Win11 functions on my Lumia 950 XL yet still experiences battery drain issues even when plugged in and not sleeping. Although the CPU usage under Task Manager remains low, the power-saving mode isn't activating. This behavior also persists with Win10. From a performance standpoint, it's inconsistent—some improvements appear when running ARM64 apps, but overall the system feels sluggish. I had to make several adjustments and turn off numerous functions, especially security settings, to get closer to the experience on Win10. This project was never meant to be a long-term solution.
To enable x86 support, you need a compatible processor like the RX 750 or similar. It’s not an ARM phone. Regarding installing Windows 10 or 11 on the RX 927, it’s possible but would require advanced BIOS settings and may depend on your motherboard model.
Windows 10 on ARM offers x86 (32-bit) instruction translation. Windows 11 on ARM includes not just x86 but also x86-64 (64-bit) capabilities. Keep in mind that going through the translation layer puts a strain on the CPU, even with the faster processors found in devices like the Surface Pro X. It's usually wiser to stick with native ARM64 apps. My phone received a notice it was removed from the Win11 Insider Program due to insufficient specifications and frequent crashes. I intended to bring it back to Win10 regardless. While I miss the enhanced touch interface, it’s mainly educational for me. Honestly, Windows 10 performs adequately on the Lumia 950 XL, but the main problems are driver shortages—shadows appear distorted, and the display quality is poor. The slower SoC in the non-XL model makes things worse. I suspect the Lumia Icon with Snapdragon 800 wouldn’t stand a chance. For context, my device with the 810 struggles to play 360p YouTube videos; even 240p isn’t great. It worked fine on Windows 10 Mobile, so driver issues seem real. The leak of early Win10 Qualcomm drivers likely helped spread awareness, possibly for testing Windows 10 Mobile or evaluating Snapdragon 810 compatibility. Regarding wireless, Bluetooth, modems, and similar features, they stem from community efforts that are simpler to maintain than GPU drivers. The community size remains too small to push this forward. Overall, it’s an interesting demonstration but not a major upgrade. https://woa-project.github.io/LumiaWOA/status
In my setup, I use MagicMirror on my NAS and Edge for full-screen browsing. It serves as a calendar and Spotify remote. I keep it on my stand. A phone would be an option, but since it stays on continuously, I prefer the older OLED screen. Once a suitable monitor arrives in my area, I’ll likely retire the Lumia 950XL and display it on my shelf.