I speculate regularly in prose form on reasons why people may have chosen to go down the Windows Phone (and W10M) route in the past, even staying with the platforms until 2020, but I thought it would be both fun and useful to gather your thoughts in poll form. See below - what has been most attractive to you?

I should point out that I'm only allowing one answer from each of you. This may seem harsh if you wanted to pick two or more of the choices, but I wanted to stop enthusiasts simply ticking all choices and rendering the stats less useful(!) So even if you wanted to pick more than one answer, have a think and work out the most applicable answer in your case. Thanks!

[The poll should work on most browsers - I'll do testing once it's live and add any extra notes in here. It does seem as though you get shown the poll results immediately after voting, but then on subsequent visits to the page you just get 'You have already voted' - I'll keep an eye on the actual results and update the page as needed!]

I'll also comment here when enough responses have been gathered. Just a little Friday fun, or serious research? Hard to tell... yet!

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Update: in case your browser doesn't show current results and you're curious how initial voting is going, here's proof that I am seeing your votes so far (after 118 and about 6 hours):

Late last year I posted about hacking the Lumia 920 and 1020 (from 2013 era) up to Windows 10 Mobile in order to keep using the phones, with working Store, and more. But as part of the hack, pretending to be a Lumia 950, it turns out that the later Windows 10 Mobile branches (1703 and 1709) were over the top for these old processors and even meant that some basic functionality (mainly Maps) was lost. At which point I wondered what would happen if the hack was adapted and shortened slightly, to leave the 1020 and 920 on branch 1607 (i.e. from late 2016), giving many of the benefits of W10M but retaining a working Maps sub-system?

Now, it should be noted that, for the 920 and 1020, the move to Windows 10 Mobile (i.e. whichever branch you stop at) does still lose some functionality: 

• Losing stereo audio capture (potentially huge for the 1020).
• You can't always use the camera in Skype UWP - the camera hardware is usually somehow locked to other camera applications, even if not running still.
  
• Brightness is stuck on 'Auto' - not a huge deal, since most people leave it on this anyway, but.... 
• Bluetooth is stuck 'on' - usually what youd want anyway, but again worth noting...
• Glance screen is gone, since all the registry keys that the older phone hardware need are moved competely for Redstone. Potentially another showstopper for some?  (I know there's a very geeky registry hack to re-enable it, but that's outside the scope of even AAWP!)
• Lumia Camera works just fine but is very slow to start (>10s) and it's not clear why. 

But the upsides still apply:

• access to a working Store again for 2020 and beyond.
• a proper Telegram client, in 'Unigram'. This is probably the number one competitor to Whatsapp, which has now finished all Windows phone support.
• the full suite of first party Windows 10 UWP applications available, including Office, OneDrive, and OneNote.
• access to the pool of still-supported and in some cases still actively developed third party UWP applications.
• Bluetooth keyboard support.

And by 'stopping' at branch 1607 (by pretending to be a Lumia 830, in this case!) rather than pressing on, there are the benefits that:

• the phone is faster and with better battery life
• Maps works fully, with no cosmetic issues (such as roads being missing!!) - navigation, traffic, themes, voice, it's all 100%.

_______________________________________

As usual, in the instructions below, I'm leaning on my own articles where needed. I've worked through all the downloads and steps, double-checking everything, and adding new screenshots where needed. The aim is to take you (and myself) from 8.1 through to the Windows 10 Mobile 'Anniversary Update'. 

The prerequisites (if you're considering doing the same as me, here) are:

• an older non-W10M-approved Windows Phone 8.1 device, ideally with 1GB RAM or more (e.g. Lumia 920, 1020)
• a Windows 7, 8 or 10-running PC
• knowledge of files, folders, how to use a command line tool like Powershell, what to do with ZIP files, and so on. If ANY of these sound scary to you then consider not proceeding!
• unlimited free time and patience - really! In real time, allow up to 24 hours for the steps and (often) hanging around. Is this way too much time for a 'phone' upgrade? Of course it is, but we're talking enthusiasts here, so it's your hobby, eh?

I also want to emphatically emphasise that I'm not going to be tech support for anyone else following in my footsteps. Try the steps I used and see how you get on, but if something comes unstuck and you hit a problem then sorting it out is part of your own learning curve!

If you're happy to proceed then read on. The steps are expanded hugely from the overview steps on this XDA Developer page. See the link for the downloads needed though.

1. Download and open the main package, see the source link, which may be a 'mega' URL string that needs pasting into a browser tab, as shown below:

2. Open the archive in 7-Zip or the ZIP utility of your choice (Windows' own ZIP handling is less than perfect, so I'd advise going third party here). Extract the exact folder from it (in this case the named folder '768x1280'). (Again, see the source link for exactly which folder to extract for each phone, if you're confused.)

3. Using Win(Command)+R, in the run command dialog, type "control printers" and then run this. It's the familiar Devices and Printers pane, but you apparently need to bring this up in order to remove the phone manually. I'm not 100% sure why this step is needed, but I guess it forces the OS to re-recognise the phone below?

4. Download and extract the 'iutool' package (again, see the source link above). Started a new command (PowerShell in my case, on Windows 10) window and head into the iutool folder.

5. Plug the phone into your PC, wait a few seconds, and then type: '.\iutool.exe -l'.

The PowerShell console (or similar) will then confirm that 'Nokia 909' (the Lumia 1020's original model name) is connected and available.

6. Type this command: 'iutool -V -p D:\768x1280' (or whatever (relative) path you put the phone CAB files in!)

7. After about 20 minutes (with minimal activity on the PC screen - make SURE your PC doesn't time out and go to sleep!), the Lumia should start spinning cogs, cue another long wait, up to an hour! Again, if you're following all this, make sure the PC stays on, the utility is still in control! After all this the 1020 should boot into Windows 10 Mobile 10586.107, i.e. Threshold, one of the earliest W10M branches.

If the phone hangs late in the update process (e.g. at the 'Migrating' stage) then it's safe to disconnect and power the phone off and then on again. It should finish the final migration steps and then you'll be booted as 'normal'!

8. As with any other new or newly reset Windows phone, it's best to wait half an hour at this stage, while all the applications re-install from the Windows 10 Store.

9. You may find at this stage that the on-screen keyboard doesn't work at all! Which is a right pain because you can't then type in (for example) a Wifi password or similar (though if you're upgrading in place then it should remember the Wifi settings from 8.1). The source link does mention this, though it means another download and side-load. Download 'Internal_IME.zip' and extract the cab file for 'en-gb' (or similar, see the source link for extra instructions for other regions and languages), renaming it to '123.cab' (or any file name, the 'cab' bit is the important one).

10. Connect the phone again, if needed.

11. Install this language pack with '.\iutool -v -p D:\123.cab' (again, change the file path as needed - ignore the '8024a110' error, that's expected.

12. The Lumia will reboot after about a minute and start updating itself again, with the usual cogs and 'migrating' steps. Patience is again needed...

Following the update, your keyboard should be working fine again, for example to set up the phone on Wi-fi and verify that Windows 10 Mobile (10586 branch) is now in place and working.

13. On the 1020, go to 'Settings/Update & Security/For developers' and select 'Developer mode'. Say 'Yes' when prompted.

14. Grab the old Windows Phone 8.1 SDK application deployment utility, filename WP8.0 SDK Tools Lite Setup Av1.20.zip on your PC. Once downloaded, extract everything to a folder and run the .bat file supplied. This will take a while (loads of components are involved) and you'll need to approve permissions every so often.

15. Still on the PC, download the vcREG registry editor. It's a file ending in '.xap'.

16. On the Start menu, run the Windows Phone 8 Application deployment tool. Select 'device' and then pick the registry editor .xap file that you grabbed just now:

17. With your phone connected and the screen turned on and unlocked, click on 'Deploy'. Nothing will appear to happen, but the status will show as 'Complete' after a few seconds and then 'vcREG' will appear in the apps list on the phone.

18. Run vcREG, tap on the '...' menu and then on 'templates' or 'classic unlock' (depending on which version of vcREG you have). Check 'Live Interop' and 'Restore NDTKsvc' and then on 'Apply'. The old Lumia 1020 is now 'jailbroken', to use (old) iPhone jargon. And the registry is unlocked:

19. Back on the PC, download 'Interop Tools' from here, I recommend the linked older v1.7, since I had issues with newer versions (v1.9 of the app or above would crash with no useful information). 

20. Using Explorer on your Windows PC, copy this Interop Tools folder tree into a suitable area on the phone, e.g. 'Downloads'

21. Back on the phone, run (Windows 10) File Explorer (in the Start apps list), navigate to /Downloads and then tap on each of the 'dependency' files in turn. These are libraries needed and they install silently in the background. I suggest waiting a minute between each install tap, to be sure, and then finally tap on the main Interop Tools application installer - and, again, wait a minute for the background installer to do its work - you'll know it's done when you see the new application appear in the apps list!

22. From the Start menu, run 'Interop Tools' and head into the Registry Browser.

23. Navigate through (in turn, i.e. 4 taps) the registry key hierarchy:

1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
2. System
3. Platform
4. DeviceTargetingInfo

24. Change the phone's ID so that when the phone update routines come calling, it reports itself as a device that's most definitely 'allowed' to get the branch '1607' OS update (and which went no further). I suggest 'Lumia 830' for the ID. NB: write down on a piece of paper the values you replace at each stage!! Just in case...

• Leave 'PhoneManufacturer' as 'NOKIA' - no action needed here, as the Lumia 830 is a 100% Nokia product
• Change 'PhoneManufacturerModelName', to 'RM-984' (RM-983 and RM-985 are also possibles if you live in the USA or South America - your own research needed here, depending on which phone you're altering and where you live)
• Repeat for 'PhoneModelName', setting this to 'Lumia 830'

25. Head to 'Settings/Update & Security/Phone update', and then tap on 'Check for updates'. With a little luck, the base Windows 10 Mobile OS branch 14393 (also known as '1607') will already be downloading, as the next step for the Lumia 830. This is the (so-called) 'Anniversary Update' and you'll have to wait the usual hour or two while this installs, the phone restarts and 'migrates', and so forth. You know the drill by now!

26. Your Lumia 1020 (or 920) is now almost where it needs to be for the purposes of this feature/tutorial. Wait half an hour (yes, really) while all your third party applications update themselves from the Windows 10 Store (which still works and which still serves up old 8.1 applications where needed).

27. Head back to 'Settings/Update & Security/Phone update', and then tap on 'Check for updates', you should see the last available build of 1607, which is 14393.2551. Download and install this in the usual way.

28. After the obligatory restart and spinning cogs, you're done in terms of Windows 10 Mobile for this older (S4 chipset) phone. Going further would impact functionality too severely, as we found earlier.

29. Head back into 'Settings/Update & Security/Developer' and turn the Developer status off, i.e. back to Store apps only. Just in case!

30. Update the Store app err.... in the Store app! Wait for it to reinstall and then restart the phone. While you're waiting, head to the apps list and 'Uninstall' Skype, as otherwise the stub app that you'll inherit here from W10M will just keep you going round in circles. It did for me!

31. Back in the Store, you should see a load of core application updates (Outlook, Skype, Office, etc.) waiting. Go for it - and be patient!

Notes:

a) If you don't see Lumia Camera already in the Apps list, you'll need to install the classic original app from the Store. I wrote this up here, back when it re-appeared.

b) Although the whole 'Open in Lumia Camera' to reframe an image from the underlying 34/38MP image does work (yay!), I've found that Photos crashes after every edit. The photo is saved properly first, but you do keep having to re-open the Photos app.

_____

If all this has helped you then a) you're welcome, do please comment on how you get on; b) you know where my PayPal tip jar is...(!)

Two weeks ago, I covered the availability of Microsoft's next-gen launcher/UI for Android, fun to play with and use now but ultimately destined to work smoothly on the Surface Duo (Phone) near the end of 2020. I did promise a walkthrough too, so here it is. It's pretty fully featured even now and if you have an Android phone and love Microsoft apps and services then it's the natural way to go. Don't worry too much about the 'Preview' bit in the name, it's stable as it is, plus it's getting updates twice a month, so it'll be a fun ride as features get added!

You can grab this for any Android phone here in the Play Store. It doesn't even need Android 10!

[The screenshots here are from Android 9, though I've since upgraded the test device and future screens will be from Android 10 - the main change is that the three button navigation is replaced by a gesture system]

The main home screen, with typical Android home features: a time and weather widget from the launcher provider (so Bing Weather); space for widgets and shortcut icons; a search widget from the launcher provider (so, as you'd expect, searches are done through Bing!), including camera capture and voice search facility (Bing again), and then a five icon 'dock' that's persistent however many home screens you add; (right) the dock can be swiped up to reveal a second row of shortcuts, a unique feature. Note that here the icons are all labelled - the labels are optional.

Rotating the phone also rotates the homescreen, unlike most standard Android launchers. And it's not hard to see why most don't allow rotation - transforming a portrait layout to landscape is a tougher computer science problem than you might imagine! I'm sure Microsoft Launcher will get further tweaked in this department as the months roll on...

Off to the left of the homescreen is the 'Your feed' pane, of which just a fragment is shown here. As shown on the right, you can customise what's shown here, essentially up to date information and shortcuts that are useful to your life.

Launcher settings are in the main phone app drawer under 'Microsoft Launcher Preview' - the top item is a link to the phone's default Settings hierarchy, but everything below is new and you can customise a huge number of things about how the launcher looks and behaves; (right) including how it responds to gestures - knock yourself out here to mimic your previous favourite launcher!

Also present is the choice of dark (left) or light (right) theme - both work well, though the light one is dazzling at night, plus it uses up more battery power on modern AMOLED screens. But it's up to you! 

For a 'Preview' product, this is surprisingly stable. I still managed to crash it a few times, but then a) I can crash anything, and b) it's only a launcher - if it crashes then it doesn't take any apps with it, so you just launch the err.... launcher again!

Comments welcome - I think this shows a lot of promise!!

Android smartphones come through my hands at a fair old rate - and only the best are really deemed recommendable, especially for an AAWP reader used to, say, a Lumia 950. And, unusually for me, I'm not talking imaging here - I'm looking at the overall design and construction - but the new Fairphone 3 reminds me in sooo many ways of the classic 950. See the photos and comments below and then let us know what you think!

The Fairphone 3 and Lumia 950 - definitely cut from the same cloth, despite from different teams and on different OS!

From the rear, showing the replaceable back covers. The Fairphone's here is translucent, so you can see something of the internals and hinting at the phone's biggest USP. While the Lumia's is my replacement back from Mozo - these are still available (e.g. on Amazon UK)

With the backs off and batteries removed, showing the easy access to SIM and card bays, with screws holding everything together (see below for what happens when the screws are removed!)

Phone choices in the Android world are legion, of course. But the Fairphone 3 is utterly different to everything else on the market, being made to come apart, to be repaired again and again, with no need to scrap it because it's uneconomical to repair. All the while delivering passable - if not top end - specifications at a slightly pricey £380 (but you'd expect to pay more for something with such 'eco' design constraints.

I'll be reviewing this in the next few days over on The Phones Show. But in the meantime, with my AAWP hat on, here's the long list of what the Fairphone 3 and Lumia 950 have in common:

• All plastic construction, pretty robust and shock absorbent
• Removable/replaceable back
• Removable/replaceable battery
• Most components easily removable/replaceable after a little unscrewing (though the Fairphone 3 uses standard cross-head, which makes things easier)
• microSD storage expansion
• 3.5mm audio jack
• Type C charging up to 3A
• NFC (on Android here for Google Pay, notably)
• Single camera (here f/1.8, slightly wider than the f/1.9 of the Lumia), plus Dual Pixel a/f, much faster than the generic Phase Detection a/f on the 950... *
• Up to 4K video recording
• Single speaker
• Sizeable top and bottom bezels
• At least at the moment, an OS thats patched to January 2020(!)

* The sensor used in the Fairphone 3 is of similar size to the Lumias but without OIS. In addition, the default Camera application isn't optimised for detail and colour. Happily, there are numerous ports of Google's Pixel (HDR+) Camera application that work just fine here, producing Pixel-like results, including in the pitch dark, using 'Night Sight' to auto align multiple exposures. As most readers will be curious, here are some sample photos taken with the Fairphone 3, just click any thumbnail to grab the JPG original:

On the left with the Fairphone 3 Camera application - it's pretty good, but the GCam version, using extra multi-exposure HDR magic, is significantly richer and purer. The wonders of clever computational photography, even if it's not on a Lumia(!)

With the standard Fairphone 3 Camera application, decent detail, I took a bunch of shots of this cat and all were good.

In poor artificial light, a good test - on the left with the Fairphone 3 Camera application, in the middle with the GCam port (i.e. HDR+), and on the right with GCam but in its 'Night Sight' mode. A significant improvement from left to right, but the Fairphone 3 camera hardware certainly delivers the basics.

In similar vein, but at dead of night. On the left, the Fairphone 3 Camera application does a passable job of getting the light levels right and not being blurred by hand wobble, even at 1/12s exposure here. In the middle, GCam producing a good compromise, with more light so that the scene can be viewed better, while on the right is GCam's Night Sight mode, completely artificial and yet such an impressive technical achievement from a four second multi-exposure sequence. All handheld, of course - who needs OIS in 2020? Not bad...

On the other hand, there are a few key differences too:

• Obviously, Windows 10 Mobile versus Android 9
• 1080p IPS LCD versus (on the Lumia) QHD AMOLED
• Glance screen (time, date etc) on the Lumia, thanks mainly to that AMOLED display
• Qi (wireless) charging only on the Lumia

Lack of Qi charging is a bit of a downer and there's no way to retrofit this to the Fairphone 3, either with a replacement back or a Type C flying cable, sadly. Glance screen being missing too is a shame, though as we saw on the Lumia 920 all those years ago (2013) it can be implemented on a LCD-screened phone... in theory!

The sheer repairability and modularity is a highlight though - the Lumia 950 was accessible enough, but the Fairphone 3 takes things to new levels, it even comes with a screwdriver in the box! 13 screws later (all screws in the device are identical, so there's no having to remember which one went where) the display section pops away and all the main components are laid out and labelled:

Perhaps in similar vein to the Lumia 950, the fact that everything's so repairable does mean that the innards aren't as well optimised as - say - in a Samsung Galaxy flagship, but I'd gladly trade a little bulk for being to able to get into a phone, see what's going on, and replace anything that's not working. Plus there's the simple common attribute of being able to swap out the battery after a year or two, or even just carry around a charged spare. Happy days!

Comments welcome. Would you consider a Fairphone 3 to replace your Lumia?

Forgive the thought flight into the unknown, but most readers will be aware by now that AAWP's infrastructure is less than efficient - see below for the various things that are actually broken. Anyway, I thought I'd profer a small glimpse into one idea. Your comments welcome, perhaps now more than ever!

None of this is secret, of course - AAWP's (and AAS's) PHP code is all there for anyone to see on each and every web page you visit. Which brings me to things you'll have spotted (and a couple of things you'll have guessed):

• The whole of AAS and AAWP is still 'http', i.e. no SSL, no https, meaning that modern browsers flag up the sites as 'Not Secure', which always looks bad
• Because of the lack of the above, Google and other search engines are now marking down AAWP in search rankings
• The automated social push of new content has been broken for many months (and heck, AAWP still pushes 'Find us on Google+'!)
• The podcast is now defunct (mainly because of Rafe's other work commitments)
• With AAS's and now AAWP's core content winding down in terms of new apps and services to review and feature, some thought is going to be needed looking forward, i.e. about "what's next" (if anything)
• Behind the scenes, you won't be surprised at all to learn that the 'All About' CMS (Content Management System) is custom code and, while still working, is creaking a bit at the seams, with practical limits on content size and type. Not that this is a dig at Rafe's rather wonderful code - many other big sites (e.g. Engadget, ZDNet) run on ancient custom CMS too)
• Also behind the scenes, FTP access for myself and other possible contributors has been broken for up to a year now

Add it all up, then add in server costs that were negotiated in the early 2000s and which seem archaicly large now (I'm obviously not going to go into details there), and I've been thinking about ways to take AAWP forward, if at all.

One option is to forego the existing custom code and server infrastructure and to simply transition things to a simple 'blog' structure. I've mocked up such a layout with some recent AAWP content here: allaboutwindowsphones.blogspot.com :

Comments? It would be a drastic break from the current PHP/Disqus system, but visually and practically it would work, while - in this case Google's - infrastructure takes up the burden of bandwidth, SSL, mobile responsiveness, and social links. 

In terms of content, you'll notice the tweak in title too: "AAWP - All About Windows Phones and Beyond" with subtitle "Taking up the slack from the standalone AAWP and AAS for 2020". OK, it's all a little wordy, but one possible future is to cover mobile more generally, but seen through the lens of traditional All About interests and themes.

A lot depends on what Rafe wants to do - and has time to do - of course. The reworking of the site's code is a huge time commitment for him, as you might imagine. So perhaps a simple step jump up to a blog format would be best after all?

The downside of such a move is the loss at some point of Disqus story comments - the articles themselves would carry on being available via the wonder of the Internet Archive system. I'd try and carry across a limited back catalogue of articles, to appear in the new site/blog in its archive.

So there we go - have your say, anyway, though do please note again that I'm not going to go into any detail on finances and costs - they're confidential to Rafe and myself. And are for us to worry about!

PS. While everything's up in the air, if you have PayPal money from eBay burning a hole in your account, you know where my tip jar is - it all helps!

"It's Surface phone the way it should have been", comments guest writer Arpolend Sevostyanov. He writes "It’s an interesting time for Windows phone owners, as the official support of Windows 10 Mobile is coming to the end, installing custom firmware made by enthusiasts on daily drivers becomes a viable alternative. One of the most exciting such projects is called 'WoA project' and I’ve been using my Lumia 950XL with WoA for about 3 months - here are my first impressions."

Arpolend:

First of all, there is a very important thing to note: as of now, from my standpoint, the project is NOT ready for daily use. I’m not using this phone as a daily driver, as it’s just not ready for that kind of use. So, if you are using your precious 950 XL as your primary phone, DO NOT try this (well, you can use dual boot to have both WoA and Windows 10 Mobile on one device, that’s quite safe and won’t break anything, except Windows Updates which aren’t now a thing anyway on either of those).

But don’t worry, I’ll put the installation instructions at the end of this piece if you have a Lumia 950/XL lying around and collecting dust.

Here are links to the official website and the GitHub page (which is arguably more useful):

https://woaproject.net/

https://github.com/WOA-Project

Overview

When Windows 10 Mobile was still alive and the Lumia lineup wasn’t discontinued, we Windows Phone users had a dream: To have the full Windows 10 running on our smartphones, to have real PCs in our pockets. While Microsoft tried to meet our expectations, Windows 10 Mobile with Continuum was still not good enough for most people. And while now Microsoft has finally released the Surface Duo, it’s an execution of a completely different idea (based on Android). But now a team of enthusiasts have done wonders and actually turned our beloved Lumias into the dream devices we hoped them to be. You can find their names on the project’s official website on GitHub, while I’ll tell you a bit about the project itself, in case you haven’t been following it.

Everything started about a year ago when a Windows 10 Mobile prototype running ARM64 firmware was found, and that made possible porting the full desktop version of Windows 10 ARM64 to the Lumia 950/XL.

You see, the last Lumia flagships have a unique combination of hardware components:

The processor is MSM8994/8992 (Qualcomm Snapdragon 810/808), which is the first and only 64-bit CPU used in the whole Lumia lineup. And while there were ARM32 versions of Windows previously, like Windows RT or the recently leaked internal build of Windows 10 15035 ARM32, they do not include x86 emulation and, most importantly, are ancient in terms of security updates and the UWP APIs (15035 is older than even the first W10M build). So, with a 64-bit OS we get

1. x86 emulation (though with some caveats, notably, no DirectX support in x86 apps, although it’s working in ARM apps)

2. ALL possible support/updates from Microsoft for an almost unlimited period of time (though again, not without some problems, which I’ll explain later on)

While there are newer w10m devices running on MSM8996 (Snapdragon 820), like HP Elite x3 and IDOL 4 Pro, that processor is not supported on any Windows 10 builds older than Redstone 2 (1703 Creators Update). Interesting fact: this is also one of the reasons why Windows 10 Mobile didn’t receive the proper FCU update, as Snapdragon 820 support was very difficult to maintain, so all the newer phones would not have been supported and that would kill the platform anyway.

Though, if you want, build 15035 can be installed on those phones, but it’s a topic for another day.

There are also modern Android flagships running on the Snapdragon 835/845, which are technically supported by desktop Windows 10, but the phone functionality would not be available for those.

Finally, there is the ghost-phone Acer Liquid Jade Primo, which is supported by the WoA project, but there is no touch driver for it, so there is almost 0 chance of using desktop Windows on it. 

So, the 950/XL are the best phones for this, right? 

No, it’s not that easy. From the very beginning, the smaller phone of the two was having problems with drivers, as most of them were available only for the Snapdragon 810 CPU in the 950 XL. While things have improved since then, there is one downside left: the CPU is not working properly, failing to reach clock speeds higher than ~560 MHz, and people using it say that it’s a no go. Maybe the situation will improve, but for now, for anything close to normal use it’s the 950 XL or nothing.

But you shouldn’t worry, you don’t have to ditch Windows 10 Mobile! A dual boot mode is also available, so you can divide the flash memory of your smartphone between those two OSes and use Windows 10 ARM64 only when you need it (or vice-versa).

Finally, there are things that won’t work on any phone, and these sadly include the cameras and the iris scanner. This is a downside of Microsoft having built the whole custom camera system (BTW, based on the Sony IMX230 sensor), which is almost impossible to port to the 64-bit OS (as Windows 10 Mobile is 32-bit and no drivers from it will work). Steve said in the comments: "That’s like saying you can drive a Ferrari but you're not allowed to use its engine", and it’s one of the things that can stop us from installing WoA, but don’t forget about the dual boot possibility, and while you’ll need to reboot to access the camera, it’ll still be there in Windows 10 Mobile working perfectly as before.

There are other small things, like a buggy graphics driver which doesn’t allow using transparency effects or DirectX in x86 programs, also some specific sensors don’t work. Here’s an always updated list of what’s working:

https://github.com/WOA-Project/MSM8994-8992-NT-ARM64-Drivers/wiki/Status

Before jumping to my own experience, I’ve promised to tell you about the problems with Windows Updates:

The thing is, for the time being, you’ll neither be able to install ANY Windows updates nor almost any driver updates on a deployed system. You’ll need to do a clean install every time you want to update. While that can change later on, keep in mind that it’s not a good idea to spend hours setting up Windows on your phone only to find out that you need to format your drive for each update.

Also, don’t forget to disable Windows Updates via group policy, as they would try to install and horribly drain your battery/potentially break your system. 

My experience 

Interface

The first question I’m generally asked is the usability of the full Windows OS on such a small screen. I’ll not only tell you that it’s usable. Even more – it’s a wonderful experience and I even prefer this to W10M now. 

(My testing Lumia near my daily driver on Windows 10 Mobile, the start screens look very similar)

You don’t even need to set a custom scaling coefficient, I’m using the supported 225% and both UI and apps are scaled perfectly. 

There is one problem though: the Windows touch keyboard is horrible on such a small screen in portrait orientation. You can use it to write a sentence or two, mainly using swipe gestures, but nothing more. But it’s not all bad – remember the old Windows 10 Mobile-like small floating keyboard? It’s still here and is almost as good as the original w10m variant (though without changing languages by swiping on the space bar, and the text fields don’t move up in this case, you’ll have to move the keyboard itself).

But in landscape mode the standard Windows keyboard is the best writing experience I ever had on a phone screen, it’s covering a very small part of the screen and still manages to keep the keys big enough for comfortable use.

Switching to the overall UI experience, the Windows 8-style side gestures are still a joy to use, even more so on a phone. Swiping from the right opens the notifications centre; from the left – multitasking menu complete with timeline. You can easily close any app just by swiping from the top, so the only button you would use frequently is the windows key.

All the UWP apps have almost the same interface as on Mobile (there are small bugs in some places though).

(AAWP working perfectly, while some other apps can be a bit tricky, but not unusable)

But once you hit the tablet mode switcher button in the notification centre, your phone immediately transforms into a full Windows PC, capable of running almost anything you want.

(Even the Visual Studio Code compiled for ARM64!)  

(or maybe a Hex editor and WavePad?)  

Apps

Now, you’ve probably seen some strange apps, like Chat and WoA Dialer on my start screen, what’s it all about?

Those are the apps built specifically for this project by the Windows enthusiasts, so they feature the closest look to the Fluent Design guidelines and such an amazing attention to details that it makes the experience dramatically better.

Let’s discuss them one by one

Mobile Shell

https://github.com/ADeltaX/MobileShell

This app doesn’t come pre-installed but it’s just a must have: This is a custom shell for desktop Windows, turning its tablet mode into a Windows 10 Mobile-like experience. It’s responsible for that pretty taskbar, whose buttons do vibrate as on Mobile, and a very useful top bar with Wi-Fi, Cellular and battery indicators. I wish I could have it on Windows 10 Mobile😊.

But the last version on the GitHub page is very old, so I’ll post the newest build here: MobileShellPackaging_0.1.2428.0_x86_x64_arm_arm64

Woa Dialer

https://github.com/WOA-Project/woadialer

This is the app you’ll be using instead of the old "Microsoft Phone" app, which is now for the most part broken. It does come pre-installed but is still a work in progress at a very early stage. For now, I wouldn’t be using it for anything serious. Sometimes it misses calls, the calling interface is buggy, it lacks the proper 'contacts' page… Though the developer has successfully ported many features from Windows 10 Mobile, like turning off the screen when you raise the phone to your ear.

(as you can see, the settings are just empty)

Chat

https://github.com/WOA-Project/Chat

A simple SMS app with beautiful design, and, sadly, English-only interface for the time being.

Extras 

Other apps include a small 'help' app containing some advice for not so geeky users, a USB mode switching app, which will soon be deprecated, as USB-C now is almost working, and some settings apps, created with the same UI as the Windows 10 Mobile originals, like Color Profile and About. Also, there is a small Vibration settings app, as Windows 10 doesn’t really support vibration.

Of course, there are also many background services that make this all work, but the end-user probably won’t ever notice them.

Overall performance

So, let’s get down to business, what is working and what is not, and how well does it perform?

Battery

I’ll start with the obvious: battery life. And it’d be a surprise for everyone! I’ve rewritten this part more than 10 times during the last months and as a '1912' update is now released along with a UEFI fix (you can read about that one in the Telegram group or Twitter), I can say that the battery life finally is 'fine'. And for such a project that is primarily aimed at developers, it’s impressive.

Don’t get me wrong, it won’t last as long as on Windows 10 Mobile in any case, but the good thing is that you can do whatever you want to tweak it by disabling some of the unnecessary services.

With everything enabled it’s about 10% per hour drain in standby and 1% per minute is use compared to 5% per hour and 0.5% per minute on Windows 10 Mobile respectively. But if you disable Windows Search and/or Windows Defender, you can get it to be almost the same as on mobile.

Gustave (who is developing the drivers) said that with a good battery he had 57% left after 8 hours of standby.

A good trick is to lower the maximum clock speed of the CPU in the battery management in control panel, especially if your battery is already on its last legs (if your phone reboots without any reason, a dead battery is frequently the cause).

But for a second let’s talk about bad batteries: don’t expect this all to work if you have a fake cell or a very old one, it will reboot, and it will be much worse in terms of longevity. 

Charging time has improved since the early days, but it can take a long time to fully charge the phone, and it can heat up quite a bit while charging as Windows tends to do more things in the background when it doesn’t run on battery.

But as we’re not considering this to be a 'daily driver', and most likely you’ll use it in dual boot mode, just charge the phone in Windows 10 Mobile state for better results.

Speed

Actually, despite some minor problems, this is a huge win for this project, as the UWP apps run perfectly, as good as on Windows 10 Mobile, without any stuttering or whatever (mostly, as I’ll explain in the 'bugs' section). The UI can be a bit sluggish at times, especially right after booting the phone up. The default Windows apps can be a bit slow to start as well, but after using it for some time you won’t be noticing it.

Sometimes the phone tends to get a bit warm even without even heavy load, but it seems that’s the way it should behave. But in this case do check the Task manager as it can be that some app has gone crazy and you need to disable/reset it.

You’d think that the x86 emulation is where the old Snapdragon 810 shows its limits, but surprisingly it’s not! All the simple apps I used like video downloaders or music editors, or even iTunes(!) work just fine. Of course, you have to forget about running stuff like full-blown Visual Studio or Wolfram Mathematica, as you technically can and they will actually work, but in this case be ready to wait up to 10(!) minutes for them to fully start up.

A small reminder: no x86-64 (also called x64) app would run on this device at all.

Finally, there are a few win32 apps compiled for ARM64 (mostly open source), like Visual Studio Code or Edge Chromium Beta, they run as well as UWP, but are quite rare for now. Though as win32 isn’t going to change anytime soon, all the apps ported for the likes of Surface Pro X in the future would run here as well. 

But wait, what about games? Here sad news is coming – games are straight up nonstarters here. You might be able to play some UWP ones like Mini Dogfight, but that drains 10% battery in several minutes.

One strange thing is that most old Windows 8 style apps just don’t run at all, so don’t bother with downloading them, they are not optimized for the phone screen in the first place, so not a big loss here.

Bugs and features missing

Ok, not everything is perfect, so let me just put a list of bugs I’ve encountered here, it’s not a full list by any means, but I think it might be helpful for anyone willing to give it a try before sacrificing their beloved Lumias😊

Also, for the always updated list of the features available, see the status page on GitHub (https://github.com/WOA-Project/MSM8994-8992-NT-ARM64-Drivers/wiki/Status)

Apart from the obvious caveat that neither camera nor iris scanner is working and never will be, at this moment USB-C is also not implemented completely, so you’ll have an app preinstalled to use it in OTG mode, plus phone calls and texts don’t work on 20H1 (but cellular data does). 

In addition:

• Groove music for some reason doesn’t work very well, especially when you’re using Bluetooth headphones and doing something else meanwhile (even if you’re just unlocking the phone, there will be stutters). This may be fixed in some cumulative update of 20H1. 
   
• To try out the new (Chromium-based) Edge browser, you should launch it with '-disable-gpu' parameters, which also won’t allow you to watch videos (just use MyTube! app though). 
   
• The transparency effects are really buggy, and you’ll be better off with just disabling them completely, see the artefacts on the notification shade and title bar:

• DirectX doesn’t work in x86 emulation

• PowerShell is way too slow; it can be performing the simplest commands for several minutes.

• Your device can be rebooting randomly with even a new battery, so in the control panel go to 'system info'->'additional settings'->'recovery' and disable rebooting automatically in case of critical errors. 

• Some UWP apps fail to open, like Microsoft Translator or OneDrive UWP.

• Windows Updates don’t work and will break everything, so disable them right away.

Verdict

Finally, is WoA worth using on your phones? Absolutely.

Should it be your daily driver? Absolutely not. Yet.

The best possible scenario for this right now is in dual booting for having the full Windows 10 OS while still having your Windows 10 Mobile experience almost unchanged. Actually, unless you have more than one 950 XL, there is no reason at all to wipe the Windows 10 Mobile partition, as this way you’ll still have access to the camera, Windows Phone 8 apps and much more.

With x86 emulation and the ability to run any win32 app, there are just infinite possibilities, like running all possible apps, using a full-fledged desktop browser (even using another browser like Firefox or Edge Chromium), having access to anything in the OS and tweaking it to match your needs and much more. 

Why can’t it be your daily driver now? 3 reasons: battery, phone calls, and some minor bugs. And all that can be fixed in future.

It’s still not clear whether it can reach the point when it’s ready for daily use, but if it does, I’ll try to review it from that standpoint. 

But, as always, we should judge the product by what it is now and not what it can potentially become, so is it the Surface Phone from 2015 done right? (no offense, Surface Duo😊). I think yes, it already fulfills our dreams even if it takes some time for it to reboot from Windows 10 Mobile to WoA. So I’d like to thank all the people who worked hard for two years to make this possible.

Installation instructions

While I was writing this part, a wonderful step by step video guide appeared on YouTube, so I’ll just post a link to that one here https://youtu.be/4WHAAOP2mdc). 

But after you watch it, be sure to look at these small hints so that you don’t forget anything important and don’t brick your device as I did myself on the first try!

1. Be sure to use Apps Data Manager from here (https://forum.xda-developers.com/windows-10-mobile/windows-10-mobile-apps-and-games/app-apps-data-manager-windows-10-mobile-t3523048) or a similar tool to back up all your favorite apps in the exact state you left them – you can back up the app itself with 'back up the installation folder' and the AppData (game saves, your account info, etc.) with the 'backup data' button.

2. Very important! Disable device encryption in settings and wait until the phone reboots (if it doesn’t, restart it manually after some time).

3. Very important! Check that your phone is charged before each step.

4. If you missed hint 1 and it’s stuck when unlocking, try to restore the bootloader in WPInternals. 

5. Very important! Back up your phone again using win32DiskImager.

6. Before clicking 'Deploy' in the WoA Deployer, be sure to check the settings page, where you can choose to wipe Windows 10 Mobile or keep it to use with dual boot.

7. Very Important! If you want to use Dual Boot, check that you have enough free space on your device and in WoA Deployer only choose an amount of space smaller than what you have free on the phone.

Thanks Arpolend, all very interesting!

Four months is a long time in the phone world - I last opined on this topic in October, yet my picks have changed significantly! I've pitched this as my top picks for smartphones to replace a Lumia 950/930 or perhaps an IDOL 4 Pro or Elite x3, going forwards into 2020 as Windows 10 Mobile is now unsupported and as services gradually start to wind down. I've tested just about everything on the market and here's my updated verdict, with just one eye on price and value for money as well (though this isn't critical).

As per my previous intro, it's always good to plan ahead. I should also say that I'm a in privileged position in that I own (or have been loaned) quite a number of smartphones across all OS over the last few years, as part of my reviewing jobs - but this does put me in a good place to assess what's good and bad in terms of recommending a replacement for, say, a classic and much-loved Lumia.

It's not just a question of degree, either, i.e. whether getting something expensive running Android will be faster or larger or have better battery life - there are genuine step change aspects which mean that one might be forced to another platform whether one likes it or not:

• Biometric support for logins. Good examples of this are being able to log into banking applications with one tap of a fingerprint on a sensor or a glance at the front camera, or being able to tap-to-pay at a terminal in a shop. Yes, Lumias have iris recognition and yes, the IDOL 4 Pro has a fingerprint sensor, but in both cases there's simply not the same degree of integration with applications and services, and by a huge margin.
   
• Specific applications that can't be accessed at all, even via a browser. Snapchat comes to mind, but I'll bet there are many others, for more serious uses. When you need a particular application (or, hey, a game) and it simply doesn't exist in any form under Windows 10 Mobile then your hand is forced.

At which point, the question becomes, what to move to? A cynic might say 'Almost anything else', but I argue here that anyone steeped in Lumias, in particular, will have certain expectations of a replacement device, over and above the biometrics and ecosystem factors just mentioned:

• Excellent camera, not too much artificial enhancement
• High amplitude stereo microphones, for recording music, for example
• High contrast screen that works well in daylight
• Qi wireless charging
• microSD expansion, for keeping hundreds of GB of media on hand and instantly swappable
• 3.5mm audio jack, ideally, for plugging in headphones and auxiliary systems (cars/hi-fi, etc.)
• plugging it into a Windows computer (or Mac) should let you drag and drop content in either direction - typically bulky media (movies, music). All Windows phones do this as a matter of course (at least to a Windows PC), most Android phones do too (with a permissions dialog to accept in the UI), while iPhones show their photo/video content at least and iTunes/Music/etc. can be used to sync media and more with a mouse click.

Not all of these are givens, mind you, in 2019's phone landscape. For example, Google Pixels (running Android) and Apple iPhones (running iOS):

• aren't expandable in terms of storage - you buy the capacity you need and that's your limit
• haven't had a 3.5mm audio jack for years - so Type C or Lightning DAC/dongles are needed (they're not expensive, but are easy to lose!)

In terms of interface, Android is the way to go, not least because it's utterly trivial to change the 'launcher', your primary interface with the phone, right down to using the first party 'Microsoft Launcher' and effectively getting quite a bit of the Microsoft feel and the Microsoft services. (See also, from 2017, my detailed look at using Microsoft applications and services on Android.) There are even launchers like Launcher10, which actually emulates Windows 10 Mobile.

But iOS does have the counter-argument that there's so little to fiddle with that you don't have to spend hours setting things up - you live with what the OS does, like it or not. Though I did hack on blank space in the homescreen.

But which phones should you look out for? Which ones satisfy most of the expectations above and will be the best fit for you?

As usual, I'll try to pick devices at different budget points and I'll even include some older alternatives that can now be picked up at bargain prices second hand or via clearance channels, though you've held off buying a replacement phone this long that you'll probably have built up some savings or at least the momentum of trying to come in at or near the flagship level. Anyway, options aplenty below!

Note that I haven't recommended any of the new breed of cheap Chinese phones (Xiaomi/Redmi, Oppo, etc.) as, while they're often cracking value for money, the position in terms of support and updates isn't up to what a Lumia owner might require. We've been used to monthly OS updates for even three or four year old phones, so let's stick to the 'Western' (non-Chinese) big boys here, in the justified hope of decent support and thus longevity. And Huawei is now out of the running due to uncertainty as to its future in the West in terms of updates, amidst the whole 'Donald Trump vs China' trade/entity war.

In no particular order, I'd suggest:

Samsung Galaxy S10e £450-ish

This year's Galaxy S flagships were marred a little by the use of in-screen fingerprint sensors, which are still unreliable in my testing and which have now been found to be flawed in terms of authentication accuracy, with some banks not allowing the S10, S10+ and Note 10 ranges to even install their applications. Happily, the cheapest (hooray) of the S10 phones retained a traditional capacitive fingerprint scanner, integrating it into the power button, and this works superbly. The 5.8" screen sounds large, but it's 18:9, so the phone is actually very pocketable. There's no telephoto camera on the 'e', but the camera's still pretty darned good.

In terms of the requirements, the Galaxy S series meets them all, of course, including a 3.5mm audio jack. If you're OK with Samsung's UI tweaks and occasional service nudges, then I still maintain that the S series flagships are a good fit for ex-Symbian, ex-Windows phone users.

Galaxy S10e together with a Lumia 950, for size comparison...

As a bonus, the S10e's price continues to tumble, especially as we approach the launch of the new Samsung Galaxy S20 range in a few days. There's never been a better time to pick this up!

Motorola G8 Plus, £200

Motorola keeps knocking out excellent value budget handsets, including many of the features of flagships but with sensible compromises. The G8 Plus is the latest and can be found under £200 today, with perfect size for most, a very decent LCD 1080p screen, a fast Snapdragon 665 chipset, stereo speakers that actually deliver (with Dolby Atmos help), a 3.5mm audio jack, capacitive finger scanner, NFC, the spec list goes on. 

For £200 it's all rather good value for money. The imaging was a pleasant surprise - there's no OIS, but clever software allied to pixel-binning from a 1/2" 48MP sensor combine to produce super clear photos that Motorola sensibly restrains itself from over-sharpening (Samsung style!) I was very impressed for imaging at this price point and the addition of a portrait-mounted Action-Cam video mode was the icing on the cake - if you shoot any video of family and friends at quick fire events, then a secure portrait hold on the phone is a boon.

Apple iPhone 11 Pro, from £1049

2019 marked the first time I've recommended an iPhone as a Lumia replacement and for good reason - the camera system in 2019's iPhone 'Pro' is that good. With plenty of input from ex-PureView man Ari Partinen (who's now ex-Apple, but that's another story) and a team of - literally - thousands at Apple, the iPhone 11 Pro's photos, from all three lenses, aren't massively ruined by over-sharpening (as is common on many modern camera phones) and have admirable IQ (Image Quality) all round. With a big camera update ('Deep Fusion') implemented after launch, with pro-level handling of light and texture, the imaging system got better again - see my imaging comparison here.

On the biometrics front, the iPhone X range introduced the world to genuinely useful face unlocking - foolproof and fast, and this is still in place on the 11 series. I've used every authentication system since the start and Apple's Face ID (now aped by Google in its ill-fated Pixel 4 series) is the most convenient. No worries about finding the fingerprint sensor, if you're looking at the phone then you're in. And also into a great many applications, I've been impressed by how many third party iOS applications tie into Face ID to make sure you're allowed into their contents.

Add in the best stereo speakers (with true Dolby Atmos surround sound - really, the width of the sound stage has to be believed) on a mainstream phone and also the longest battery life (verified by me) and it's only iOS itself, plus the price, that add doubt. See above for my comments on operating system, but if you're OK with the sand-boxed nature of iOS (more so than Windows Phone, anyway) then the iPhone 11 Pro, as a long term phone investment, is worth every penny. You'll get warranty and support and updates for at least four years, so yes, this is an expensive, but very safe option. Remember the old Stella Artois slogan? "Reassuringly Expensive"!

Pixel 3a XL, from £389

Google's budget range of Pixels is immediately appealing for two reasons (other than the halved prices!) - the same excellent camera system as the flagships (see my Lumia 950 head to head), plus the inclusion of a 3.5mm audio jack, something you often lose by paying more... Build quality is excellent, though all in plastic, and there's the usual huge benefit of Google's guaranteed three years of updates, including at least two major new Android OS versions.

From the requirements list, the main misses are Qi charging (perhaps price-driven) and lack of card expansion. But then Pixels (like iPhones) have always preferred to just have integrated storage, for simplicity.

Authentication, for access, online banking, passwords, etc. are via a back of device fingerprint scanner and this works very well, helped by a suitable TPU case that guides your fingertip, in my experience. But all fast and convenient.

_____________________________

PS. Having mentioned 'second hand' several times, you may wonder where's the best place to look/buy? eBay is obvious but also full of pitfalls, with scammers and locked/blocked phones not uncommon. In terms of curated sellers, sign up to MeWe (a replacement for Google+, effectively) and then into the 'PSC Classifieds' group (when challenged for admittance, quote my name and the URL of this article as your way in). Then there are second hand shops which offer guarantees, such as CeX in the UK.

One month on from the previous update, here's the latest news and comment on applications and services on Windows 10 Mobile - the OS itself has now had its very last security update, but it still works on the whole. This feature will summarise what's broken and what's not, along with workarounds where possible. Note that I've done this update as a new URL, rather than updating the previous one, so that the mass of comments don't bog things down. Feel free to comment afresh!

Post the final OS update, we're in an odd phase of the OS, where most of the stuff that ever works still works (and is supported), but things are definitely now falling off the edges, as it were. Which means that it's hard to keep track of it all - hence the table below, which I'll keep updated every so often.

Note that some dates are approximate, since even we at AAWP can't see into the future with certainty! I've colour coded table cells, with pale red for 'on the way out, with workarounds and caveats' and red for 'no hope!'...

Do please let me know, by email or in the comments, if there are any inaccuracies in the above table or if you have information to update it. Thanks.

Delivering a 'report card' for the status above is tricky. I'd say that the OS is viable still, with the obvious omissions (tap to pay, IoT support, online banking apps) that have been there for a while now. There are certainly enough workarounds and alternative applications for most people. But your comments and updates welcome!

PS. Another valid question might be what will happen to AAWP itself in 2020 and beyond? I did have one idea. Rafe and I are chatting about resources, of course, but a) do please join the occasional guest writers if you have something to say/review/discuss, email me at slitchfield@gmail.com, and b) well, you know where my tip jar is...(!) 

This is somewhat obvious if you think about it, but it's worth expanding on anyway, since it almost caught me out yesterday. There are a number of readers with older phones - Lumia 640/XL, 730/735, 830, 930 and 1520 is a good (though not definitive) list - which started out on Windows Phone 8.1 but which were offered Windows 10 Mobile, at least via Microsoft's Upgrade Advisor utility. And have been running W10M smoothly. But now in 2020, in the event of problems, don't even think of using long time stalwart utility WDRT (Windows Device Recovery Tool) to restore your phone's original OS in order to 'rebuild'. Let me explain...

Long time readers and Windows enthusiasts will know where I'm going with this warning, but for everyone else I think I need to spell it out, since it almost 'caught' me too! (There's a rescue tool though, which I'll mention in the PS below.)

WDRT (still available here but use with caution!) is a utility designed to take any Windows-powered phone or tablet back to its original shipped state (or a slightly updated - for security - version), which you'd think would be a good life boat in the event of something going wrong in terms of software. However, for the phones mentioned above, they shipped with Windows Phone 8.1 back in the day, and so this is what gets offered when you plug them into WDRT today. Here's my Lumia 830 plugged into WDRT - showing 8.1 still being offered:

No big deal, you might think, it would be fun to play on 8.1 for a few minutes anyway, and then you could always start the upgrade process to Windows 10 Mobile again and build things from there? 

Nope. No can do.

Because as of the start of 2020, Microsoft turned off the Store for Windows Phone 8.1. Completely. You can't even sign into a Microsoft account on the phone in any capacity.

Which means that there's no way to get to the Upgrade Advisor applications. Which means that you're stuck (though see the PS below) on 8.1, with no Store, no applications, and only the built-in functions for company. 

My test Lumia 830, newly reset to the part-functional Windows Phone 8.1 Update 2, the last version included on Windows Device Recovery Tool (WDRT). Not exactly a feature phone, but also not exactly a smartphone either, given the lack of third party applications or updates to the built-ins...

It would be handy if someone at Microsoft was paying attention to the ramifications of turning the Store off and also making sure that WDRT didn't work with these older devices anymore. After all, we get updates to WDRT to 'add support' for 'new devices' - so why not have an update that 'removes support', to stop users of the Lumia 640/XL, 730/735, 830, 930 and 1520 from accidentally using the tool and getting ostensibly stranded on an old OS version from which they can't escape. But I doubt this will happen, it's all so low priority for Microsoft these days. Leaving just an AAWP warning, that hopefully enough people will find via Google and other search engines.

_______________________________

PS. We try not to leave anyone totally stranded here on AAWP. There's always some kind of workaround. In this case an official one. You can use the rather hidden but still-available Microsoft Over The Cable Updater tool to take any Windows phone up to the last officially supported version.

It's a bare bones tool, designed for corporate IT department use, but if the phone could be upgraded to Windows 10 Mobile, for example, then this tool will take it all the way. In the case of the Lumia 830, to Windows 10 Mobile Anniversary Update (branch 1607). Phew. 

PPS. A side thought, also obvious, but somewhat sad. With no working Store or sign in, enthusiasts can't even roll back to 8.1 to have a play with the interface and applications anymore. Such a rolled back phone isn't really even a 'feature phone' anymore, at least in 2020. Ah well. Plus ça change, eh?

The really interesting thing about Windows 10 Mobile is that it's fully backwards compatible with old Windows Phone 8 software. Even for games. Which you really wouldn't think after browsing the Microsoft Store, since many of the classic titles aren't there anymore. But that's no reason to be disheartened, especially if you're prone to a little installing and unzipping, since there are archives of classic WP8 games online and it's the work of moments (once you've got everything in place) to 'sideload' these titles to your Lumia 950 or similar in the current day. 

Games like Fruit Ninja, Cut the Rope, and Angry Birds were classics (the links here go to our original reviews/mentions back in the day) and have been much missed in the Windows 10 Mobile Store. It's not clear when they disappeared, but in theory if you had a Lumia 930 or similar then there's every chance you might still have some of these games on your phone, working well, and which have persisted through numerous OS updates.

Back in the real world, most of us have done at least one factory reset or device replacement since 2014/2015 and we were somewhat taken aback by our favourite games not being restored/re-installed as part of getting the phone or new device up and running.

Now, I do understand how the commercial world works and the publishers of these games didn't want to expend support resources on a dwindling software platform, so their titles were eventually withdrawn, but there's ZERO technical reason why the games themselves shouldn't work under the latest Windows 10 Mobile. Hence this article.

Over the years there have been various attempts to archive Windows Phone games (each of which typically exists as a single '.xap' archive), some more successful than others, but thanks to a reader here I was pointed to this archive, which is the one I'll use below. (Small print time: as you'd expect, AAWP takes no responsibility for the status or contents of files found at such external URLs, it's the reader's/downloader's risk!)

The games all do seem to be full and not trial versions, which raises an extra legal/moral question. But given that the developers themselves were the ones who abandoned the platform and stopped taking our money four years ago, it doesn't seem too problematic to worry about not paying them money in 2020. If any of the game developers are listening/reading this then just put your title back in the Store officially and we'll plug it to high heaven and start buying again!

In addition, importantly, note that many of us have already bought these games, i.e. developers have already had our money, years ago, and it's us, the users, who have been inconvenienced by not being able to play the games we paid for, after a device change or reset. As a huge Angry Birds fan who paid with my own money for all the titles in the range between 2013 and 2015, it's been annoying, to say the least, not to be able to play the games I paid for on the platform I paid for them on, etc.

The first and classic Angry Birds, here played in 2020 on the Lumia 950 XL. Ah, the memories! Mind you, I've had to start from the very first level again!!

In any case, here on AAWP I wanted to show how to do the side-loading. You'll need:

• a Windows 7, 8 or 10 PC of some kind
• about an hour
• enough tech confidence to know what to do with .zip and '.7z' archives, how to navigate folders, and so on

There's another caveat too - in order to play the games then you need to leave your phone in 'developer' mode. Not a huge issue, I suspect, since if you're clued up enough to be tackling this then you'll also know to avoid any malicious apps you might encounter. But worth noting. If you take your phone out of 'developer' mode then you'll get an error message when launching such side-loaded titles.

If you're happy to proceed then read on....

[Note that the instructions in this feature are adapted, corrected, and expanded from those here.]

1. Install the official Microsoft Windows Phone SDK 8.0 Lite: Download it Here.

2. Install the official Microsoft Windows Phone SDK 8.1 Lite: Download it Here.

3. Download the WPV XAP Deployer Tool: from here. Yes, it's third party software and all bets are off. But then Windows 10 Mobile itself is now officially unsupported, so we're definitely in 'enthusiast, it's worth a go' territory. I've tried the tool and it does what it claims to, with no ill effects or anti-virus warnings.

4. Download any or all of the XAP archived games from this Internet archive (all links here, by the way, work as of February 2020, when writing this piece.)

5. On your Windows 10 Mobile phone, go into Settings/Update & Security/For developers' and set the toggle to 'Developer mode'. Don't worry about any warnings - you know what you're doing!

6. Plug your phone into the PC and wait while all the recognition steps settle down (30 seconds or so)

7. Run WPV XAP Deployer. Click the 'Add Xap files' button and add the games you want to install. Then click on 'Deploy'.

The games should appear in the phone's Apps list within a few seconds and can be run or pinned as usual.

All very interesting - most 'abandoned' platforms end up with a vestigial user base of enthusiasts who find ways to work around any gaps in the platform - and Windows 10 Mobile seems to be no different! Comments welcome.

PS. Thanks to AAWP reader Lasitha Samarasinghe for his help with this feature.

Guest writer Richard Yates follows on my own Continuum-based NexDock 2 coverage with his own take on the accessory, both in conjunction with Windows 10 Mobile and Android. It's fair to say that he's not convinced overall, though he does find hope in the upcoming touch-enabled successor, the NexDock Touch...

Richard writes:

Anyone remember the Foleo?  Quite possibly not many people do, because it was a planned Palm device which was intended to link to a Palm Treo, turning it into a connected subnotebook. This was back in 2007, and its Wikipedia entry still makes quite interesting reading. I was mad enough to sign up for one, only to be really quite disappointed when Palm retrenched and cancelled it 3 months later without it ever being released.

Since then I have tried so many keyboards and other ways of extending my phone, or devices such as Nokia’s Communicator range, that I can no longer remember them all, but none has ever quite ticked all the boxes.

So, although I resisted a long time, eventually I could no longer resist the NexDock and I gave in and ordered one, after the initial launch period, with the result that delivered to my door, the cost was £285 (Ed: my early unit worked out at £225, for comparison, including import cuty from HMRC).

That, of course, is well within the price these days of a pretty decent laptop from Amazon (other sellers do exist!), indeed today I can find a device with pretty similar specifications that is also a working PC for £159  - true it runs on an eMMC, but I have used a cheap enough laptop which does this and manages to support Windows 10 Pro adequately – so there have to be some reasons to ignore laptops and buy the NexDock.

The first argument is that this is the perfect device for a 'Road Warrior' – that you can plug your phone into it whilst out on the road, write a letter or use a spreadsheet and move on, all without needing a PC.

From my own perspective, I have to say that this use case doesn’t work. I consider myself a 'Road Warrior', even if my warring days are well and truly behind me – this week, for example, I will be spending 2 days working off site in an office where I am supplied with a printer and a power plug, but I wouldn’t really dream of taking only my phone and the NexDock because there are programs that I need a PC or Mac for. But more to the point, the NexDock is bigger than my laptop, and although the difference isn’t a lot, I don’t see how the laptop is any less convenient. When I talk to the computer manager of that client, which has 700 staff, I get looks of incredulity about supplying it to their staff who move around, these days they all have 4G iPads and everything goes back to base that way.

However, I still have a Lumia 950XL knocking about, so I attached that and had a little play to see what it could do with the NexDock 2.

It suffers that the software is now out of date, but you have to wonder why Microsoft didn’t launch something like the NexDock at a subsidised price to try to achieve volume. I suppose their answer would be that they built a projection mode into the operating system and saw no need to make first party hardware. However this is yet another opportunity missed in the long running disaster that was Windows Phone/10 Mobile, in my opinion - this could have been really impressive as Windows driven by the phone works pretty well on the NexDock 2.  In the end though, the other limitations of the dying operating system got too much for me, so I moved on to Samsung's DeX and Huawei’s desktop mode. Unfortunately I had no more joy there.

That isn’t to say that Samsung DeX and Huawei’s Easy Projection aren’t impressive – they are, and I can see that they may be enough for some people’s uses, but they just don’t work when there is any need for bespoke software. Personally, I find I really miss the bookmarks bar in Chrome and, although I have tried some other browsers, I haven’t yet found any to replicate it. Though I have to say that, much to my surprise, I have found it possible to use a big spreadsheet with my Galaxy S10 5G connected to the NexDock 2, so it would only be fair to acknowledge that if Samsung keep investing in DeX, many more things may be possible in future. I am personally saddened that they dropped 'Linux on DeX, I think that could have been really very impressive.

So for me I have to move on from this use case.

The next argument is that the NexDock can be used as an extension monitor.  I must confess to not having tried this yet because I use an old tablet computer as an extension monitor when I am on the road. I can, however, see this as being a genuine use for the NexDock 2, and I will try it to prove the concept. It wouldn’t be a reason to buy it on its own, because the concept of a separate portable monitor is already out there and alternatives exist which are cheaper, but if you have one already, then why not use it? It must also be said that using the NexDock 2 as an external monitor will take up more desk space than an extra monitor - and that having two keyboards could be quite confusing!

The next point to consider is future proofing.  This is where the NexDock 2 has something of a win – every time a phone appears with updated DeX, or other fullscreen capability, the NexDock 2 will be able to take advantage of that. Can’t argue with that one, so let’s move on to the hardware.

The NexDock 2 arrives beautifully packaged and it looks and feels good. It is supplied with a stupidly short USB 3.1 cable (which you need to use to support HDMI), which would make it impossible to use as an external monitor with my laptop because the USB C ports are on the same side. I was fortunately able to find one for £10 which works well.

The device itself has a good build quality and none of my family has yet realised it isn’t a full laptop! On the whole, I’d give it good marks for quality.

It does though have two fails for me. The first is the trackpad, which has a slightly stippled texture and which I find to be rather unresponsive.

The second fail is one which really frustrates me. Pretty much everything that is likely to be plugged into this is going to have a touchscreen, but the NexDock does not have one. Quite clearly this is to save costs but again I can find touchscreen Windows laptops with detachable keyboards for £205, so it isn’t really clear why this compromise was made. I am really pleased to see that this failing has been recognised by Nex and that a Touch version is now being prepared – you can sign up for it here.

So where does this leave me overall? Frustrated, is the short answer. The NexDock 2 is undoubtedly good fun. It showcases just how powerful mobiles have become. I quite enjoy using it while on the settee watching the television, but for me 'playing' is as good as it gets. I couldn’t take it with me and leave the laptop behind, I’d be losing too much functionality.

Yet it is, in several ways, a 'nearly there' device. I still think the concept is good, I just need a few changes made. Will I order the NexDock Touch?  Yes - I already have! (Ed: me too!)

Thanks Richard!

PS. Bonus link to our unboxing and first impressions Gallery of the NexDock 2 and eventual review verdict.

The more time goes on, the more I appreciate what Microsoft and Nokia did all those years ago. In a big update to a previous article, I'm still amused that the tech industry is falling over itself in the modern era to embrace concepts that were commonplace back in the early days of Windows Phone - from well over seven years ago. For every naysayer that slams Windows Phone for its weaknesses, remember that it also led the world in several ways, not least UI responsiveness, dark themes, offline maps, augmented reality mapping, and social integration!

1. Respond, damn you

One of the core tenets behind the 'ground up' coding of Windows Phone's interface was that it should be responsive. Back in the mid 2000s, phone processors were slow and actions were driven by the user pressing buttons. So you'd press a button and wait for the thing you wanted done to happen. So if it took a second or so for the phone to do something then that was part of 'normality'. It's like pressing the standby button on a TV remote and waiting a couple of seconds for the set to come on. Or pressing the power button on a kettle and waiting a few seconds for any noise of heating action. Button interfaces are by their very nature not tied to expecting an immediate response.

The Apple iPhone, in 2007, for all its other limitations of the time, enabled capacitive touch on a smartphone, and with it the expectation that the UI should follow whatever your finger dictated, in as close to real time as possible. And Apple put in a far faster processor than was in its competitors devices, with absolute emphasis on response time, i.e. never leave the user waiting. They even put up bogus interim screenshots of an application that was being launched, to try to cover up the second or so's genuine loading time.

Windows Phone, four years later did a number of things right (hence this article), one of which was to also prioritise interaction with the user. So 'metro' panoramas could be dragged backwards and forwards, lists could be swiped through (etc) with instant response from the UI, whatever the processor was trying to do behind the scenes. 

To its credit, Apple kept on doing the same, with modern iPhones still giving the impression of the UI being buttery smooth, but Windows Phone deserves credit for doing the same, even in a world of 2010 and beyond where Android phones of varying speeds and responsiveness came and went.

2. Hello darkness my old friend

So... it's early 2020 and the phone world is (rightly) turning dark, from Whatsapp to OneNote to the Google Play Store and Gmail (the list goes on), so that AMOLED screens can drain less power and so that human eyes don't get blasted with white in the middle of the night. Plus 'dark' is 'cool' now, apparently.

All of which we were saying a decade ago though, in my case with the early AMOLED screens under Symbian and then with Windows Phone in general. From the beginning, Windows Phone had a system wide light/dark theme selection and almost every application adhered to this.

Yet it's taken nine years or so for the rest of the industry to catch up, I'd argue. Some Android manufacturers were 'theming' their phones from about 2016, but Google - and now Apple, with iOS, are finally officially 'dark'-enabled in their very latest OS versions.

3. Offline maps

The idea for having maps 'offline' and thus not needing to be grabbed piecemeal over potentially unreliable bandwidth isn't new, of course, but back when Symbian was fading (under Nokia) and Windows Phone was the new kid on the block, Nokia Maps/Drive and then (renamed to) HERE Maps/Drive was the only free mainstream navigation system in phones to offer offline maps of any country, any region. Google Maps of the time was strictly 'online' and you had to stay connected to see roads and certainly to calculate routes (the latter is still true, by the way, in 2020).

A further rename came, effectively, with Windows 10 Maps, heavily based on the HERE Maps code and using the same data, and with 'offline maps' now so tightly integrated into Windows 10 Mobile that the options to add maps and auto-update them is in the OS's Settings hierarchy.

With full navigation anywhere in the world without needing a connection (other than for live traffic), Nokia/HERE/Windows Maps is still something of a star on the platform, I reckon.

4. Where now?

I had to chuckle seeing people lauding Google's apparently imminent introduction of Augmented Reality into Google Maps, the idea being that when in a city, you can raise the phone so that the camera shows a 'live' view and then the software overlays landmarks and even navigational instructions on top of what the camera 'sees'.

Which all sounds great, except that I reported right here on the LiveSight integration into HERE Maps in 2013, i.e. six years ago, with a very similar idea and implementation on Windows Phone. 

True, the Windows version only handled points of interest and not real time navigation, but do remember that this was 2013 and the rest of the world has, in theory, had six years and vastly more computing resources in order to catch up. 

5. People Hub

Possibly the biggest stroke of genius in Windows Phone's history, this integrated Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, LinkedIn, and Skype, into the People (contacts) application/hub. The idea was that, once connected (signed in), you can see and interact with updates from all your contacts, all in one stream, in one app. Here's a video from back in the day (2012) which gives an excellent demonstration of how it looked and worked:

The huge drawback with this approach is obvious though - the relevant services, eager to please Microsoft in the first place, then started to object to the independence from their official applications - with their info inside the People Hub, there's no reason for people to go elsewhere and therefore no way to generate income from advertising to them. One by one, applications and services got updated and People Hub integration withdrawn, until only Skype was left (because Microsoft bought the company!)

So hugely innovative but also perhaps flawed in terms of commercial realism in modern age - everything has to generate money, it can't just be 'good'. Sadly.

______

So, five ways in which Windows Phone was impressing and leading the way all those years ago.

I'd also point to the Start screen and live tiles (below), plus Cortana (further below) as a super digital assistant that outgunned Siri and (then) Google Now at the time, but these fell into disuse and the competition arguably overtook Windows here, in time:

But raise a glass for Windows Phone, which in a surprising number of ways really did represent the future, all the way back in 2012 and 2013. Even if its market share and tech world acceptance never really reached the same heights as its competitors, who had a head start on the world stage and were far better resourced, so the eventual result was understandable.

PS. Some bonus retro links on the hardware front, articles from the AAWP back catalogue that you may have missed... The 10 worst Windows phones of all time - what were they thinking? and The Top 5 Windows phones... ever!

There are two points through the year that really matter in terms of comparisons. One is the release of a new iPhone, the other the release of the new Samsung Galaxy flagship. In this case it's the S20, arriving here in the next day or so for review by me, and I'm choosing to compare the smaller (non-Plus) version because there's almost no spec compromise for going 'cheaper and smaller' this year - and I'm comparing to the Lumia 950 because it too is very close to its XL counterpart while remaining pocketable.

Lumia 950 and Galaxy S20....

Although there's a little life left in Windows 10 Mobile in terms of updates and support, new hardware is non-existent, plus repairs and spares for older hardware are heading the same way - so it makes sense for everyone to be aware of the best of the rest from other platforms. And this new Samsung flagship has top notch imaging, top notch speed, with only a few downsides compared to previous Galaxy generations (removal of a 3.5mm audio jack being one of them).

So, back to the specs - as usual, I've shaded in green an obvious 'win' for either device. Any row where a winner would be totally subjective is left uncoloured. Or, where all devices are utterly excellent but in different ways, I've given each a 'green'(!)

[By the way, if you're viewing this feature on a phone then the table may well cause you problems. Try viewing in landscape mode? Failing that, go view this on a laptop or tablet!]

Verdict

Adding up the green 'wins' (for fun?!) gives a resounding 13-3 win to the much newer device, despite the caveats on the new Samsung S20 series (losing 3.5mm audio jack etc). Not really surprising - can you believe the Lumia 950 is almost four and a half years old now?

The acid question is whether I'd recommend the Samsung Galaxy S20 to an AAWP reader brought up on Lumias? The answer, as usual, is 'it depends'. Hard core Windows Phone and Windows 10 Mobile fans may still not be satisfied because it's, well, Google and Android. While general tech enthusiasts will be upset by the arguably inferior biometrics, the lack of headphone jack and heart/O2 sensors (compared to previous generations), and the somewhat quirky camera arrangement (at least compared to the class-leading iPhone 11 Pro). Finally, anyone with a sense of value for money will grab the two year old Galaxy S9+, which can now be found for a pittance (less than £300, especially second hand) and which has audio jack, capacitive scanner, heart rate/O2 sensors, and no camera gimmicks...

Your comments welcome, anyway.

PS. Watch this face for my imaging comparison using the S20, plus also a video review for The Phones Show.

Following my detailed look at specs across the board on the new Galaxy S20 vs the classic Lumia 950, here's the much awaited imaging comparison. Zooming is quirky on both, but there's plenty to compare on the main cameras - in 2020, have Samsung learned their lesson and managed to reign in their enthusiasm for sharpening and enhancement? Let's find out.

Let's start with a few specs, obviously favouring the far newer device, but worth noting anyway:

What Samsung has done here doesn't make a whole lot of sense, to be honest. The main camera should be pretty good, with a decent sensor with large pixels and OIS. But it all falls apart with zoom, where the 64MP unit doesn't cut in until 2x, at which point you've had between 1 and 1.9x digital (lossy) zoom from the main camera. And then when you get to the 64MP unit, you're only using the centre quarter, i.e. 3/4 of the sensor isn't used at all!!

Quite bizarre. And the only explanation I can think of is that the 64MP was needed for the '8k video' claim and that still image functions were partly shoehorned in on the back of that. Mind you, the Lumia 950 itself isn't known for great zoom (unlike the 1020) - its lossless zoom range is only about 1.5x. So in that sense these phones aren't a terrible match!

Anyway, on with the tests. Can Microsoft's 2015 Lumia flagship/camera champion get close to the 'state of the art' in Android high end imaging as we head into 2020, almost half a decade later?

Notes:

• I've shot at the default output resolutions on each, leaving headroom for some lossless 'PureView' zoom into the sensors and also getting the advantages of oversampling and noise reduction (on the Lumia). 
  
• As usual, I've deliberately thrown in mainly tricky shots in the scene selection, to test the USPs here, all photos were taken on full auto and handheld, as a regular user would do. No tripods or RAW editing sessions needed!

Let's pit the results against each other, using our Famed Interactive Comparator (FIC). All 1:1 crops are at 900x500 for comparison, though I've put up the originals on my own server, for you to download if you want to do your own analysis.

Test 1: Sunny landscape

The Handley Herald at Berkshire Museum of Aviation, in patchy Spring sunshine. Here is the overall scene, from the Lumia 950:

You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 950 and Galaxy S20, for your own analysis.

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, from the Lumia 950 (top) and then Galaxy S20 (bottom), just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

It's tough to score these, as the approaches to image processing vary so much. The PureView processing on the Lumia 950 produces a pretty natural photo, almost as if you were looking out through a window onto real life, while the Samsung image pipeline 'enhances' everything. So brighter, more colourful, sharper. Which is better? I'd argue the former, but most people would naturally pick the photo that 'popped' more. 

Down at the pixel level here, I'd point out the gravel beneath the plane has lots all its fine detail in the Samsung shot, while the sharpening of all the texture on the plane's fuselage comes across as ugly.

Microsoft Lumia 950: 10 pts; Samsung Galaxy S20: 9 pts

Test 2: Now zoomed x2

The same scene, but zoomed explicitly by 2x in the S20's UI and guessed at with the Lumia 950(!) You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 950 and Galaxy S20, for your own analysis. 

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, from the Lumia 950 (top) and then Galaxy S20 (bottom), just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

The tables are turned when zoomed, with the Lumia struggling to include some lossy digital zoom (roughly a 0.5x factor) and with the S20 managing just fine with smart cropping, PureView-style, into its 64MP sensor. The better signal to noise in the S20 image is also partly down to modern sensors and frame combination techniques, of course, allied to a massively more powerful chipset.

Microsoft Lumia 950: 8 pts; Samsung Galaxy S20: 10 pts

Test 3: Into the cockpit

Inside the plane, in good but not direct light, there's loads of dash detail to capture and inspect in detail. Here is the overall scene, from the Lumia 950:

You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 950 and Galaxy S20, for your own analysis.

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, from the Lumia 950 (top) and then Galaxy S20 (bottom), just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

Both photos are pretty good, handheld. But the Lumia 950's shot is far purer - just look at the grey metal baseplate of the dash. In addition, fine details like text and numbers are slightly thicker than real life in the S20's shot, this is edge enhancement at work when it doesn't really need to be there.

Microsoft Lumia 950: 10 pts; Samsung Galaxy S20: 9 pts

Test 4: Another sunny landscape, ripe for zooming!

This time a posh house in a quiet estate in Woodley, shot from about 70m. Here is the overall scene, from the Lumia 950:

You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 950 and Galaxy S20, for your own analysis.

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, from the Lumia 950 (top) and then Galaxy S20 (bottom), just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

I'm sorry Samsung, but this is appallingly overdone processing. It make look great on the phone screen but if you look at the details (as here) then it's a pixellated nightmare. You can tell that the Lumia 950 image is already sharpened, with the cement lines between bricks thicker than they are in real life, but the S20 takes this to new (crazy) levels. The house, its grounds, and its details, don't look real. At all.

Microsoft Lumia 950: 9 pts; Samsung Galaxy S20: 7 pts

Test 5: Now zoomed x3

The same scene, but zoomed explicitly by 3x in the S20's UI (i.e. just about maximum) and guessed at with the Lumia 950(!) You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 950 and Galaxy S20, for your own analysis. 

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, from the Lumia 950 (top) and then Galaxy S20 (bottom), just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

Although beyond its 'PureView' (smart cropping) range, the Galaxy S20 pulls back a few points here, with a 3x zoomed shot that's still artificial, but more detailed and not as ugly as the Lumia's attempt. In fairness to the 950, it never claimed to zoom further than 2x and I'd pleaded with Nokia/Microsoft for years to have a detent put into the UI at the smart cropping limit. Oh well. Too late now. The Galaxy S20 is lossless to 2x, albeit with tiny pixels, but its interpolative algiorithms are much better at software zoom, as seen here.

Microsoft Lumia 950: 6 pts; Samsung Galaxy S20: 8 pts

Test 6: Challenging macro

Add low light to shooting through glass to tiny model detail. Here is the overall scene, from the Lumia 950:

You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 950 and Galaxy S20, for your own analysis.

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, from the Lumia 950 (top) and then Galaxy S20 (bottom), just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

With the large apertures on phone camera flagships, shallow depth of field is just physics, and each phone camera has chosen to focus on a slightly different spot here. The Lumia 950 has the wing roots in sharp focus, while the S20 has the model man nice and crisp. Taken as a whole (and I encourage you to grab the originals from the links above), both are excellent photos though - no complaints from me!

Microsoft Lumia 950: 10 pts; Samsung Galaxy S20: 10 pts

Test 7: The finest of detail

A favourite subject of mine, especially to really test the resolving power of phone camera (main) lenses - tree branches against a blue sky. Here is the overall scene, from the Lumia 950:

You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 950 and Galaxy S20, for your own analysis.

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, from the Lumia 950 (top) and then Galaxy S20 (bottom), just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

Looking here at fine detail, there's a huge difference between the two phone cameras. The Lumia 950's is sharpened, but still manages to pick up most small twigs and also look like a real, healthy tree. But the Galaxy S20 crop shows the tree looking like it's barely surviving a nuclear winter! The twigs look dead, any leaves are dark splodges, and everything is so sharpened, so enhanced, so... jagged. 

Not my idea of capturing real (still) life.

Microsoft Lumia 950: 9 pts; Samsung Galaxy S20: 6 pts

Test 8: Low light

Our local golf clubhouse, floodlit at night. Here is the overall scene, from the Lumia 950, don't worry about the angles being a bit off, I was having to shoot from inside a car as it was blowing a 30mph wind and I couldn't stand still enough(!):

You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 950 and Galaxy S20, for your own analysis.

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, from the Lumia 950 (top) and then Galaxy S20 (bottom), just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

Perhaps a score draw here overall? While the S20's sharpening and contrast-enhancements look ugly at the pixel level, the Lumia 950's attempt looks too pale - there was a car drawing up to my left and I do wonder whether reflections threw the algorithms slightly? Neither photo is particularly great, so it's 7 points a piece....

Microsoft Lumia 950: 7 pts; Samsung Galaxy S20: 7 pts

Test 9: Dead of night

My standard ultra-low-light test (without going into multi-second exposure night modes). Here is the overall scene, from the Lumia 950:

You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 950 and Galaxy S20, for your own analysis.

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, from the Lumia 950 (top) and then Galaxy S20 (bottom), just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

Other than the ugly greenery at the pixel level, the S20 edges this one. Remember when the 950 was the king of the night? We now have most flagship main cameras coming with larger sensors, larger apertures, the same OIS and much more processor power. There's sharpening here, but it's in balance with trying to pull detail out of such low light.

Microsoft Lumia 950: 8 pts; Samsung Galaxy S20: 9 pts

Verdict

For the record, the scores add up as:

1. Lumia 950 (late 2015): 77 pts  (/110)
2. Samsung Galaxy S20 (2020): 75 pts

So a narrow victory for the ageing Lumia, much to my surprise. I'm sure I'll get my fair share of hate mail, as usual, but in fairness, phones like the iPhone 11 Pro and Pixel 4 have rightly dominated the Lumia 950 in the last year - and it's a shock to see a 2020 flagship struggle to do the same. Now, the S20 focusses much faster and thus will probably get better shots of pets and small kids, I'm sure. But they'll still end up at the wrong end of Samsung's sharpening stick, I reckon.

As ever, Samsung can fix the sharpening in updates if they have the will. I've spotted dialling up in past updates for my Galaxy S9+, so perhaps there's yet hope?

Two months on from the previous update, here is the March 2020 update (two additions, two apps removed, several links tweaked) to the AAWP directory of curated UWP applications, those with native Windows 10 UI and which support different orientations, Continuum and even use on laptop or tablet. Do please get involved in the comments to let me know of anything which has stopped working.

NB. I've kept the same URL again, this time, so that the Disqus comments stay intact. Though the number is getting large, so perhaps the May(?) update might start a new URL from scratch? It all depends....!

With regards to the 'curated' bit in the title, all of these titles have been personally checked or recommended by a trusted reader of the site. See below the table for some helpful notes and background.

NB. I've included (and marked as such) the new Store-packaged PWAs (Progressive Web Applications). While not UWP, they're in the same category in my mind, and install in the usual way, but working with the Edge engine on Windows 10. Note that I've also included a few PWAs which haven't been professionally packaged in UWP wrappers - they're usually here because they're so fully featured or are for a major service. But don't let that stop you seeking other PWAs out too, via our Flow stories and via portals like Appscope.

Directory updated 14th March 2020

General 8 Zip AppRaisin  CAS Preview Clipboard Cleaner Cloud Drive! Connected Devices  Cortrigga DailyPic Digicam Remote.test Disk File Searcher Download App Later Dropbox  Dynamic Theme edgeTile Feem v4 - Share Files Offline FieldWire File Cards Files&Folders Pro File Renamer GDrive.NET Hand Off Hopic Explorer Instabullet MEGA Privacy PAWA PDF Conversion Tool PDF Reader PDF Wizard Perfect Flashlight Perfect Tools QuickProfile Random Tool Rar Zip Extractor Pro Roamit Share 2 Print Share.it Share me Files Torrex Web Tiles Woopiti Zip Opener	Productivity/Office Action Note Choshim Diary Chronos Calendar Clipboard Manip Count-It CV Sampler Denna Diarium FileTag 2 Foxit MobilePDF Keep To Do Markdown Editor - Write Beautifully Microsoft To-Do Modern Flashcards Nimbus Note NotepadX  OCR Text Detection Tool Office Lens OneCalendar  One Task Paperly Power Planner PPT Sampler Project Studio Revent Scanner for Docs Pro ScribePad ShapeResume Share 2 Print SharePoint Slack  SMS to Excel Speech Central: Voice Reader Spreadsheet Conversion Tool Textnotes Tiles for Outlook Todoist Track Goals WorkingHours WP Message Backup
Commercial Travel/Movie Booking AirBnB PWA London Travel  SkyScanner PWA Travel Currencies Trivago PWA	Communications and IM FlowMail HipTalk Universal  Loadkit Download Manager  Read My Mail Skype TeamViewer  TeamViewer QuickSupport Telegram PWA Unigram X (Telegram) Viber  Video Optimizer for Whatsapp
News and Web AAWP Universal Ark View Coc Coc Browser Dailyhunt Daily Mail Online  FeedLab  Flipboard PWA GHub U GNews - Google News Reader Hypersonic iNi Reader Latermark for Pocket mAloud Monument Browser MSPoweruser Newsflow Newsreader for BBC News News Live Tiles RSS Live Tiles Shiye Browser Short.y Speech Central - Voice Reader The Verge News Vivid Windows Central	Reference/Language Anki Universal Astronomy Hub Binocleo CodeHub Collection Keeper Diccionario Dicionário Português Earthquake Watch Elements - The Periodic Table  Flights Radar FlowDict  GeoQuiz Hear it first! ISS Finder Kiwix JS Offline Wikimedia reader Mobile Studio U NASA Picture Galleries Perfect Dictionary Planetarium 3D Small Media Manager Reloaded Songbook Pro Speaking Recipes Star Walk 2 Terrae Motus UrbanDict WikiMed Wikini Yandex.Maps
Shopping/Banking AliExpress Shopping BitPay Boots UK PWA CryptoChart Flipkart i-bank pass Loyca My USPS (USA) My Giffgaff NBG Mobile Banking (i-Bank) Packages Tracker Tangerine Bank (Canada)	Social 6tum - Tumblr client Aeries  AIR for Facebook Baconit Disqus  Friendica Harvester Messenger  HipTalk LightSocialPro Likebook for Facebook MALClient Meme Generator Suite Ouga (Tumblr) Perfect 9GAG  Perfect Flicker Pinstar Piny Quarrel (Discord) Readit ReddPlanet Saver for Instagram PRO SlimSocial for Facebook Tik Tok TopicStack Tumblast Tweet It!  Tweetium  Twitter  Ouga - Tumblr Winsta (Instagram)
Personal Navigation/Travel AroundMe Backroads Cartograph Maps Pro Findery PWA Flights Info Flights Radar GeoMeterPro 10  GPX Tracker GPX Viewer and Recorder Just Buses (London) London Travel  Pocket Map (Norway) SG iBus (Singapore) Sygic GPS Navigation Traffic TripAdvisor TripAdvisor Hotels Flights and Restaurants Uber (PWA) Volvo On Call Wikivoyage by Kiwix WinGo Maps Yandex.Maps Zenit	Settings/Internals/Utilities 8 Zip Lite / 8 Zip  AIDA64 Battery Bar Graph CodeHub DataCounter DOSBox Interop Tools IP Network Scanner PRO Kirik Battery LAN drive Landiskape PhoNetInfo  Remote Desktop Specs Analysis Speedtest Wifi Analyzer Wifi Analyzer Tool
Sports/Exercise/Health Break Reminder 10 Diabetes Analyzer fitbit  Fitbit Coach Fit Timer Fitness Foundation GoodDoc  Insulin Buddy PWA Perfect Workout Mr Pillster Pillbox PitlaneOne ScoreBall SofaScore LiveScore True Fitness	Privacy/Secrecy/Security 9Zen Universal Locker Bytewarden File Hasher Hacked? HideImages KeePassReader KeePassWin Keeper Password Manager Master Password Microsoft Authenticator Mobile Vault mSecure OneLocker  OTP Manager Passkey Password Hello Personal Files  Secret Mind
Weather-related/Lighting HueDynamic for Hue Huetro for Hue MeteoStation Suntime - Sunrise & Sunset Vieather Weather Notify Yandex.Weather	Time related  Break Reminder 10 Jack of time My Big Days Realarm Special Day Countdown Stopwatch Yokto Timer ++ WorkingHours World Time Clock
Calculators and (numeric) Converters Calculator2 Travel Currency	Finance (tracking/analysis) EtherWallet Money Lover - Money Manager Money Tracker Pro UMeter (Uber)
Camera replacements/aids 1Shot camera  Office Lens  Photo Scan  ProShot  QR Scanner  Scanner One	Music/Speech recording/tuning Airyware Tuner  Audio Media Conversion Tool Ax-Exp DIY Piano Chordle FL Studio Mobile 3  MeeDJ Metronome+ Music Stack My Piano Phone Perfect Recorder Piano10 Sound Recorder Hi-Res Talkinator Auvid Tuner
Music playback/streaming /downloading/FM 8 Soundcloud ABC Radio FTW! ACG Player Audiocloud  Deezer Music Duplex FM Radio Jiosaavn Media Player for gMusic Pro Media Tag Mini Radio Player Moodflow Musbox Napster Neutron Music Player Next-Player Playcast Songify Tidal Unofficial Valve Player VLC YouTunes! Z Music Player	Imaging/Graphics 10Lapse Perfect 9GAG   Afterlight Auto Face Swap Backup for Instagram Colory DrawNotes  DSLR Camera Photo Effect Fliky Fresh Paint  Fused Double Exposure  GeoPhoto GDrive.NET  Image Raw Image Resizer  Imgur4Windows Inkodo Instagram  Likegram for Instagram Monocle Giraffe (Imgur) Perfect Flicker Photo Box Pro Photo Resizer Photo Scan Photo Shader  Photo Stacking Pic Collage ProGet QRafty QR Code Light Scanner Resize Image Saver for Instagram PRO Screenshot Join SketchMaster Spirality SpotBright  Tapershop Vector Conversion Tool Wallpaper Studio
Podcast related/Audio-book Audible  Audiobooked  BookListener Booxio BringCast  Grover Pro  MyPodcasts  Podcasted Podcasts (Beta) Podcast+ Pro  Podcast Lounge 2	Media (Video) and Entertainment Awesome Tube Best Player Cast To Crunchyroll Dailymotion Duplex File Downloader Movier myTube!  Perfect Tube  Playcast PushTV Scorpio Player Small Media Manager Reloaded TorrentPlatinum Trakter Tubecast PRO  TubeGet TVPlayer TV Show Tracker Unstream (Twitch) Video 360 Vime - Ultimate Vimeo Client VLC  zTwitch
Reading/PDFs/comics Bookmate Comic Show Cover - Comic Reader Fiction Book Reader Limited Foxit Mobile PDF  Freda KNFB Reader LightReader PDF Assistant Pro PDF Reader PDF Viewer Plus Perfect PDF Reader Tankobon Xodo PDF Reader & Editor	Video editing/sharing Animotica - Video Editor Auvid Tuner

This then is a bookmarkable page of the top few hundred applications that should be a useful aide-memoire after a hard reset if rebuilding a Windows 10 phone from scratch or, perhaps more appropriately, a great place for a new Windows 10 Mobile user to start.

Some notes:

• FAQ: I don't mark new entries as 'new' in any way because there's no point - you already know what they are as we've featured them on the front pages of AAWP over the last month or so. These reference pages are just that - for reference. For newcomers and for people looking up recommendations.
• Thanks to the AAWP community for suggestions so far (e.g. in comments below and on previous pages), this is a crowd-sourced project!
• Not included (obviously) are games. They're here (for both 8.1 and W10M). Also not included are applications which come with every phone, such as the core Windows and Lumia apps.
• Yes, I know that a couple of entries are in two categories. Just trying to be helpful!
• Implemented as a table, I've kept the width right down, now with just two columns, in order to be phone-friendly. In other words, you can view this article on your phone and, depending on the link and the item, dive right into an app, its page and then download it. In theory!
• If you're after the original WP 8.1 app directories, they're here: Photo/Media/Reading and General.

_____________________________________

They're depressing statistics to want to visualise, but things are so wild at the moment that the more information available, the better. In this case, a look at two PWA (Progressive Web Application) URLs, one for the world, one for the UK, that track the spread of SARS-CoV-2 (a.k.a. 'CoronaVirus', leading to COVID-19) currently a major source of concern to most of the world), both based on the Johns Hopkins GIS data engine. In each case, I've linked to the right URL, so viewing this page in Edge or using the AAWP Universal application should get you to the right places with one tap.

Here's the link to click/tap on for the world-wide tracker:

• https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/85320e2ea5424dfaaa75ae62e5c06e61

And here's the link to use for the UK-only COVID-19 tracker:

• https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/ae5dda8f86814ae99dde905d2a9070ae

The underlying data is from the same source, but the idea here is that web licensees of the CSS engine can set up themes and geographical focus for embedding into their own sites. This being AAWP and being based in the UK, having a UK-centric 'view' seemed appropriate.

[NOTE: at the time of writing, understandably, this online database is under very heavy load, so be patient. And you might have to try reloading the page(s) at a quieter time of day.]

But first the world view:

The 'Desktop' view, best seen in landscape, though it's very slow to load because of all the code behind the view. My link above should take you to the 'Mobile' view, seen below:

Big, bold (and worrying) numbers, see the swipeable tabs along the bottom

These lead to other helpful mobile-friendly views of the real time data, here showing tracking over time and by country...

And then the UK view of the data, first seen on the BBC site:

Firstly, there's a Desktop version, which I wouldn't recommend - again, it's too much for the smaller screen and limited processing power of an old Lumia. And then (right) there's the 'Mobile' version, which is the one I linked to above, which presents each set of stats on their own pages.

For example, here are breakdown of COVID-19 cases by cumulative count and daily additions; (right) and here's the breakdown by UK council area, the panes are swipeable, as needed, of course.

All very handy to have on the phone, then. Even if it runs Windows 10 Mobile and the Edge browser.

So... the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra is in for review. With 108MP giant main sensor and 9-to-1 oversampling. Sound familiar? And then there's the use of PureView-like smart cropping to provide zoom on both the main and telephoto systems. Loads of Lumia similarities, even if the tech is much faster now, and I couldn't decide which Lumia to do the comparison against. So I picked both of them, the 1020 and 950. And threw in the champion iPhone 11 Pro for good measure!

Note the sub-title of this feature, mind you. With such stellar imaging candidates, there's zero point in doing sunny scenes or well-lit arenas. They can all cope just fine. What's needed are tough lighting conditions and tough zoom subjects. The idea being that if the phone cameras can cope with these examples, then they can cope with anything else you throw at them.

As to why I'm including a Lumia from 2013 and one from 2015 into the mix with current day flagships, it's because these were classic 'PureView' Lumias and benchmarks that most readers will be familiar with. As to what I expect from all this - I think the Galaxy S20 Ultra will win out overall because of my using multiple zoom test cases, and zoom is what it does best. I think the iPhone 11 Pro will be shortly behind, with its beautifully balanced cameras, including a real telephoto. With the two Lumias trailing, though not by the margin you'd expect from the age differences.

Before getting going, note the raw imaging specs of the four contenders:

With the S20 Ultra being the new device here, plus also having some PureView-esque features, it's worth noting a few things:

• The main 108MP sensor is nona-binned, i.e. 9 pixels averaged to one, reducing noise and uncertainty. It's less sophisticated than the original Nokia PureView vision, but the effect will be along similar lines.
• Zoom up to 3.9x is handled by this main sensor, in lossless PureView fashion up to about 3x and then with a little software after that.
• Zoom at 4x is handled by the periscope telephoto lens and then losslessly with PureView smart cropping into the 48MP sensor up to 5x.
• Zoom after 5x becomes 'hybrid' in that zoom is part optical, part smart cropping, and part software interpolation. And part with extra data from the centre of the main 108MP lens, it seems (I could notice a slight difference). Samsung claims that 10x zoom is essentially lossless, but that's not really true. But 10x results are certainly useable. Just don't put too much store in the 30x and 100x zoom claims!

On with my tests then. Looking, as usual, at the pixel level, with 1:1 crops, so that we can see what's going on in terms of sensor and algorithm quality.

Test 1: UK gloom

No, not gloom over the Coronavirus, but gloom in terms of weather. No sun was available, setting the tone for a challenging set of tests for these camera phones. Here's the overall shot:

And now here are central 1:1 crops from, in order, the Lumia 1020, the Lumia 950, (and possibly on a second row of two if you're viewing this on a desktop) the iPhone 11 Pro, and the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. Click any of the device names to download the original JPG (or HEIC) file, should you wish to do your own analysis:

Of the four crops, the Lumia 1020 photo looks by far to be the most natural, the one which could amost be a view through a window into the real world. The others have varying degrees of extra sharpening. Then again, the 1020 has lower output resolution and so some details are lost, with the 950 producing the most solid colours and textures, albeit with a yellowing cast, as usual. While I'd put the iPhone and S20 Ultra's shots are roughly equivalent, in terms of sharpening, saturation, etc.

Scores: Lumia 1020: 9 pts; Lumia 950: 8 pts; iPhone 11 Pro: 7 pts; Galaxy S20 Ultra: 7 pts

Test 2: Same gloom, zoomed

With max 2.5x zoom on the 1020, roughly 2x on the 950, 2x telephoto on the iPhone 11 Pro, and the default 5x on the Galaxy S20 Ultra. Here are central 1:1 crops from the zoomed shots of the Lumia 1020, the Lumia 950, the iPhone 11 Pro, and the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. Click any of the device names to download the original JPG (or HEIC) file, should you wish to do your own analysis:

With the challenging light and zoom requirement, differences are starting to emerge. The S20 Ultra is clearly best here, with clear detail - and larger, thanks to the genuine 5x zoom - look at the white and yellow flowers, the only camera phone to resolve these properly. The iPhone 11 Pro follows, though with some colour inaccuracies and, of course, a much lower zoom factor. While the Lumia 950 shows how rubbish it is at zooming once again, the zoom algorithms aren't at all good. The Lumia 1020 does much better, with natural results again, despite the loss of PureView oversampling (because the smart cropping is 'all the way in'), but it does make a complete mess of the exposure on the white flowers and has generally poor dynamic range.

Scores: Lumia 1020: 7 pts; Lumia 950: 6 pts; iPhone 11 Pro: 8 pts; Galaxy S20 Ultra: 10 pts

Test 3: Evening landscape

Deep dusk then, by a picturesque (and floodlit) church. Always a favourite subject. Here are central 1:1 crops from the Lumia 1020, the Lumia 950, the iPhone 11 Pro, and the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. Click any of the device names to download the original JPG (or HEIC) file, should you wish to do your own analysis:

Now here we have a battle - all the shots are pretty darned good - do look at the full versions if you have the time. Each manages to keep noise right down and would have won any camera shootout from the last decade. Having said that, the slight extra resolution of the newer devices, together with more processing power does mean that more texture is visible, for example on the stonework, as you can verify above.

Very impressive from the newer devices anyway, especially the S20 Ultra and its nona-binning.

Scores: Lumia 1020: 7 pts; Lumia 950: 8 pts; iPhone 11 Pro: 9 pts; Galaxy S20 Ultra: 10 pts

Test 4: Dusk, zoomed!

Again using appropriate zoom, here are central 1:1 crops from the zoomed shots of the Lumia 1020, the Lumia 950, the iPhone 11 Pro, and the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. Click any of the device names to download the original JPG (or HEIC) file, should you wish to do your own analysis:

There are multiple factors here - with the newer phones, and especially the S20 Ultra producing dramatically more detail (more zoom) and greater clarity. The Lumia 950, in particular, is rather horrible in its capture - again, zoom and the 950 never go together well. The Lumia 1020's shot is OK for a few years ago, but with no PureView oversampling in play when zoomed, the resulting shot lacks purity and clarity compared to the main contenders here.

However, although the S20 Ultra has a zoom and detail advantage over the iPhone 11 Pro, it also gets the colours wrong, with the lit stonework here appearing almost pink, while the iPhone nails the scene in every way. So it all evens out. A score draw!

Scores: Lumia 1020: 7 pts; Lumia 950: 5 pts; iPhone 11 Pro: 9 pts; Galaxy S20 Ultra: 9 pts

Test 5: Dead of night

A village junction, with some handy signs to focus on and examine for detail. Here's the overall shot:

And now here are central 1:1 crops from the Lumia 1020, the Lumia 950, the iPhone 11 Pro, and the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. Click any of the device names to download the original JPG (or HEIC) file, should you wish to do your own analysis:

It's amazing how the cutting edge in low light shots from phones has changed over the years. The Lumia 1020 was the champion of the world for several years, then the Lumia 950 and, while the latter is still looking pretty pure and with commendable detail, the iPhone 11 Pro's automatic use of 'night mode' frame combination produces an astonishingly clear photo. And remember that everything on this page is handheld, however low the light. You can even read the sign besides the door: 'THE OLD POLICE HOUSE'. 

The new S20 Ultra does pretty well, especially with a mere 1/25s exposure, though again there's a bit of a red tinge - I've a feeling that software updates are needed to fix little things like this.

Scores: Lumia 1020: 7 pts; Lumia 950: 8 pts; iPhone 11 Pro: 10 pts; Galaxy S20 Ultra: 9 pts

Test 6: Signs again, zoomed!

It's zoom time again - got to exercise that S20 Ultra!! Here are central 1:1 crops from the zoomed shots of the Lumia 1020, the Lumia 950, the iPhone 11 Pro, and the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. Click any of the device names to download the original JPG (or HEIC) file, should you wish to do your own analysis:

The Lumias do pretty well, though the 1020 has no oversampling when zoomed, so there's a certain err.... uncertainness to its pixels. The 950 does better, thanks to a much larger aperture and a bit of sharpening. The iPhone 11 Pro again wins out, this time without needing go to a 'Night' mode (even an automatic one), so this is a single exposure. With some noise, but hey, look at the detail being resolved and useable. 

The S20 Ultra's periscope zoom system does trip up here, and it's not the lens's fault (I shot this one at 4x zoom, so using the optics and the full 48MP zoom sensor) - it's the software generating artefacts from noise, rather than recognising it as such as dealing with it properly. Again, an update will no doubt improve this, eh, Samsung?

Scores: Lumia 1020: 7 pts; Lumia 950: 8 pts; iPhone 11 Pro: 9 pts; Galaxy S20 Ultra: 7 pts

Test 7: Crazy dark

This was just an impulsive shot, a close-up of a small (old) photo of my dad in his youth. The photo is laid on my bed at night, with just a street lamp shining through curtains to add any visibility whatsoever. With my naked - and night-adjusted - eyes (don't worry, the rest of me was clothed!), I couldn't see any details on the photo at all! Here's the overall shot, made MUCH lighter by the Lumia 950 than the room really was:

And now here are central 1:1 crops from the Lumia 1020, the Lumia 950, the iPhone 11 Pro, and the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. Click any of the device names to download the original JPG (or HEIC) file, should you wish to do your own analysis:

As I say, a crazy test and I'm not surprised that two of my test phones gave up the ghost! The Lumia 1020 just couldn't get the focus and exposure right - in the end I dropped to manual mode just to get the dim image above. In fairness, what it produced was about what my eyes could see, so it accurately reflected reality!

The Lumia 950 did its usual trick of seeing in the dark and worked wonder here, without the pixel-level noise being too silly. The iPhone 11 Pro does its multi-second auto night mode trick and as a result the photo almost looks like it was taken in the daytime, with just some noise to give the game away. Impressive, though.

While the S20 Ultra gave up. I took about half a dozen shots, trying to get it to focus and expose properly and just couldn't get there. In fairness, again, the S20 Ultra's lens is larger than even the 1020's and so there are physics limits to how close it can focus. Plus I didn't have time to go into Pro mode and play with manual focussing, since the sun was about to rise and ruin the light comparison.

So I'm going to be kind in the scoring. The test wasn't very applicable in real world snaps!

Scores: Lumia 1020: 6 pts; Lumia 950: 8 pts; iPhone 11 Pro: 9 pts; Galaxy S20 Ultra: 6 pts

Verdict

Adding up the scores, we get:

1. Apple iPhone 11 Pro: 61 pts
2. Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra: 58 pts
3. Lumia 950: 51 pts
4. Lumia 1020: 50 pts

Which didn't quite go as I expected, then. The iPhone's superbly balanced main and telephoto cameras, allied to restrained processing, and an incredible auto-night mode, add up to a win over the newer S20 Ultra, even though zoom was tested multiple times above. The Samsung clearly needs work on its algorithms, in terms of noise reduction and colour balance, though at least the terrible over-sharpening seen in my S20 comparison isn't evident here - probably because that's mainly used in bright light.

The Lumia 950 and 1020 have been vying for wins ever since the start in 2015, so I'm not surprised these came out about equal. Though do note that the 1020 is currently crippled in that it can only be viable under Windows 10 Mobile, where the camera launch delay is massive. Sadly.

As yet further evidence that the iPhone 11 Pro has been the cream of the imaging crop for the last six months, it's also what I've been using personally most of the time. And in terms of imaging it's utterly rock solid and hard to take a bad photo with. In fact, I'd say it's impossible. So if you came here looking for Lumia replacements then the S20 Ultra isn't quite there yet, the standard S20 is too compromised, but the 11 Pro (and Pro Max) is ready for use and a superb snapper.

One common thread in my head-to-heads here on AAWP is that the option of going to Android isn't appealing because of privacy concerns - of Google knowing too much about us. While I'm not that paranoid, I understand the mind set and - here - present perhaps the perfect smartphone for someone worried about Google. This is a top spec Android flagship that doesn't use Google services at all. Thanks to Trump in the USA and a spat with China, of course, but anti-Google buyers benefit (perhaps). As a bonus, you get perhaps the best camera system ever put into a phone. Ever.

Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro

As usual, just for fun and curiosity, I've shaded in green an obvious 'win' for either device. Any row where a winner would be totally subjective is left uncoloured. Or, where all devices are utterly excellent but in different ways, I've given each a 'green'(!)

[By the way, if you're viewing this feature on a phone then the table may well cause you problems. Try viewing in landscape mode? Failing that, go view this on a laptop or tablet!]

Verdict

Adding up the green 'wins' (for fun?!) gives a 11-8 win to the much newer device, a much closer result than for other recent flagships, thanks to the independence of Huawei now from the might of Google's apps and services. All of a sudden I'm comparing a smartphone which never had that many apps and services in the first place (the Lumia) with one that has similarly few, but for totally different reasons. In theory, you can still sideload most Google items onto the P40 Pro, but I don't see why anyone would - the whole POINT of choosing to buy this is to avoid Google, etc.

Your comments welcome.

Especially for the Google-wary among you, following my detailed head to head between the Lumia 950 XL and the new Huawei P40 Pro, here's an imaging comparison too, looking at image quality across a wide range of subjects, and including zoom too. The P40 Pro is touted by some as the best camera phone ever made. So it should be a dead cert to win here - but how will the classic Lumia fare?

Let's start with a few specs, obviously favouring the far newer device, but worth noting anyway:

Huawei's array makes a lot of sense, in terms of getting the most light in, most efficiently (those RYYB sensors), and in getting up to a very useable 10x hybrid zoom, while also having a wide angle system that can focus (unusual). The only weaknesses I can spot are what happens between zoom of about 3x and 4.9x, and a general worry that Huawei will have overdone the edge enhancement for the nth year in a row...

Anyway, on with the tests. Can Microsoft's 2015 Lumia flagship/camera champion get close to the 'state of the art' in Android high end imaging in 2020, almost half a decade later?

Notes:

• I've shot at the default output resolutions on each, leaving headroom for some lossless 'PureView' zoom into the sensors, where appropriate, and also getting the advantages of oversampling and noise reduction. 
  
• The field of view of the various cameras compared is different, so 1:1 crops won't always show exactly the same framing.
• As usual, I've deliberately thrown in mainly tricky shots in the scene selection, to test the USPs here, all photos were taken on full auto and handheld, as a regular user would do. No tripods or RAW editing sessions needed!

Let's pit the results against each other, using our Famed Interactive Comparator (FIC). All 1:1 crops are at 900x500 for comparison, though I've put up the originals on my own server, for you to download if you want to do your own analysis.

Test 1: Sunny landscape

Suburbia. CoronaVirus means I can't walk far from my house! Here is the overall scene, from the Lumia 950:

You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro, for your own analysis.

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, from the Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

A win for the Lumia 950 XL, I think, with more natural details at the pixel level. The P40 Pro does well, but there's more sharpening and everything looks more artificial. There's a very slight (and typical) yellow cast on the Lumia shot, but it's not enough to stop it winning by a point here.

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL: 10 pts; Huawei P40 Pro: 9 pts

Test 2: Sunny landscape, zoomed x3

The same scene, but zoomed by 3x. This is the most common zoom factor used by people in real life, even though it falls outside the Lumia's zoom range and is way less than that needed to kick in the 5x optical zoom of the P40 Pro.

You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro, for your own analysis.

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops from the zoomed shots, from the Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

The Lumia's traditionally terrible digital zoom (beyond 1.5x, the PureView limit) lets it down here, with blocky details and artefacts galore. Meanwhile the P40 Pro gets to 2x with PureView smart-cropping and then has better digital 'interpolative' zoom to take it to 3x. As a result, the photo looks slightly murky in terms of details, but it's significantly better than the Lumia's. As expected.

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL: 7 pts; Huawei P40 Pro: 9 pts

Test 3: Sunny landscape, zoomed x5

The same scene, but zoomed by 5x, i.e. playing into the P40 Pro's strong suit, that 5x periscope optical zoom. The Lumia can't improve on its 3x result (already degraded), but is provided here in the comparator anyway.

You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro, for your own analysis.

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops from the zoomed shots, from the Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

Enormously impressive to have a really good 5x zoom in something as slim as a phone, of course. Here, you can see small defects in the mortar and (almost) blades of grass. Plus the paving of the path too. Amazingly good, and also thanks to the P40 Pro's RYYB sensor and OIS, though remember a) that zoom in good light conditions is always going to be good and that things may degrade in lower light, and b) there are limited opportunities for 5x zoom in real life. Try it in your own homes and gardens, try it at social occasions (when we're all allowed out again!) and you'll see that 5x is too much most of the time. Hence my comments above about 3x zoom.

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL: 5 pts; Huawei P40 Pro: 10 pts

Test 4: Arty close-up, into the sun

I couldn't resist this shot, into unseasonal sun in the UK. Both shots here are scaled for the web comparator, but you can grab the original photos from the Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro, for your own analysis.

To look at the images in more detail here, scaled from the Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

The Lumia 950 XL does very well to keep light under control, but the P40 Pro version is stunning in its HDR capability, yet without making the shot artificial. The detail, the colour, just spectacular.

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL: 8 pts; Huawei P40 Pro: 10 pts

Test 5: Portrait time

Again, CoronaVirus means I can't walk far from my house, so here's a simple 'portrait' shot in the garden, daughter at the controls of each phone. The Lumia doesn't have a dedicated portrait mode, mind you. But the Huawei P40 Pro has to slum it in this department with constructing fake bokeh from the main lens and the ultra-wide (portrait shots on other phones typically use the main and telephoto), along with some help from the 'TOF' (Time Of Flight) low-res sensor. So neither are perfect, but we had a go anyway, adjusting framing to be similar and then a little scaling and cropping, for direct comparison here. 

You can grab slightly scaled versions (trying to match framing) f the original photos from the Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro, for your own analysis.

To look at the images in more detail here, here are appropriate 1:1 crops of the original scaled images, from the Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

Both photos are decent enough - the Lumia gives me skin that's way too tanned/orange - as usual, while I'm too pale in the Huawei shot! Focussing is better on the P40 Pro, naturally, plus the bokeh 'shallow depth of field' effect is pretty good, I can't see any glaring pixel-level edge errors. We had to fiddle around a little with shooting distance but the P40 Pro got there in the end. Not perfect, but pretty darned good.

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL: 7 pts; Huawei P40 Pro: 9 pts

Test 6: Sunny macro

Somy tiny pink flowers, as close as the phones could focus. And yes, I know the P40 Pro has an ultra-wide lens, but I'm trying to compare like with like here! Here is the overall scene, from the Lumia 950:

You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro, for your own analysis.

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, from the Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

The much larger P40 Pro lens and sensor mean that there's way shallower depth of field in its photo, so do look at the original JPG to see what I mean here. As a result, the crop shows a far 'artier' result than the Lumia, though the latter's photo is a lot more realistic and matter of fact. It's tough to penalise the P40 Pro too much though - I'm all for finding beauty in nature!

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL: 9 pts; Huawei P40 Pro: 9 pts

Test 7: Nature fractals(!)

Shooting nature, in all its intricate complexity, is always a good test of a camera phone. Here is the overall scene, from the Lumia 950:

You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro, for your own analysis.

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, from the Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

As you can see, the Huawei device struggles here, with the extra edge enhancement affecting the finer details, at least if you look closely. Although it's tempting to look at the background as examples of over-use of edge enhancement again - and there's a case to be made that this is what's happening, remember again that there's shallower depth of field on the much larger lens, so indistinctness in the background can at least be partly put down to it not being in the main focal plane.

The Lumia 950 XL produces a perfect shot, I'd say, by comparison.

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL: 10 pts; Huawei P40 Pro: 9 pts

Test 8: Nature fractals, zoomed x2

The same scene but with some gentle zoom to get closer to the shoots of interest. You can grab the original (zoomed) photos from the Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro, for your own analysis.

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, from the Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

Things are flipped, then, with 2x zoom. The Lumia is dipping into lossy digital zoom and you can start to see artefacts, while the P40 Pro is at the PureView lossless limit, i.e. at 1:1 on the sensor and shows full detail. Exposure and dynamic range suffer here, but this is a win for the Huawei and its newer arrangement.

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL: 8 pts; Huawei P40 Pro: 9 pts

Test 9: Deep shadow

Looking at the ability of the phone cameras to pick out detail (the house sign) in deep shadow, i.e. handle extremes of light. Here is the overall scene, from the Lumia 950:

You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro, for your own analysis.

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, from the Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

A hat tip to the P40 Pro here for not over-exposing the sunlit bricks by the sign. But both phones do very well here overall.

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL: 9 pts; Huawei P40 Pro: 10 pts

Test 10: Deep shadow, zoomed x5

The same scene but with some full/maximum zoom to get closer to the sign in the shadow. Now, the Lumia doesn't go up to 5x (sensibly), so I've simply gone as far as the UI lets me! You can grab the original (zoomed) photos from the Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro, for your own analysis.

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, from the Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

Not surprisingly, the P40 Pro triumphs by a massive margin. A 5x optical zoom mechanism does 5x zoom very well - who knew?(!) That it's stabilised and a RYYB sensor both help too, in bringing 5x and above zoom to the smartphone, though again I have to sound a note of caution that if I'd wanted (say) 4.5x zoom then its results would have been fairly rubbish, since it would still have been lossy zoom on the main sensor. So it all depends on what you want to capture!

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL: 4 pts; Huawei P40 Pro: 10 pts

Test 11: Dusk landscape

Night is falling, here is the overall scene, from the Lumia 950 but deliberately adjusted for presentation here to show you how dim it was to my eyes:

You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro, for your own analysis. Note that in each case, I was interested in resolving detail on the clock, so I tapped to set exposure on that.

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, from the Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

Interestingly, the P40 Pro's shot shows a reddish tint that's not there in real life, and also mirrors the red tint that came in when testing the Samsung 2020 phones last month. What is it about modern sensors and red? The extra brightness and difference in field of view give the impression of more detail in the P40 Pro shot, but if you look closely then the 950 XL has just as much real detail, with less enhancement. And perfect colouration. For a change, given the Lumia's other traits!

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL: 9 pts; Huawei P40 Pro: 8 pts

Test 12: Night time!

Suburbia at night. Here is the overall scene, from the Lumia 950:

You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro, for your own analysis.

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, from the Lumia 950 XL and Huawei P40 Pro, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

Now this is interesting - which would you pick as the better photo, judging from the crops? The P40 Pro shot is brighter and has greater contrast, but it's also muddied by edge enhancement and noise reduction causing smaller details to be missed. For example, look at the big green push to the right of the garage door in the crop. But I accept that these fine tuning aspects of night scenes are also down to personal preference. I much prefer the Lumia's details and it gets the win here.

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL: 9 pts; Huawei P40 Pro: 7 pts

Verdict

For the record, the scores add up as:

1. Huawei P40 Pro (2020): 109 pts (/120)
2. Lumia 950 XL (late 2015): 94 pts 

A significant victory for the P40 Pro, mainly on the back of decent 2x and stunning 5x zoom. You still won't quite get the purity you get from unzoomed Lumia shots, but there's a LOT of compensation in terms of extra modes and zoom/wide possibilities.

With the P40 Pro unable to use Google services, there are precisely two reasons to buy one - and they work together. First is if you're fearful of Google knowing too much about you - this is an Android phone that Google has zero knowledge of and with zero access to your data and whereabouts. Secondly, if you're coming from the world of Lumia and good imaging then, as suggested here, you also don't have to compromise too much in that department.

One of the Nokia 1020's architects, Eero Salmelin, has been head of imaging at Huawei for some years now, so it's not at all surprising that some of the computational ideas from the 1020 are bearing fruit now. OK, so PureView oversampling from a RGB sensor has been replaced by Quad Bayer pixel binning from a RYYB sensor, but beyond that there's so much else that's made possible by more modern imaging technology, including whole sensor PDAF, OIS on a 1/1.28" sensor's lens stack, periscope telephoto lens systems, and so on. But can the newer device match Eero's seven year old classic for day to day shots?

Let's start with a few specs, obviously favouring the far newer device, but worth noting anyway:

Huawei's array makes a lot of sense, in terms of getting the most light in, most efficiently (those RYYB sensors), and in getting up to a very useable 10x hybrid zoom, while also having a wide angle system that can focus (unusual). The only weaknesses I can spot are what happens between zoom of about 3x and 4.9x, and a general worry that Huawei will have overdone the edge enhancement for the nth year in a row...

Anyway, on with the tests. Can Eero's original 2013 classic get close to the 'state of the art' in Android high end imaging in 2020, seven YEARS later?

Notes:

• I've shot at the default output resolutions on each, leaving headroom for lossless 'PureView' zoom into the sensors, where appropriate, and also getting the advantages of oversampling and noise reduction. 
  
• The field of view and resolution of the various cameras compared is different across the board, so 1:1 crops won't always show exactly the same framing. Deal with it(!)
• All photos were taken on full auto and handheld, as a regular user would do. No tripods or RAW editing sessions needed!

Let's pit the results against each other, using our Famed Interactive Comparator (FIC). All 1:1 crops are at 900x500 for comparison, though I've put up the originals on my own server, for you to download if you want to do your own analysis.

Test 1: Sunny landscape

A local pub, lit in the sun. CoronaVirus means the pub is closed, but hey! Here is the overall scene:

You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 1020 and Huawei P40 Pro, for your own analysis. See the note below concerning the P40 Pro image though!!

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, from the Lumia 1020 and Huawei P40 Pro, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

Ah yes. I blame COVID-19. I shot this on the way back from an essential errand (delivering face mask parts, if you must know) and then returned home, as advised by the government. Which means that I then discovered that the P40 Pro had DEFAULTED to the wide angle lens! It's done this several times now, in fact and has caught me out each time. It's not the app remembering the last mode used, it just does it seemingly at random. Maybe the 'AI' (deliberately enabled) detects the subject and wants to try and fit it all in? It's possible. All very odd, and not a showstopper for the man in the street, as the wide angle JPG (linked above) is indeed very good, spoiled only by the extra edge enhancement you can see here.

Making scoring this a little awkward. The 1020's shot is 100% perfect. But I can't knock too much off the P40 Pro, despite the details being sub-par. 

Microsoft Lumia 1020: 10 pts; Huawei P40 Pro: 8 pts

Test 2: Sunny landscape, x2 zoom

OK, so I was paying attention to the zoom factor this time! 2x zoom on the P40 Pro, maximum zoom (2.5x) on the Lumia 1020, which is outputting at lower resolution, so this should match up well. You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 1020 and Huawei P40 Pro, for your own analysis.

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, from the Lumia 1020 and Huawei P40 Pro, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

I'd expect the results here to be similar, since both are smart-cropping down from a similar size/resolution main sensor - think of the P40 Pro's main sensor as a descendant of the 1020's here. And yes, the photos are very comparable, with just extra sharpening in the Huawei algorithms to make the image 'pop' more. Me, I'm never a sharpening fan, since you can add that later, but Huawei seems to mandate it, so...

Microsoft Lumia 1020: 9 pts; Huawei P40 Pro: 9 pts

Test 3: Showing off with 5x zoom

The same scene again, but this time matching the 1020's output against the 5x periscope zoom optics of the P40 Pro. You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 1020 and Huawei P40 Pro, for your own analysis.

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, from the Lumia 1020 and Huawei P40 Pro, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

Dramatically different results, as you'd expect. The RYYB sensor behind that 5x telephoto periscope is quite something. Outstanding zoom results.

Microsoft Lumia 1020: 7 pts; Huawei P40 Pro: 10 pts

Test 4: Ultimate zoom

This cellphone aerial set-up, lit by the late afternoon sun, is very high up and zoom is the only way to resolve details. Consider this an ultimate zoom test. Here is the overall scene:

I then zoomed in by maximum (2.5x) on the 1020 and 5x on the P40 Pro. You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 1020 and Huawei P40 Pro, for your own analysis. 

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, from the Lumia 1020 and Huawei P40 Pro, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

The Lumia 1020 shot is stunning, especially for a 2013 phone - it's detailed and pure (despite the zoom) and it's hard to knock it any points. But this is again about zoom, so the P40 Pro has to win with its stunning 5x periscope zoom system. Look at the detail below, consider that it was shot on a phone. And then marvel that the 10 hybrid (software) zoom is also a possibility if more were needed. Very impressive, Huawei.

Microsoft Lumia 1020: 8 pts; Huawei P40 Pro: 10 pts

Test 5: Delicate detail

Some white blossom, lit by the sun, shot at about 15cm. You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 1020 and Huawei P40 Pro, for your own analysis.

To easily compare the images (a 1:1 crop would be just too close!), I've scaled them down from the Lumia 1020 and Huawei P40 Pro, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

Although the P40 Pro does well here, it's becoming apparent that the large aperture and large sensor mean that the depth of field for close-up subjects is so small that part of the subject is often lost in terms of focus. The same is true, incidentally, of the also new Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, which I tested here. Modern phone cameras are now getting so powerful that they're in danger of losing detail for casual snappers. As here. The Lumia 1020 is of an older generation and its f/2.2 aperture means plenty of depth of field to capture the whole blossom.

Who'd have thought it? I think Samsung had it right a couple of years ago with dual aperture main cameras. So in the sun, as here, it would use the f/2.4 aperture and get the shot right. Huawei, this needs a rethink. Methinks(!) See also the example below, which is even worse.

Microsoft Lumia 1020: 10 pts; Huawei P40 Pro: 8 pts

Test 6: Delicate detail, take 2

Shot again up close, another real world data point, and I gave each phone three tries at this and took the best, at least as far as I could make out from on-screen focus confirmation. You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 1020 and Huawei P40 Pro, for your own analysis.

To easily compare the images (a 1:1 crop would be just too close!), I've again scaled them down from the Lumia 1020 and Huawei P40 Pro, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

The P40 Pro fares even worse this time, it's not exactly clear where it thought the point of focus was in this real world 3D object - but the results (this was one of three attempts) are disappointing. Thinking back, I should perhaps have tried moving further away and using smart-crop zoom, as I used to do on the old Nokia 808. But then again, the 1020 was never renowned for macro shots like this and it producing a good photo here, so...

Being super-picky, the 1020 did, in fairness, blow out the dandelion edges, its dynamic range is not as good as modern multi-exposure HDR phone cameras.

Microsoft Lumia 1020: 9 pts; Huawei P40 Pro: 6 pts

Test 7: Nature's complexity

Again with my subjects limited by COVID-19, but it is what it is. I always like to see how phone cameras handle the amazing delicacy of nature, especially against a pure blue sky here. I'm looking for artefacts and artificial edges, in particular. Here is the overall scene:

You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 1020 and Huawei P40 Pro, for your own analysis. 

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, from the Lumia 1020 and Huawei P40 Pro, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

Despite field of view and resolution differences, you can see that the P40 Pro doesn't do too badly here, but there are definitely thicker edges to natural detail. It's that slightly-out-of-focus, slightly artificial look that I've complained about in many phones in the last few years. By comparison, your own eyes will be able to see the masterclass in PureView detail that is the Lumia 1020. Maximum points.

Microsoft Lumia 1020: 10 pts; Huawei P40 Pro: 8 pts

Test 8: Night time

My standard dead of night test. Back in 2013, most phone cameras simply couldn't capture this scene at all - you'd get a black rectangle. And in that age, the 1020 was the king. But things have moved on. Here is the overall scene (from the 1020, pretty accurate, though it did manage to lighten up the sky, to my eyes):

You can grab the original photos from the Lumia 1020 and Huawei P40 Pro, for your own analysis.

To look at the images in more detail here, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, from the Lumia 1020 and Huawei P40 Pro, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

Dramatically lighter and with more detail, and it's notable that this was without using the dedicated 'Night' mode on the P40 Pro. I did test that, but it didn't improve things further, it just made the shot more artificial. In fact, there's so much detail in this night shot that I thought to artificially blur out the number plate in the silver van, for privacy reasons, i.e. you could read it clearly even at 80m, at night (albeit under a LED street light).

The 1020's shot is still more accurate in terms of light levels, but it also has a lot of noise, and (despite ball bearing OIS, a BSI sensor, and PureView oversampling) clearly belongs to a different era in terms of light imaging.

Microsoft Lumia 1020: 7 pts; Huawei P40 Pro: 9 pts

Test 9: Night White

An extra night test, with my white car hard to make out (to the eyes) on the drive, with only my very weak yellowish porch 'night' light to help.

To look at the images in more detail here, here are scaled down versions, from the Lumia 1020 and Huawei P40 Pro, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

Now this is very interesting. The 1020 perhaps gets closest to the scene, according to my night-adjusted eyes, but the P40 Pro correctly shows the car as pure white. Sheer imaging magic, but very impressive. In fact, it's hard to catch the P40 Pro out in low light. That large RYYB sensor is terrific in what it captures.

So the 1020 gets points for real world representation, but the P40 pro gets the win for capturing colours that it has no right to!

Microsoft Lumia 1020: 7 pts; Huawei P40 Pro: 9 pts

Verdict

For the record, the scores add up as:

Lumia 1020 (2013): 77 pts (/90)

Huawei P40 Pro (2020): 77 pts 

Now, wait, stop with the hate mail. The Lumia 1020 may have levelled this set of tests, against all expectations, and yes, the 1020 is still the king of the world for DSLR-like ultra-pure phone shots. But the 1020's so unsupported now that, even hacked to run Windows 10 Mobile, the Lumia Camera application takes over 10 seconds to launch! For this reason alone, it's not a practical solution in terms of a day to day phone anymore. 

But it's still a data point for AAWP readers, and in my opinion the pinnacle of Nokia's PureView excellence in terms of image quality (the Nokia 808 was 'purer', but you also needed to carry around a tripod for best results!!) You'll probably agree. And also agree that it still zooms very well, and even - here - shoots macros superbly. If only we had a modern software solution that had the 1020's algorithms.

The P40 Pro would have won outright, of course, if I'd experimented more with how to shoot macro subjects; and if I'd known to double check the AI hadn't enabled wide-angle mode for landscapes. These things take time and experience and users with the phone will no doubt acquire this as they go. I wondered whether to go out a second time and re-shoot the P40 Pro images with the benefit of hindsight, but my experiences above will be typical for new users, so I've left them as is. It's not as if I'm recommending anyone to go out and buy a 1020 in 2020!!

From my previous conclusion, though, with the P40 Pro unable to use Google services, there are precisely two reasons to buy one - and they work together. First is if you're fearful of Google knowing too much about you - this is an Android phone that Google has zero knowledge of and with zero access to your data and whereabouts. Secondly, if you're coming from the world of Lumia and good imaging then, as suggested here, you also don't have to compromise too much in that department.

PS. For someone who wants to stay within the Google world, there are still plenty of decent modern imaging choices. Although not having quite the same zoom performance, I'd recommend the iPhone 11 Pro and the Google Pixel 4, for starters.