News
First Windows 10 Mobile Device To Hit Shelves Friday
- By Gladys Rama
- November 16, 2015
Windows 10 Mobile has had a much longer incubation period than its desktop counterpart, Windows 10, which was released in late July. However, Microsoft's new mobile OS is expected to see daylight soon.
The Lumia 950, the first Microsoft device with Windows 10 Mobile pre-installed, will hit retail shelves on Friday, with online pre-orders starting on Tuesday. The phone will be available first on AT&T for U.S. customers under its Next plan, with device pricing as follows:
- 30-month plan: $19.97/month
- 24-month plan: $24.96/month
- 20-month plan: $29.95/month
- 2-year commitment: $149.99
Besides Windows 10 features like Continuum, the Edge browser, Cortana, and Windows Hello's iris-scanning capability to unlock the phone, the Lumia 950's specs include:
- 5.2-inch display with 2560x1440 resolution
- 20MP rear-facing camera and 5MP front-facing camera
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor
- 3GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage that's expandable to 200GB with a MicroSD card, and 15GB of free cloud storage via Microsoft OneDrive.
For those still waiting to upgrade their existing Windows Phones to the new Windows 10 Mobile OS, the rollout is expected to begin sometime in December. According to Microsoft's Windows 10 Mobile site, the first devices to receive the update will be the "Lumia 430, Lumia 435, Lumia 532, Lumia 535, Lumia 540, Lumia 635 (1 GB RAM), Lumia 640, Lumia 640 XL, Lumia 735, Lumia 830, and Lumia 930." Other Lumia devices will follow.
Though Microsoft is still issuing pre-release builds of Windows 10 Mobile to Windows Insider testers, the OS is essentially feature-complete. The last pre-release build, build 10581, was released to testers in late October and was mainly focused on refinements to the OS and bug fixes, rather than on delivering new features.
Media reports from earlier this month suggest that an upcoming Windows 10 Mobile build, build 10586, will be the "general release" version of the OS.
About the Author
Gladys Rama (@GladysRama3) is the editor of Redmondmag.com, RCPmag.com and AWSInsider.net, and the editorial director of Converge360.