Note on Windows Phone 10 Glance Screen differences between Microsoft Lumia 650 and 950

Today, I got both a Microsoft Lumia 650 and a Lumia 950 in my hands and had a chance to test them both. Equally, the both phones are running the latest Windows Phone 10 operating system. Although you cannot see this from the specifications, there's one subtle (but important) difference in these phones I wanted to talk about: the possibility to see detailed information in the Glance Screen.

The Glance Screen in Windows Phone devices is the black screen shown when the phone is shown when the screen times out, or you press the power button to turn the screen off. By default, it shows the current date and time, but also notification icons, such as the number of unanswered phone calls or text messages. The Glance Screen is different from the Lock Screen, but shares (mostly) the same icons and notifications.

However, this is where the differences between Lumia 650 and 950 are starting to appear. Under system settings, you can find options for the lock screen. This allows you to specify up to five applications that can show icon based notifications (like SMS, Skype, phone, etc.) and one application, that can display detailed information. Most likely, you'd set up the detailed information to be from your (Outlook) calendar.

Now, these same icons set up for the Lock Screen are shown in the Glance Screen. But, the Lumia 650 Glance Screen configuration settings do not let you choose whether you want to display detailed information or not. The option is simply not available on Lumia 650, but it is available on Lumia 950.

Thus, the difference is that on a Lumia 650, you cannot see your calendar events (entries) on the Glance Screen. Instead, you must press the power button to see the Lock Screen, which then displays the calendar (if configured to do so).

Although this isn't mentioned in the specifications, this appears to be a difference between these two phone models. Sounds like a high-end vs. mid-range product differentiation to me.

Hope this helps!