14 DAY TRIAL // With Microsoft pulling the plug on Windows 10 Mobile in December, the existing Windows phones are pretty much only abandoned gadgets, as there’s no reason to keep using them without apps and updates.
But in the meantime, developers in the Windows community are trying to keep Windows phone alive with an implementation that’s different from Microsoft’s.
Instead of improving Windows 10 Mobile, they installed Windows 10 ARM on the Lumia 950 XL in order to create what could be the very first real Windows phone.
Cellular working on Lumia Windows 10 ARM
More recently, developer Gustave Monce managed to resolve one of the biggest challenges of the whole project: enable cellular on a Lumia 950 XL running Windows 10 ARM.
“It happened! Cellular partially works! Just no LTE right now. Thanks to at least 6 people for testing helping and all! Will need to polish everything up now,” he announced in a tweet.
“LTE being broken is currently a roadblock for many 950 XL as the modem will refuse to initialize properly on any LTE capable hardware.”
Needless to say, Windows 10 ARM running on a Lumia 950 XL can breathe new life in this Windows phone and open the door to new capabilities that weren’t actually possible on Windows 10 Mobile.
But at the same time, without any help from Microsoft, the project advances rather slowly, so while Windows phones could live on for a little longer thanks to this exciting port, a Lumia model running Windows 10 ARM still can’t become your daily driver and replace Android or iOS.
For what it’s worth, Microsoft itself recommended Windows 10 Mobile users to switch to Android or iOS, so if you didn’t do it already, you should really begin exploring the two in anticipation of the December end of support.