Hands on with the engineering handset that helped build Windows 10 Mobile

Microsoft built a monster of a handset so that it could test Windows Phone builds. Here's what it looks like!

Back when Windows 10 Mobile first started development, fans were super excited for what the future held for Windows 10 in your pocket. Believe it or not, Microsoft had high hopes for Windows 10 on phones when it first started working on the platform. Unfortunately, due to developers not adopting UWP fast enough, and Microsoft's rather underwhelming hardware offerings with Windows 10 Mobile, the company ended up abandoning the platform, killing any future plans for Windows 10 on smartphones.

The underwhelming Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL were a real shame, if only because internally, Microsoft was building the platform out with support for much more than what the Lumia 950 series offered. When Windows 10 Mobile development first kicked off, the Lumia 950 didn't exist, so instead Microsoft used an engineering handset called the "RX-130," an odd Frankenstein of a smartphone that incorporated different components from different Lumia handsets, and even had features that the Lumia 950 didn't.

The RX-130 has been briefly spotted in a few on-stage demos that Microsoft did back in 2015 when demoing new Windows 10 Mobile features in development, but outside of that, not much is known about the Frankenstein handset. We've managed to get out hands on an RX-130 handset, and it's not pretty.

The RX-130: What is it?

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