Nokia Lumia 1020 Review

Introduction:

Finally! Some would vouch that it was a long time coming, especially when the Nokia 808 PureView has been making the rounds since last year, but we finally have that combination of a Windows Phone and PureView camera from Nokia’s camp. Looking back to last fall, we all believed with enough certainty that the Nokia Lumia 920 was going to be it, but alas, that wasn’t the case. Instead, we had to wait until now to finally see the device that hardcore shutterbugs have been itching to behold.

Everyone talks about how bigger is better, right? In the world of cameras, people are sometimes led to believe that higher megapixels would instantly mean that it would produce better results, but as we all know too well, it’s not necessarily the megapixel count that matters when it comes to delivering sharp shots. At first glance, the 41-megapixel PureView camera that the Nokia Lumia 1020 is packing along its rear will garner plenty of raised eyebrows – especially when that figure just sounds insanely high. However, there’s always this invisible fence that in turn makes us cautious, and to an extent, even skeptical about its effectiveness. Well folks, it’s here in the flesh, and it’s gunning to be the class leader in the camera phone category.

The package contains:

• microUSB cable
• Wall Charger
• Lanyard attachment
• Quick Start Guide
• Product Safety and Warranty Guide

Design:

If this looks familiar to you, then you shouldn’t be surprised in the very least, since the Lumia 1020 employs all the characteristic design elements of its predecessor(s). By now, the unibody polycarbonate design of the handset is pretty much expected, but instead of sporting a glossy chassis, it has this strange matte finish to it – making it less prone to smudges and fingerprints. Unfortunately, seeing that it’s packing one hell of a beefy camera in its rear, it’s profile is nowhere as bulimic thin as some of the other flagship devices out there.


Honestly, the hump in its rear makes it a bit awkward holding and using the device at first, but after some adjustment, it doesn’t become too much of a nuisance – albeit, it still feels a bit alien. Sure, it’s top heavy due to all the hardware stuffed into its camera housing, but when we think about a 41-megapixel camera, we’re surprised how light it really is, especially over the 808 PureView. Overall, the handset still has an appealing design seeing that it very much looks like a smartphone first with an impressive camera attached to it – as opposed to being designed as camera first, with the smartphone part being secondary.


Much like other flagship Lumia smartphones, this is packing the same set of buttons and ports around its body – they include the familiar trio of capacitive Windows Phone buttons, microUSB port, 3.5mm headset jack, noise-cancelling mic, standard mic, power button, volume control, and two-level shutter key.


As for the speaker, it’s placed on the lower left corner of the handset – hidden behind the precision cut microdots. Mimicking a point and shoot camera, there’s a spot in the lower right corner that allows us to attach the included lanyard with it, which goes to show that Nokia is really targeting this as a point and shoot replacement.


Without question the star of the show, the Lumia 1020 is most notable for its mind-boggling 41-megapixel PureView camera – you know, that noticeable bulge in the rear. Knowing that it’s the single most prized feature of the handset, Nokia made sure to arm it with some serious technology. For starters, it features a 1/1.5” sensor, which is actually smaller than the 1/1.2” one in the 808 PureView. Now don’t let that fool you, mainly because its size is what helps to keep the Lumia 1020 far more admiring in size than its far cousin. Rounding things out, it also packs along a six-element lens with ZEISS optics, second-gen optical image stabilization (OIS), backside illuminated sensor, 3x lossless zoom, LED flash, and a Xenon flash.


That’s a mouthful, right? Well, there’s even more in the video side of the camera, as it’s able to produce 720p and 1080p videos in different capture rates – 24, 25, and 30 frames per second. If we take a look at that 1080p video recording quality at 24 frames per second, it’s widely garnered in the video world for having that ‘cinematic’ look and feel. All told, the hardware is already proving itself in more ways than none, but as always, it’s not the higher megapixel count of a camera that counts, so we’ll get into more detail later on its quality.

Display:

We really can’t blame Nokia with this one, just because it’s limited to what the Windows Phone 8 platform is able to handle at the moment. Sharing the same exact displays found in the recent Lumia 928 and Lumia 925 models, the handset’s 4.5-inch 768 x 1280 PureMotion HD+ display with ClearBlack technology is beginning to sound stale. At the very least, we want a 1080p display, just to keep it in the same company as other high-end models on the market. Despite the fact that there’s no improvement with this particular display, it’s still pleasant looking with its iridescent color reproduction, deep black color, and wide viewing angles. And at the same time, its resolution is effective enough for us to make out even fine text in the web browser – albeit, it’s obviously not as sharp as the competition.







Interface and Functionality:

Guess what folks? This is a Nokia-made smartphone running Windows Phone 8, which means that the experience is identical to what we’ve seen already on other recent prized Lumias.

You have your homescreen with Live Tiles that are very basic-looking, yet providing live info about relevant things. For example, the Calendar tile will show you your upcoming appointment, while the People tile will display the profile pictures of your contacts.

The Windows Phone 8 main menu is still a simple list of all the applications on your phone, which absolutely isn't the most convenient way of organizing your apps, especially if you have lots of those. Sure, you can always pin the most important ones to the homescreen, but if you do that for too many apps, the homescreen will also start to look as one big app list. At the end of the day, it would be cool if Microsoft comes up with some different main menu layouts as alternatives to the current list view.




Camera:

Taking a glance at today’s flagship smartphones, they’re all packing some fantastic cameras that would easily make them point and shoot replacements. Some emphasize low light performance, while others manage to shine thanks to their exorbitant amount of shooting modes and control. Well folks, you get the best of both worlds with the Nokia Lumia 1020’s 41-megapixel PureView camera, but on top of that, it’s gunning to capture the absolute best details on any camera phone out there. Let’s find out why that’s the case!

Technology:

The Nokia Lumia 1020 actually has a very large by smartphone standards, but it’s still a smaller sensor than the one in the 808 PureView. While the one on the 808 measures 1/1.2” in size, the 1020 has a 1/1.5” sensor. What this means is that you have less space and smaller pixels. Without the oversampling, the physical size of pixels on the Lumia 1020 is 1.12µm compared to the larger 1.34µm on the 808.

Pixels are like buckets, but instead of collecting water, they collect light. The bigger the pixel, the more light it collects, and the more light it collects, the better the images at night time and other situations where light is scarce. At first sight, that means the Lumia 1020 has a slight disadvantage when fared against its older sibling, the 808 PureView. 

The Nokia Lumia 1020 has some key advantages that come with that smaller sensor. The most obvious is the physical size of the device, it’s much slimmer than the chubby 808 PureView. Next, the small size made it possible for Nokia to include optical image stabilization (OIS) that allows for longer exposure times and ultimately better video and low light shots.

Finally, this is not the same sensor as on the 808 PureView. Despite its larger sized, the 808 used front-side illumination, a more primitive camera technology where wires connecting the camera pixels with the phone got in the way of light and stopped some of it. The Lumia 1020 has a modern backside-illuminated (BSI) sensor with those wires not getting in the way, and allowing for the full lightstream to hit the pixels.

Call Quality:

We find only one minor issue in the calling quality department of the handset, its volume output. Specifically, the earpiece and speakerphone sound a tad weak in tone, but the former is remedied by simply applying just a little more pressure against our ear. Voices on both ends of the line are audible enough to conduct conversations for a period of time, with barely any distortion or background noise to muddy the experience. Lastly, its noise cancellation feature kicks in a couple of seconds after it first comes across any disturbances – eventually muting them out.

Battery:

During our first day of using the Nokia Lumia 1020, we were totally shocked by the poor 10 hours of battery life it was able to churn out. However, we soon realized that the culprit behind the poor result was due to Windows Phone’s ‘glance’ feature, which discretely displays the time whenever the handset times out. After disabling it, we’re able to push the smartphone into the 18 hour mark of normal usage. It’s not bad per se, nor is it class leading – so it’s pretty much close to average.

Conclusion:

If you haven’t noticed it yet, we’re a society that inherently loves to record our lives in digital imagery. Naturally, people are just inclined to snap photos, even random things they come across, just because they want to have that memory ingrained into their minds. Ever since the first set of camera phones hit the market, we’ve seen people take their devices to capture the moment – raw and uncut, ready to share with friends and acquaintances.

Needless to say, the Nokia Lumia 1020 would’ve been a device thought to be impossible a couple of years ago, but here we are checking out a smartphone with an insane 41-megapixel camera attached to it – plus, it’s considerably better looking in design than the 808 PureView. Let’s cut to the chase here folks, this is hand down, without question, the absolute best camera phone on the market. It’s undoubtedly a point and shoot replacement in every way imaginable, seeing that it delivers in its features set, quality, and precision control, to capture the utmost best photos. Unlike the 808, the Lumia 1020 greatly benefits with Windows Phone’s always sprawling ecosystem, which at times might put off power users, but heck, it’s still able to please a wide audience.

With so much versatility behind it, like its various shooting modes and useful lossless zoom, it’ll be hard for consumers to not consider this handset. However, its $300 on-contract price point slows its momentum down, seeing that it’s still widely viewed as a pricey thing – and that’s despite the fact that the 32GB iPhone 5 is priced the same. If we had to best describe this, it’s essentially a Nokia Lumia 920 with a 41-megapixel camera. Sounds pretty accurate, right? Camera aside, its specs sheet would make anyone yawn, but that’s why its 41-megapixel PureView camera is the star of the show. We can argue that you can pick up the Lumia 920 and a really good point and shoot camera, which would amount to probably less or near the same cost as the Lumia 1020. But why carry around two devices when you can have the best of both worlds?