Nokia Lumia 1520 is here: first quad-core, Full HD, 20 MP Windows Phone flaunts record four mics

All the good things we heard about it turned out real, and then some, but the handset also marks a watershed moment for Windows Phones, as it ushers them in the world of quad-cores and huge 1080p screens, which has been an Android domain so far. 

Let's recap what Nokia just unveiled:

Lumia 1520 is as svelte as a 6" phablet goes at 162.8 x 85.4 x 8.7 mm, and the weight is clocked at 209g for the global release, as it will have a wireless charging coil built in. The phone will come painted in black, white, red and yellow, but more colors might be in store for it down the road, considering the polycarbonate nature of its shell.

Nokia has thankfully added a microSD card slot for storage expansions, which is a good idea for a big screen phone, on which you are likely to keep many videos for watching on the go, plus the phone's PureView camera might entice you to make footage more often than usual. As for the SIM card, it is of the nano SIM variety, so we'd better get used to that format.

Specs

Screen resolution of the 6" display is expectedly 1080x1920 pixels Full HD LCD screen, or 367pi pixel density at your disposal, allowing for an additional third row of Live Tiles for the first time in Windows Phone. The panel carries a PureMotion HD+ technology, which, coupled with Nokia's ClearBlack filter and sunlight readability tech, means we will have a bright screen with excellent contrast and reflectivity ratios, great viewing angles, vivid colors and ultra fast refresh rates.

The blazing processor running the whole show is a quad-core Snapdragon 800, clocked at the respectable 2.2 GHz, which makes the Lumia 1520 the most powerful Windows Phone ever, coupled with its 2 GB of RAM, and the first quad-core Windows Phone to boot.

A beefy 3400 mAh battery is pegged to keep the Windows Phone 8.1 lights on, which is on the high side, even for a phablet, and allows for some stellar endurance, especially in terms of talk time (25 hours) and video playback (11 hours). As any self-respecting smartphone with Snapdragon 800 chipset, the phone is to support most 4G/LTE networks you can think of, too, plus NFC, A-GPS+GLONASS, WLAN, (2.4/5Ghz) a/b/g/n/ac, μUSB,  and BT 4.0 LE, of course.

20.7 MP PureView camera

We've arrived to the exclusive part of Nokia's first phablet, namely the unique 20.7 MP camera with Carl Zeiss lens, improved Panorama and optical image stabilization. These specs alone make it the best camera on a phablet, but since the sensor is a scaled down version of the 41 MP monster in the Lumia 1020, it will also offer 2x lossless zoom in stills mode, and 4x for HD video capture.

The maximum usable resolution is 18 MP in 4:3 aspect ratio, meaning we will be getting an oval sensor like in the 1020 flagship. The dual capture mode will bring 5 MP images in automatic mode with the pixel-binning technology that combines the information of four or more pixels into a "perfect" one. A full 16 MP wide aspect mode is also available, meant for for the ultimate detail capture.

There is a new Nokia Camera app that combines all the ragtag Lumia camera modes so far, with improved saturation and other settings, so we are getting exclusives on the software side of things with the phone as well. There is also the new Storyteller app, which combines the HERE mapping capabilities with your photos and videos, creating a seamless story for you wherever you've been. Last but not least, the Lumia 1520 is listed with not one or two but the record four HAAC microphones, meaning that we might have a winner in the sound recording and call quality aspect not only among phablets, but smartphones in general, too.

Price and release date

Pricing and availability? Nokia's stellar phablet should be available next month, but that 6" Full HD display, the quad-core Snapdragon, four HAAC mics, and the 20 MP PureView camera with lossless zoom and OIS are unlikely to come cheap. The phone is expected to command a premium phablet price on an AT&T contract, while confirmed to be costing the flagship-worthy $749 without US carrier subsidies, and that is to be the global version tag as well.