Nokia Lumia 1020 is all about its camera. Lumia 1020 is defined by its 41MP camera that sports impressive features which cannot be found in any other smartphone. Its a solid build device and also houses an excellent display and good battery life. The performance of the phone is not the best and the odd design of the 1020, makes it difficult for handling- for some. Obviously, Lumia 1020 is made for avid mobile photographers and 'nothing else comes close'.
BUILD / DESIGN
In design, Nokia Lumia 1020 is basically what you expect from any Lumia devices- a polycarbonate unibody with stunning looks and premium feel. What separates Lumia 1020 from its brothers is its back! The large 41MP camera module with the Xenon flash, LED light and camera lens, sticks out of the back of the Lumia 1020 and is the most noticeable part.
Lumia 1020 comes with dimensions of 130.4 x 71.4 x 10.4 mm(10.40mm at its thickest- the camera module area) and weighs 158g. The 10.4mm thickness is not that 'thick', but the fact that the camera module is bulged, makes it difficult for handling- for most people. The back is matte finished and is some-what both fingerprint and dirt resistant, with a special coating. The device comes in yellow, white, black and red(AT&T exclusive) colours.
The front houses a 4.5inch display covered by the Gorilla Glass 3, which protects the display and also covers the full front- perfectly flushed with the edges. The left edge of the device, is clean without any buttons or ports. The right side houses the volume rocker, power/standby button and a dedicated camera button. The bottom edge has the Micro-USB port, loudspeaker and a lanyard slot, while the top has the headphones port, the micro-SIM card tray and another microphone for noise cancellation. The speaker at the bottom edge is one thing that none approves of Lumia 1020- due to its disappointing audio quality.
DISPLAY
The Lumia 1020's 4.5inch display is a 1,280 x 768 pixel(WXGA) AMOLED screen, with a pixel density of 332ppi and Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. Nokia's ClearBlack technology seems to perform well. The display is impressive with good clarity in almost all conditions, excellent contrast, strong colour reproduction and is good looking.
The screen comes with Nokia's super-sensitive touch technology which enables the touchscreen to be operated even with wearing gloves on or by using a pen. The display's outdoors brightness is unusually good and provides excellent viewing angles.
SOFTWARE / INTERFACE
Nokia Lumia 1020 comes with the Microsoft Windows Phone 8 and is upgradeable to Windows Phone 8 Amber. The software experience is no different from most other Windows operated phones. While Microsoft provides a smooth and steady interface, as usual the major drawback is the lack of premium apps.
The Amber update solves some issues with Lumia 1020 working on Windows Phone 8 like, the reception issues(poor coverage and call quality) and unstable Bluetooth problem. Other than these bug fixes and a few features like double tapping the display to turn it on or flipping your phone over to silence it and a few additional customization options, it's just the plain old Windows Phone 8.
Lumia 1020 is packed with the usual personal information management features like Calculator, Clock, Calendar, Phonebook, Alarm clock, Reminders, To-do list, Social networks in Phonebook, OneNote, Wallet, Family Room, Kid's Corner and the bussiness apps like Adobe acrobat reader, Lync, SkyDrive, Company Hub, and the mobile version of the Microsoft Office suite.
Yes, Windows Phone is absolutely still lagging far behind Android and iOS when it comes to apps.But, Nokia does bring sufficient apps of excellent quality. Most of the highlights will be familiar to any Nokia Lumia owner, with mapping being a key one- the HERE Suite, a Nokia collection of mapping and GPS apps. The notable additions in the 1020 to the apps that are available in other Lumia smartphone apps are the imaging-related apps. This includes apps like Nokia Pro Camera, Nokia Smart Camera, Creative Studio, Cinemagraph, PhotoBeamer, Nokia Glam Me Lens and Panorama.
CAMERA
As you all know, the highlight of the Nokia Lumia 1020 is its 41MP rear camera and impressive camera apps. The 41MP camera uses 1.1micron back-side illuminated pixels, i.e, a bigger area to capture light. This camera oversamples the images it takes to a superior 5MP image. i.e, it combines several pixels to create one high-quality superpixel which adds sharpness, reduces noise, eliminate Bayer-pattern problems, improves low-light performance and adds lossless zoom as well.
The camera also features a powerful Xenon flash with a good range of coverage. The Xenon flash has a white balance closer to daylight, rather than the blue hue given off by LED flash units. The flash photography isn't that bad on the Lumia 1020 as on other cameraphones.
Only the 5MP version of your photos are available in the gallery and for sharing just as you would on any other smartphone. If you want to access the high resolution images, you have to connect your Lumia 1020 to a computer.
The lossless Zoom lets you zoom in and out to get exactly what you were looking for without losing detail and resorting to interpolation. You get up to 3x lossless zoom while shooting photos. The image quality and details won't degrade while zooming and the end result would still be a superb 5MP image. While cropping the image(reframing), there's option to change its aspect ration to one of 3:2, 1:1, 4:3 or 16:9.
The major drawback of Lumia 1020 camera is its processing speed. Though 1020 is equipped with a powerful processor, it takes time to fire up and to save those big high resolution images. Switching to 5MP mode doesn't improve the process time. Maybe, this is due to the amount of processing needed to squeeze all the information grabbed from a 41MP sensor into a 5MP image.
The camera takes great photos- probably better than any smartphone cameras available. The camera features a lot more stunning features than any other smartphone camera has. But it doesn't replace a DSLR camera as 'many' points out. The camera's slow processing speed may lead to miss a critical moment and hence it's the best 'smartphone' camera for still life pictures, but not the best for action shots.
BATTERY
Nokia Lumia 1020 is fuelled by a non-removable Li-Ion 2000 mAh battery (BV-5XW) that provides somewhat good battery life. It would easily last a day with moderate usage. Windows Phones are considered to be power-efficient and the 1020's AMOLED panel doesn't consume much energy to operate. Taking tons of pictures and videos does affect the battery life.
MEMORY
The Lumia 1020 comes with 32GB(29.12GB available) of internal storage and a 2GB RAM. There's also a 64GB variant(Telefonica exclusive). 32GB is usually enough for normal usages, but it seems to be low for a cameraphone that takes high resolution images and especially because there is no option for expanding memory using microSD card.
PERFORMANCE
Lumia 1020 is powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor along with a 2GB RAM and Adreno 225 GPU. Just like all other Windows Phones, Lumia 1020 provides a smooth and stable interface and handles everything you throw at it pretty smoothly. It provides a smooth multi-tasking, browsing and viewing experience. Of course, there's lagging issues- especially with the camera apps that require high processing.
SPECIFICATIONS
GENERAL FEATURESSIM Size: Micro SIM
SIM Type: Single SIM, GSM
Touch Screen: Yes, Capacitive
Business Features: Document Viewer, Document Editor, Pushmail (Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync), Adobe Acrobat Reader, Lync, Documents and Notes, Company Hub, Excel, Word, Powerpoint, PDF, Office 365
Call Features Conference Call, Hands Free, Loudspeaker, Call Divert
Handset Color: Black
PLATFORM
Operating Freq: GSM - 850, 900, 1800, 1900; UMTS - 2100
OS: Windows Phone 8
Processor: 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4, Dual Core
DISPLAY
Type: AMOLED
Size: 4.5 Inches
Resolution: WXGA, 1280 x 768 Pixels
Color: 16 M
Other Display Features: Sculpted Glass, Easy to Clean, Sunlight Readability Enhancements, Lumia Color Profile, Super Sensitive Touch, High Brightness Mode, Refresh Rate 60 Hz, PureMotion HD+, Brightness Control, Corning Gorilla Glass 3, ClearBlack Technology, Nokia Glance Screen, Wide Viewing Angle
CAMERA
Primary Camera: Yes, 41 Megapixel
Secondary Camera: Yes, 1.2 Megapixel
Flash: Xenon
Video Recording: Yes, 1920 x 1080, 30 fps
HD Recording: HD, Full HD
Other Camera Features-
Primary Camera: PureView, Backside-illuminated Image Sensor, Auto Focus, Carl Zeiss Tessar Lens, Camera Focal Length: 26 mm, Camera Minimum Focus Range: 15 cm, Flash Modes: Off, Automatic, On, Optical Image Stabilization, Image Sensor, 6-lens Optics, High Resolution Zoom: 3x, Cinemagraph Lens, Panorama Lens, Bing Vision, Nokia Glam Me, Nokia Pro Camera, Shutter Speed, White Balance and Focus, Creative Studio, Automatic, Night Portrait, Night Mode, Close-up, Backlight, Light Sensitivity, Camera Video Zoom 6x
Secondary Camera: Wide Angle, Video Camera Resolution: HD 720p (1280 x 720), Image Editor
DIMENSIONS
Size: 71.4x130.4x10.4 mm
Weight: 158 g
BATTERY
Type: 2000 mAh
Talk Time: 19 hrs (2G), 13 hrs (3G)
Standby Time: 384 hrs (2G)
MEMORY AND STORAGE
Internal: 32 GB
Memory: 2 GB RAM
INTERNET & CONNECTIVITY
Internet Features: Email
Preinstalled Browser: Internet Explorer 10
GPRS: Yes
EDGE: Yes, 236.8 kbps
3G: Yes, 42.2 Mbps HSDPA; 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
Wifi: Yes, 802.11 a/b/g/n
USB Connectivity: Yes, micro USB, v2
Tethering: Wi-fi Hotspot
Navigation Technology: A-GPS, GLONASS, with HERE Drive+, HERE Maps
Bluetooth: Yes, v3, Supported Profiles (A2DP 1.2, OPP 1.1, PBAP 1.1, AVRCP 1.4, HFP 1.5)
Audio Jack: 3.5 mm
DLNA: Yes
MULTIMEDIA
Music Player: Yes, Supports eAAC+, MP3
Video Player: Yes, Supports AVI, M4V, MP4, MOV, 3GP, WMV, 3G2, Full HD
FM: Yes
Sound Enhancement: Noise Cancellation, Dolby Headphone, Cloud Music Offline Playback, Graphical Equalizer
Ringtone: MP3
OTHER FEATURES
Call Memory: Yes
SMS Memory: Yes
Phone Book Memory: Yes
Sensors: Accelerometer, Barometer, Magnetometer, Ambient Light Sensor, Proximity Sensor, Gyroscope
Additional Features: Games, MMS Enabled, NFC Support, Wi-Fi Channel Bonding, SkyDrive Cloud Storage, Free Cloud Storage: 7 GB, Calculator, Clock, Calendar, Alarm, Reminders, To-do List, OneNote, Wallet, Text-to-speech Message Reader, Audio Messaging, MMS and SMS Editor, Call Waiting, Voice Mail, Voice Dial, One Integrated Phonebook, Speech Codecs, Security, Firmware Update, Device Lock, Online Back-up and Restore, Data Encryption, PhotoBeamer, WP Location Sharing, Foursquare, Blu-ray Player, Voice and Audio Recording, Audio and Video Streaming, Energy Efficiency, Eco Content and Services, Recycling, Voice Recognition, Font Magnification, Internet Radio, Voice Input, TV Out Port
