Nokia’s launch of the Lumia 1020, the latest addition to the Lumia range of smartphones, did not hold any surprises.
Teased and leaked to death up to the very last 41 minutes before the launch event, the main feature of this Windows 8 phone is its mind-blowing 41-megapixel camera that gives hardware junkies a reason to salivate.
Make no mistake about it – the Lumia 1020 is all about the camera. Enormous image resolution is this smartphone’s single killer feature and puts the mega back in megapixels.
Nokia has paired a huge camera sensor with the company’s PureView image-processing software. Camera geeks looking into the camera specifics will love to hear that it has six-lens Carl Zeiss optics which also takes on wide angles. It has high-resolution 3x zoom, autofocus and manual focus, a dual-flash system with a smaller LED flash that complements the larger Xenon flash, and 1080p HD video capturing capabilities at a rate of 30 frames per second.
The lens is surrounded by ball bearings for great image stabilisation, which means you can still get great results when taking photos on the move. Nokia has also made strides with its low-light photos and has managed to improve on its predecessor’s low-light performance.
Nokia’s Pro Camera settings boast controls that even serious photographers will be impressed with, including manual exposure settings and long exposure times. For the less experienced, the camera app includes a tutorial.
A 41-megapixel capacity amounts to a lot of captured information – it’s actually more than most people will use. However, the Lumia’s high megapixel count translates into a five-megapixel image with lossless zooming for higher-quality cropped photos.
In the Lumia 1020, Nokia is extending this oversampling method to video as well, which could mean some great HD captures when you zoom in. It isn’t just about images with Nokia. Audio technology that Nokia calls rich recording promises to capture clear, distortion-free sound even in loud surroundings.
Of course, the matte white, black, or yellow Lumia 1020 is more than just a camera. Toss the large, round shooter module aside and it looks a lot like the Lumia 920 phones. The same aesthetics are there, including the squared corners and rounded spines. The Lumia 1020 is slightly thinner and lighter than the Lumia 920 – that’s no mean feat considering the enormous camera. The back of the 1020 also uses a soft-touch coating that feels less slippery than the 920’s glossy back surface.
The screen on this 4G LTE smartphone has the same familiar 4.5-inch AMOLED PureMotion HD+ display with a 1,280x768-pixel high definition display and a 16:9 aspect ratio. Nokia’s Clear Black filter lies on top for cutting down outdoor glare. As with the new range of Lumia phones, the Lumia 1020 has an ultrasensitive touch-screen that you can operate with your fingernail or gloved hand and includes Gorilla Glass 3. Above the display, a 1.2-megapixel wide-angle front-facing camera sits at the ready to capture shots and high definition video.
The Lumia 1020 runs on a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, and has 32GB of internal memory, supplemented by 7GB of SkyDrive cloud storage, courtesy of Microsoft. The phone is sealed in typical high-end Lumia fashion, so there’s no expandable memory, though 32GB is quite enough for most users.
With its 41-megapixel camera, Nokia’s Lumia 1020 absolutely brings the wow factor, proving that Nokia can innovate in its own way and that it is still a smartphone force to be reckoned with.
Jesmond Darmanin is a technology enthusiast who has his own blog at www.itnewsblog.com.