The Nokia Lumia 1020: It's All About the Camera

What's This?

By Christina Warren2013-07-24 04:23:30 UTC

Nokia's latest flagship smartphone, the Nokia Lumia 1020, has all of the standard Windows Phone 8 accoutrements, while also packing a massive 41-megapixel camera.

Equal parts Lumia 920 and Nokia 808 PureView, the Nokia Lumia 1020 is targeting photo-happy smartphone buyers. But is the camera enough of a draw?

The answer is complicated — mostly because it involves figuring out who this smartphone is for.

First, let's get the general phone discussion out of the way. The Nokia Lumia 1020 is nearly identical to the other phones in the Lumia 92X family.

It has a 4.5-inch 1280 x 768 display, a dual-core 1.5Ghz Qualcomm S4 Snapdragon processor and 32GB of internal storage. The big change with the Lumia 1020 is that it has 2GB of RAM (versus 1GB for the other Lumia 92X phones) and a 41-megapixel PureView camera. It weighs less than the Lumia 920 — but the size of the monstrous lens makes it slightly more bulky.

The Nokia Lumia 1020 runs Windows Phone 8, and in the United States, is exclusively available on AT&T.

You can read our reviews of AT&T's Lumia 920 and Verizon's Lumia 928 for more detailed information on Windows Phone 8 and the overall phone experience.

Aside from the camera, I didn't notice any other substantive changes with the Nokia Lumia 1020 versus earlier phones in its series.

Understanding the Camera

The big news with the Nokia Lumia 1020 is the insane 41-megapixel PureView lens. Beyond the absurdly high megapixel count, the Lumia 1020 also has a large 1/1.2" sensor; that's significantly larger than the sensor in your average smartphone, although it is a hair smaller than the sensor used in the Symbian-based Nokia 808.

When you take images with the Lumia 1020, two versions of the photo are actually taken: One is a raw 34 or 38 megapixels (depending on the aspect ratio), and the other is an oversampled 5 megapixel image.

SEE ALSO: Hands On With the Nokia Lumia 1020

The camera uses the extra megapixels to capture as much information as it can, and then uses some oversampling voodoo to create a great looking 5 megapixel image.

Although there is no optical zoom on the Lumia 1020, you can effectively do a 3x optical zoom by cropping your photos. This is a standard trick DSLR users will know well. The results are solid, but make no mistake, this is still a fixed-lens camera.

Getting the full-resolution photos off the camera is actually more difficult than I expected — at least, if you're a Mac user. For whatever reason, the Windows Phone for Mac software doesn't let you view and transfer the full-size images. I had to use a Windows computer to get the images off. For most users, that might not matter, but it's still worth pointing out.

Camera Software

Along with the 41-megapixel sensor, Nokia released a brand new Nokia Pro Camera app for Windows Phone 8. This app is really tremendous, and while the traditional camera app is also available, I don't think most users will want to use it.

Taking some serious cues from the Samsung Galaxy Camera, the Nokia Pro Cam app makes it super easy to make manual adjustments to shutter speed, ISO, exposure, brightness, and contrast and focus.

Check out this image I took with a four-second exposure. The only edit I made was to auto-adjust the color in Photoshop:

After you take an image with the Nokia Pro Cam app, you can open that image in another program to edit and make adjustments, or you can edit the zoom and crop within the Pro Cam app. Resulting crops are saved to the camera roll.

The app also plays nicely with third-party lenses, which means you can take panoramic photos or use Smart Camera to pick out your best shot.

I found the camera interface and controls to actually be easier to use than the dumbed-down camera. This was partially because of the awesome manual rings, and also because I appreciated the tap-to-focus points that don't automatically release the shutter. This is how the iPhone's camera works and I find it superior to the tap-to-focus-auto-shutter mode that other smartphones employ.

A half-press on the dedicated camera button also acts as focus and a full press releases the shutter.

Image Quality

Image quality, as you would expect, is quite good. You can check out two images directly from the camera in this Flickr set to see the Lumia 1020 in action.

In my tests, I found that it was good in a number of lighting conditions. Thanks to its large sensor, even low-light situations worked well.

The flash on the Lumia 1020 is xenon — but I didn't find myself needing to use it.

The Grip

Although you can use the Lumia 1020 by itself, it's really best served by it's $79.99 camera grip accessory. The grip serves transforms the Lumia 1020 from a large Windows Phone to an oversized camera.

The grip kind of reminds me of the old explorer camera I had as a kid. It feels good in the hand, but it does have some considerable bulk.

The trade-off for that bulk, however, is that you get an extra battery pac for the phone, a dedicated shutter button and a tripod mount. For users who see themselves using their smartphone as their main phone, it's not a bad idea.

The only problem with the grip is that it makes an already large phone that much less pocketable. Sure, you can carry it in a purse or large jacket pocket — and it comes with a handy wrist strap — but the shell very clearly takes this device out of the phone zone and into the pure camera zone.

Who Is This For?

On paper, the Lumia 1020 ticks all the right buttons. Good specs, good performance, great camera. It has two major flaws, however: Size and price.

Most of us use our smartphone as our primary camera not because it's the camera that's always with us. It's simply easier to just take your smartphone with you rather than relying on carrying around a pocket camera or DSLR. The problem with the Lumia 1020 is that it adds significant bulk to the equation. In fact, it might not save any space over a smaller pocket camera from Nikon or Canon.

The secondary problem is price. At $299.99 with a two-year AT&T contract, the Lumia 1020 is an expensive phone. This would be OK, except that other than the camera — it's virtually identical to the Lumia 920 or Lumia 928. The Lumia 920 is just $99.99 at AT&T — and it's $49.99 at Best Buy. Amazon even sells it for a penny.

So the question you have to ask yourself is, "is the camera $200-$300 better than a standard Lumia 92X device?"

I have to think that most users who are willing to spend a $200 premium for the camera on their smartphone are more likely to be the type of user who also carries a separate camera around. If that's the case, I'm not sure this product has any core advantages.

Plus, the Lumia 920 and Lumia 928 have excellent cameras.

Then there's the problem of ecosystem. Although Windows Phone has made some great strides in the last few months — it doesn't have the array of photo sharing apps that you find on Android or iOS. There is an Instagram app — Instance — that will let you upload to Instagram — but you can't apply filters. Without the likes of apps such as Snapseed and Camera+, I couldn't help but feel limited with my editing options — despite the amazing quality of the pictures themselves.

At the end of the day, the Lumia 1020 is a good phone with an excellent camera. I'm just not sure the camera is enough of a reason to recommend this phone for this price. At $199, this would be a no-brainer. At $299, given the trade-offs on size, the picture is a bit more fuzzy.

Let us know what you think of the Lumia 1020 in the comments.

Images: Meghan Uno, Mashable; Christina Warren, Mashable; Screenshots: Nokia and Microsoft

Topics: Gadgets, living with lumia, Lumia 1020, Mobile, Nokia, Nokia Lumia 1020, reviews, Tech, Windows Phone