Nokia Lumia 1020

NOKIA LUMIA 1020

Introduction

PureView is on its way down in history and while we loved the Nokia 808, it will be the Lumia 1020 that makes the name more than a footnote. With a modern OS and improved design of both the camera and the phone itself, the 1020 is Nokia's - make that Microsoft's - best bet at having the best mobile camera ever made.

Nokia Lumia 1020 official images

This is probably what Microsoft was actually buying. Windows Phone handsets are getting lost in the high-end and it's the Lumia 1020 that can raise the platform above the rabble of Androids and successive iPhones. The basic design has been around since the Lumia 800 (the Nokia N9 even), but nothing in the world can make a more decisive difference than the PureView camera.

The Nokia Lumia 1020 might as well be Nokia's loudest bang on its way out (along with the to be announced Lumia 1520 phablet). And we'll probably see the history repeat itself much like with the Nokia N9, where the last product of a lineup is always the greatest.

With 41MP resolution, the 1020 camera has twice as many pixels as its nearest competitors. Three times as many if you want optical image stabilization. And the sensor is four times as big as most smartphone sensors and more than twice as big as the second-biggest sensor. The 808 PureView had a bigger sensor, but it has since retired and it didn't have the stabilization and bright aperture to begin with.

But we shouldn't let our focus on the camera detract from the smartphone experience. The Nokia Lumia 1020 equals the best of the (admittedly not very populous) Windows Phone world and the opposing BlackBerry world. And with Microsoft's tight control on the hardware allowing for optimizations not possible on Android, the 1020 shines throughout, not just in terms of camera.

Key features

Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
Quad-band 3G with 42 Mbps HSDPA and 5.7 Mbps HSUPA support
4.5" 16M-color PureMotionHD+ AMOLED capacitive touchscreen of 1280 x 768 pixels; Corning Gorilla Glass 3; Nokia Glance
41MP PureView sensor (38MP effective), 1/1.5" sensor size, 1.12µm, ZEISS lens, Optical Image Stabilization, xenon and LED flashes
1080p@30fps video recording; 4x lossless digital zoom
1.3MP front-facing camera
Windows Phone 8 OS with Nokia Amber
1.5GHz dual-core Krait CPU, Adreno 225 GPU, Qualcomm MSM8960 chipset, 2GB of RAM
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, dual-band
GPS receiver with A-GPS and GLONASS support
Free lifetime voice-guided navigation
32GB of inbuilt storage; 64GB Telefonica/O2 exclusive version
Active noise cancellation with a dedicated mic
Wireless charging with optional accessories
Built-in accelerometer, gyroscope and proximity sensor
Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
microUSB port
Bluetooth v3.0 with A2DP and file transfers
SNS integration
Xbox Live integration and Xbox management
NFC support
Digital compass
Nokia Music
FM radio

Main disadvantages

Camera bump on the back
Shot-to-shot time of several seconds is painful
Screen has average sunlight legibility
Non-user-replaceable battery
Wireless charging needs an extra charging case to work
No microSD card slot
Relatively low battery capacity
No system-wide file manager
No lockscreen shortcuts

The new Amber update from Nokia (which integrates Windows Phone GDR2) brings a number of new software features, including Lumia exclusives, some of which are reserved for the platform's top brass. We're talking about the Pro Camera app, of course, which allows manual focus (no other phone on the market has that). The Glance screen and color tuning are pretty awesome too, plus the old Nokia staple of free offline GPS navigation.

Still, the camera cannot completely mask the fact that the Lumia 1020 is a little boring - it's almost the exact same device that we saw late last year in the form of a Lumia 920. And Amber was more of a catchup update than anything, it's GDR3 that will bring the high-res screen and quad-core CPU support, though it won't bring these to existing products, of course.

Nokia Lumia 1020 at ours

Can the Nokia Lumia 1020 help Windows Phone become the viable third platform, alternative to both Apple and Google solutions, that Microsoft wants it to be? Only one way to find out - look at the hardware, then the software and then what we're really here to talk about, the camera.

technical details

The Nokia Lumia 1020 headliner is its 41MP camera at the back. And while the resolution is the same, the camera module has been significantly redesigned since the Nokia 808 PureView.

One of the few things that the two PureView sensors have in common is that even though they technically are 41MP units, they aren't actually able to take 41MP photos. Here you can see all the different image aspects and their respective resolution. The sensor has a total active surface of 7728 x 5368 pixels, which does amount to 41MP, but depending on the aspect ratio you choose, it will capture either a 7728 x 4354 pixel image (34MP) in the 16:9 mode or a 7152 x 5368 pixel image (38MP) in the 4:3 mode.

Using the new Nokia Pro Camera app, the Lumia 1020 can save a photo in both 34MP and an oversampled 5MP variant. We'll touch more on that later on. Mind you, the default camera app is limited to shooting only 5MP photos in both 4:3 or 16:9 modes.

Probably in an attempt to keep the size of the module down, Nokia has decided to make the Lumia 1020 camera sensor smaller than the one in the 808 PureView. It's 1/1.5" instead of 1/1.2" and this means it has somewhat smaller pixels - 1.12 microns instead of 1.4 microns.

However, the new sensor has a BSI design, which improves light sensitivity. This means it offers lower noise levels in low light, so that probably makes up for the difference in size. There's also the fact that the new 6-element ZEISS lens has a wider aperture than the old one (F/2.2 instead of F/2.4) so it lets more light in.

Finally, there's the Optical Image Stabilization, which is still a rarity among smartphones, but an immensely useful thing to have. The Finns have naturally reworked the thing to accommodate the larger sensor and now you get to take shake-free videos and far better pictures in low light (but OIS is no good for moving subjects).

In case you are not familiar, Optical image stabilization compensates for the movement of your hands and lets you take longer-exposure still shots without introducing blur due to camera shake. Longer exposures, in turn, allow lower ISO setting to be selected and still get the same exposure, only with less noise.

The downside is that those longer shutter speeds are only good for still subjects - any moving object would surely become a blurry trail on the photo (which quite often can be a nice and desirable feature to have).

The Nokia Lumia 1020 camera lens is nicely wide at 26mm - here's how its field of view (in both 4:3 and 16:9 mode) compares to the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the HTC One. The advantage over the Samsung flagship is quite significant and even the 28mm One can't fit as much in the frame. The wider field of view has allowed for a slimmer camera module as well. Even though not everyone will agree, for lenses with fixed focal lengths we prefer to have a wide field of view such as this one.

The final improvement that Nokia made to the Lumia 1020, compared to the 808 PureView is the reduction of the minimal focus distance from 20cm to 15cm. This means that the Lumia 1020 is able to get closer to the subject and produce more detailed macro shots.

Now that we've got the technical stuff out of the way, we can move on to the new Pro Camera app that puts the whole thing in motion.

The Nokia Lumia 1020 appoints two camera apps at work - the default Windows Phone 8 camera application as well as Nokia's new Pro Camera app that's designed to allow for advanced settings fiddling.

Nokia has created a special app for the Lumia 1020 dubbed Nokia Pro Camera and is one of the phone's key software features. It is there to compliment the 41MP camera with a simple user interface that allows users to fine tune the camera settings. It may sound intimidating, but Nokia has done a great job at making the app simple to use for both novices and professionals alike.

Starting the Nokia Pro Camera reveals a familiar interface, first introduced with the Smart Camera app. The important distinction is the top transparent box in the top center containing six camera adjustments. From left to right they are flash, white balance, focus, ISO, shutter speed and exposure compensation.

Nokia Pro Camera app user interface

Tapping on each of them opens a ring-based interface on the right part of the screen. You can access all of them simultaneously by sliding the on-screen shutter button to the left. This will stack sliders for all six settings next to one another allowing you to easily fiddle with them at the same time. The settings you modify are kept at the values you chose, while the others are adjusted accordingly by the app.

We really like this interface - it's intuitive and powerful at the same time. However, there's a downside to Nokia Pro Camera and it's that it takes 4 seconds from the moment you press the shutter to the moment it's ready to shoot again. We guess having to process both a 5MP image and a 38MP image is proving a bit much for the older Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset. We tried disabling the high-res image - that is shoot only a 5MP image - but that wasn't any quicker.

Another thing we noticed is that the processed image does not look like the viewfinder image - we noticed when shooting one of the charts for the photo quality comparison tool (the third one, shot under fluorescent lights), the white balance on the viewfinder looked okay, while the final image is too cold. We also spotted it when shooting the low-light sample with the flash off - it may be so dark that the viewfinder shows black, but the final image actually is pretty bright.

This is a pretty big issue as you rely on the viewfinder to tune the image using the manual controls.

As we mentioned earlier, the Pro Camera lens has another cool trick up its sleeve. It snaps two photos at once - one in full resolution and another one in 5MP, which benefits from the pixel oversampling technology, while at the same time being far easier to share. You can zoom in up to 3x for the 5MP photo without serious degrading the image quality (you'll be losing the advantage of supersampling but it's still much better than the digital zoom in other phones) and you don't have to make a decision on the spot - you can zoom out and in after the fact and even reframe the photo.

The settings menu gives you neat options

There's no HDR mode here but there's something pro's will appreciate better - automatic bracketing. You can set the camera to snap 3 or 5 photos in ranges starting at -0.5EV to +0.5EV or -3EV to +3EV (the number of photos taken affects the available range). You can post process the images later in your app of choice and fine tune them to your exact specifications, unlike HDR modes on most phones that often do too little or too much.

The only problem with this is that photos are taken as usual - 5 exposures at 4 seconds each is a lot. You can rely on your app to align the images later, but you would be better off using a tripod. We do wish Nokia provided some way to combine exposures on the device itself.

The Nokia Pro Camera app isn't limited to shooting still images, it can also manage video capturing quite well. Tapping the video icon on the bottom gets you to the video part of the app. There you have access to just some of the settings - flash, white balance and focus. The focus can be set to either manual, auto or infinity.

Video recording also makes use of OIS and oversampling. Zoom is enabled even during video capture and it can go up to 4x in 1080p mode and 6x in 720p resolution. The Nokia Lumia 1020 also has two mics (one on top, one on bottom) with the company's proprietary Rich Audio Recording for distortion-free sound recording in loud environments. The 1080p videos are recorded at 30fps, of course.

Shooting video is straightforward

You can start shooting videos by either tapping on the screen or pressing the dedicated hardware shutter key. Pausing video recording is still not an option on Windows Phone 8. Thanks to the dual high-quality microphone setup on the Lumia 1020, the audio quality is very crisp and boasts a lot of detail and texture.

WP8 default Camera app and Nokia lenses

The default Windows Phone 8 camera can only shoot 5MP photos and it only takes a couple of seconds to do it - still slow, but not as slow as the Pro Camera.

The UI is pretty simple - you have your viewfinder and some controls on the right. From top to bottom they are the still/video camera toggle, front/back camera toggle, a flash mode setting and the Lens button. On the left you have an arrow that takes you to the images taken with the camera, alternatively you can swipe to get there.

Camera app • Camera lens

There's also a slew of settings, ranging from scenes and effects to white balance, contrast, saturation, sharpness and ISO among others. You have a dedicated Macro focus mode but no face detection. The flash can be set to auto, forced or off. A separate setting allows the LED to work as an AF assist light.

In the latest camera software Nokia has raised the maximum ISO setting from 800 to 3,200 and has tweaked image processing in low-light conditions.

SkyDrive is available for photo auto-upload (it's turned off by default), but you can install third-party apps to handle this functionality as well.

Lenses is an interesting feature, allowing third-party camera apps to enhance the core camera functionality without the need to access them separately and get use to their different UIs. The so-called Lenses are like plugins for your camera and they are available directly in the native camera app. They show up in the list of installed apps too in case you'd like to pin a Lens to the start screen, for instance.

The shutter key will wake the phone up with a single press and launch Pro Camera but you can set the native WP8 app or Nokia's exclusive Smart Camera to be launched instead.

So, we've mentioned Smart Camera several times already and it's time to explain what it does. It's the next generation of Smart Shoot and is based on technology developed by Scalado (now owned by Nokia).

It shoots a burst of 10 photos at 5MP resolution and allows you to edit those photos later. When editing a Smart Camera photo you choose one of several modes by swiping through their respective cards, each with a helpful label.

Official Nokia Lumia 1020 Smart photo

The basic feature here is best shot - automatically selecting the best photo out of the 10 (you can manually override the selection). You can also select the best expression for each individual face in the photo.

The multiple photos can be used to remove moving objects as well.

Smart Camera can pick the best expression for each face • or remove moving objects

Then there's Action shot - a moving object is overlaid on the photo several times to create a sense of motion. You can pick which of the 10 photos are used to create the action shot and the multiple copies can either be opaque or semitransparent.

The other mode that enhances motion is Motion focus - it locks the moving object, but blurs the background around it. Imagine turning the camera to track a fast moving object, that's the effect that Motion focus simulates.

Final words

PureView may as well be Nokia's curse. It was the gun salute at Symbian's funeral, now it pans out to watch Nokia ride off into the sunset.

So much for the irony of it. Now, let's talk business. And we don't mean buying and selling. Though Redmond knew darn well what they were paying for.

Many who care about Nokia, believe Windows Phone was a mistake. Now, go ahead and call the Lumia 1020 a mistake. The best camera in business and one that probably will only be bested by its successor, whatever the logo on the tin.

Lumia 1020 is The One That Got Away. We didn't realize it until we were through with our review and we knew this is probably Nokia's farewell with the world. There are a few more devices to come from the Finns, but none of them will come close to the Lumia 1020. And yet, lots of people won't get this gem even though they love it.

It all started with the first PureView phone back in 2012 - the Nokia 808. The technology was so ground-breaking that people were whispering the name and the number of pixels with disbelief. Then we got our hands of the monstrous cameraphone and we were beyond impressed. Nokia showed the world you can pack so much camera magic in a standard-sized smartphone shell.

Then we turn on the phone and after a quick set up, we find the Lumia 1020 shoots amazing pictures, offers life-time voice-guided worldwide navigation, great mapping service and even Nokia's own Music streaming app. But there is more - the music player has rich equalizer options, the battery life is excellent, you can even use the screen with gloves or keys. The iconic glance screen is also here. We are sure Nokia's name once again popped up on a few occasions.

We all need to remember what Nokia was and that this is pretty much the same company today. And the Lumia 1020 is a great example of Nokia's dedication to its fans.

Samsung Galaxy S4 and LG G2 flagships offer similar fluid Android experience, great 13MP camera capabilities and top-notch video quality. Both droids costs about €100 cheaper than Lumia 1020. The Galaxy S4 has a few more advanced camera features and is capable of shooting amazing 60MPs panoramas and excellent HDR shots. If you need an even richer and highly customizable OS experience and you are ready to sacrifice some of the camera quality in favor of a bigger application store, then the Galaxy S4 or the LG G2 might be the right alternatives for you.

Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4 • LG G2

HTC One is far greater in terms in build quality thanks to its aluminum unibody shell. It also comes with optical image stabilization and big camera sensor though limited up to 4MP resolution. The One flagship captures great photos even in low-light and offers one of the best Android launchers available on the market. HTC seems to be also struggling lately but it is still providing amazingly fast Android updates on its latest devices. HTC One is beautiful both on the inside and the outside and has already won lots of users on its side. It's definitely a one to look forward to.

HTC One

Sony Xperia Z1 has just hit the shelves and is priced closely to the Lumia 1020. The latest Japanese flagship also relies on a newly developed camera sensor and technology. It comes with a 20.7MP Exmor RS Sony sensor with a Superior Auto mode that produces 8MP shots from the raw 20.7MP images - Sony's answer to Nokia's PureView photos. Unfortunately, the Z1 can't keep both the full resolution shot and the downsized shot like the Lumia 1020. It also lacks optical image stabilization and a xenon flash. Not to mention that even the downsampled shots are nothing to write home about and the full resolution 20MP photos are lackluster. Despite having a 1080p display, the Xperia Z1 TFT unit is nowhere near the quality of the Lumia 1020's AMOLED screen. In fact, Sony's only advantages over the Lumia 1020 are its water-protection shell and probably, the Android OS (which is not little by all means).

Sony Xperia Z1

The Lumia 1020 is and will be probably remembered as Nokia's crown jewel. It is a great exit for once a legendary company that believe it or not, has been the same since its beginning. Most of the users out there consider the Windows Phone OS as its major flaw, while they shouldn't. The Lumia 1020 is a solid phone, with great hardware, amazing innovative camera technology and powerful messenger and office skills. It's a true Nokia destined to become a legend when it's probably too late. And that's why Lumia 1020 will be always The One That Got Away.

PureView took more than a year to walk the distance between Symbian to Windows Phone. Well worth the wait, the 1020's camera is an improvement on an already mind-blowing camera.

It's a brilliant cameraphone but the smartphone isn't without its issues. The camera shot-to-shot time is rather appalling, the screen has only average sunlight legibility, the battery is not exchangeable and you cannot expand the internal storage with a microSD card. Yet, these are things you can live with if you get something in return, something to make up for these inconveniences. And the Nokia Lumia 1020 delivers.

Better yet, it's Nokia that has delivered one last time. It's not the fact that they may never do it again that makes the Luma 1020 special. And it's definitely not why we're heaping praise on the phone. On their way out, Nokia are looking back at a lifetime of achievement. One last view from the top.

Nokia Lumia 1020

Introduction

Key features

Main disadvantages

technical details

WP8 default Camera app and Nokia lenses

Final words

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