After much hype and anticipation, Nokia introduced the Lumia
1020 with a lot of fanfare and enthusiasm, and the Windows Phone 8
device doesn’t disappoint. In the days surrounding the announcement of
Nokia’s 41-megapixel camera phone, the company dominated the
conversations on Twitter and framed the dialogue around a new experience
with zoom on a smartphone, coupled with low light photography, Xenon
flash, a greatly improved Zeiss optics, and new software and integration
with Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8. So how does the Lumia 1020 perform,
both as a camera–and at that a replacement for a standalone
point-and-shoot–and as a phone? Join me in this
GottaBeMobile review and find out.
Hardware
Though it looks similar to Lumias of yore, the Lumia 1020 comes with
greatly improved ergonomics. The Lumia 1020 is both slimmer and lighter
than its predecessor, sacrificing built-in wireless charging in favor of
reduced heft and weight.

In terms of design, the front may look similar to the Lumia 920, also on AT&T’s network, but the overarching
fabula
design is very much borrowed from the MeeGo-powered Nokia N9 released
in late 2011 and the following Lumia 800, which debuted Nokia’s entry
into the Microsoft-powered smartphone ecosystem.

Curved edges, tapered surfaces, and a nice arched display all
contribute to the success of Nokia’s polycarbonate smartphone design,
and in many ways the Lumia 1020 is an extension and a refined evolution
of those design principles.

On the front, you have a curved glass display. The curved glass is a
marriage of form and function, and the design complements the Windows
Phone 8 OS extremely well as the curved sides make it easy–and much more
fluid–to swipe and perform gestures.

The
evolution of Nokia’s excellent camera experience on smartphones with
the Nokia N8 (Symbian) in green, the black Nokia 808 PureView
(41-megapixel Symbian phone), the Lumia 920 (bottom right in glossy
yellow), and the Lumia 1020 (upper left in matte yellow)
You have the usual suspect on the front–a 4.5-inch HD+ Super AMOLED
display with a PenTile sub-pixel arrangement. The resolution is 1280 X
768, which is slightly larger than the standard 1280 X 720 HD display,
though not as good as recent Android flagships with a 1080p resolution
screen. In reality though, the display is bright, crisp, and sharp, and
consumers won’t notice a difference with a 1080p display unless they’re
pixel peeping next to a Galaxy S4 from Samsung or an HTC One.
Refresh rate is fast for the screen and Nokia calls this its
ClearMotion display technology, and when coupled with the bonded
ClearBlack display users won’t notice any glares and the display is
bright enough to use even under direct sunlight.
And speaking of displays, your Lumia’s window to Windows Phone is
protected by Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 panel. Gorilla Glass 3 allows for
slimmer, yet stronger and more impact-resistant glass, so you get a
strengthened panel that protects against scratches.
There’s also a front-facing 2-megapixel camera on the top.
My only complaint about the front is that the bezel is–like past
Lumia designs–on the thicker side so it seems like a lot of wasted
space, or that Nokia could have increased the display size to fit in
this area. The upside with such big bezels is that there is plenty of
room to accommodate the trio of capacitive touch Windows Phone
navigation keys on the bottom. Because of this, the Back, Windows
(home), and Search keys are not placed directly at the bottom edge of
the phone, and consumers will appreciate this fact as it means that you
won”t accidentally press one of the keys, like I typically do when using
Samsung’s Galaxy S4, when just idly holding the phone.
The rear is where Nokia really shows off its camera chops. You have a
large circle, which resembles a lens housing on a point-and-shoot or
compact mirrorless camera system, that protrudes from the polycarbonate
finish.

The camera module here includes an LED autofocus and video light and a
Xenon flash to the top of the actual camera lens, which now has 5
plastic lens elements and a Gorilla Glass 3 element to encase it all.
The six-lens design helps with sharpness and clarity when shooting in
daylight, and in reality I find that it reduces a lot of glare and
ghosting found on prior Lumias, including the Lumia 928 on Verizon
Wireless. You get Nokia, the 41-megapixel, Zeiss, and PureView branding
all in this black circle, which is constructed from aluminum.

The sides are curved, and the top and bottom rear end are tapered, a
design carryover from the Lumia 900 days on AT&T last year. There is
also two exposed metallic dots, which works with an optional wireless
charging cover and wireless charging pad, so you can charge your phone
without having to directly plug in any wires.

The left spine of the phone is bare of buttons, and the matte finish
makes it a pleasure to hold and grip. In fact, the phone’s matte finish
really aids into making the device feel good and also helps prevent the
phone from slipping out of the hands, unlike with glossy covers.

And while the matte finish may help with gripping the phone in the
hands, the finish may also attract stains, especially when you place
your phone in the pockets of dark denim jeans. The matte finish on my
white Nokia 808 suffered from a stain where the dye of the wrist strap
bled onto the phone, leaving a black streak.
On the top, you have the micro SIM card tray, in which the card is
accessible only with the included SIM ejector tool (or paperclip should
you misplace your tool). There is one of two stereo microphones used for
video recording as well as a 3.5 mm headphone jack.

The right spine is a bit busier, housing the volume rocker buttons,
the power button, and also a dual-stage camera shutter key. You can
activate the camera–even when the screen is off–by pressing and holding
the shutter for a few seconds. Unlike Lumias of yore, doing so will
launch Nokia’s new Pro Camera app and not the default Microsoft camera
app. We’ll talk about this in a bit.

On the bottom, you have a lanyard loop so you can attach the included
wrist strap to your phone, which helps when using as a camera to
prevent slippage. There’s also a micro USB charging port, and to the
right of that you have micro-drilled speaker grills. Behind the grill
are two components–the speaker and also the second stereo microphone.
Software
Nokia really comes into its own with the Lumia 1020, importing many
useful features from its old Symbian platform and marrying it to Windows
Phone to have a more complete, better experience. One of those features
is a clock screen that shows the time, even when the screen is turned
off. Called Glance, the functionality enables Lumia 1020 owners to
glance at the time without having to turn on their screen every time.

Nokia’s Glance screen displays the time even when the screen is off.
It’s great for conference rooms and a useful tool to check the time
when sitting in a movie. Other enhancements include the new Pro Camera
app, turn-by-turn via Nokia Drive+, and Nokia Music for Pandora-style
listening.

The
camera hump on the back is useful in creating a nice angle for the
display, making it easy to glance at the time or screen when the phone
is placed on a flat table.
Lumia 1020 Software Exclusives. We’ve
covered the basics of the Windows Phone platform over the years through
the Lumia 710, Lumia 800, Lumia 900, Lumia 920, and Lumia 928 reviews,
and for the most part, not much has changed for the platform. Things are
still buttery smooth and the experience is smooth with the Live Tiles,
Metro UI, and the panoramic app screens and hubs. What we will discuss,
in length, is some of the pre-loaded Nokia software, apps, and
enhancements to the Lumia 1020, many of which will enhance the camera
and photography experience, which is the hallmark of this phone.
Nokia Pro Camera App. The Pro Camera app is simple
enough to use–for many beginners–as just a point and shoot UI.
Instantly, you’ll notice that Pro Camera is a bit different than the
default Windows Phone camera app experience as now, when you tap on the
screen to focus, it works more like many Android phones and the iPhone.
Now, tap to focus is just that–focusing. In the Windows Phone default
app, tap to focus will focus and snap the picture in one swoop. You will
still need to either press the on-screen focus or the hardware shutter
button.

Manual exposure adjustments with Nokia Pro Camera app
The app will either allow you to capture a 34-megapixel 16:9 image or
a 4:3 38-megapixel image, depending on aspect ratio. Users will be able
to set up the camera to either capture the mega-large image, or the
mega-large image and a smaller 5-megapixel image at the same time with
the smaller resolution more suited for sharing via email, MMS, and
social networks. By default, the camera is setup to capture a 16:9 photo
with a 34-megapixel image as well as a 5-megapixel image for sharing.
But capturing simultaneous images has its drawbacks too. If you’re
doing posed shots or headshots, it should be fine. If you’re doing
sports photography, you may want to turn off either the 5-megapixel
capture or the higher resolution one as saving both files and processing
them does take a bit longer than usual.
Diving deeper into the camera UI, users can swipe the on-screen
camera shutter key from right to left to reveal dials for different
exposure settings, giving them adjustments for shutter speed, ISO,
manual focus adjustments, exposure compensation, and white balance.
What’s still missing is aperture control, but for the most part,
enthusiast photographers will have pretty much all the exposure settings
they need to have creative control over the shot.
Camera. Thanks to an improved camera hardware design
compared to many smartphones on the market today, the Lumia 1020
delivers a powerful punch. It merges the optical image stabilization
from the current flagship Lumia 920, 925, and 928 series along with the
ultra-large, pixel-rich sensor from the Nokia 808 PureView’s
41-megapixel camera. What you get is a highly detailed shot–suitable for
blowing up to poster size if you wish or for cropping to reveal fine
details.

Slide the sliders to adjust exposure. Here, we’re adjusting manual focus.
You do have a 41-megapixel sensor, but the sensor is also large as
well. This allows for more creative control, allowing for better shallow
depth of field capture. Though the sensor isn’t as large as the basic
1-inch sensor on the mirrorless Nikon 1 system, it is quite a bit larger
than the 1/2.3-inch sensors of traditional point-and-shoot cameras.
Users who opt to control the manual focusing with the manual focusing
ring, via software, will find that the depth of field will be easy to
control, allowing for nice subject matter isolation for either blurred
background and tact-sharp subjects, or blurred foregrounds and focused
backgrounds.
Lossless Zoom. Though some may feel that the
41-megapixel sensor may be overkill for a smartphone–or even for a
camera–the point of having that many pixels is the ability to have
lossless digital zoom.
Think of it this way, when you’re zooming with an 8-megapixel iPhone 5
sensor, you’re taking a postcard and cropping into the middle,
resulting in an end image that’s a postage stamp-sized print, but blown
up to a postcard. That means you’ll have lots of noise and grain when
you zoom in on a traditional smartphone camera, and details would be
lost.
When you’re zooming with Nokia’s 41-megapixel PureView sensor, you’re
starting with a poster-sized image rather than a postcard. Cropping and
zooming this way would give you a resulting image of maybe a postcard,
and so when you compare against an iPhone there really is no apparent
loss of resolution or quality when using zoom on the Lumia 1020.
To perform zoom, you can either zoom in when you’re taking the image
by performing a swipe gesture. From anywhere on the camera UI screen,
swipe your finger upwards to zoom. Or, the second way to zoom is after
you have captured the image. You can either crop the image in-camera and
re-frame your photo, or you can transfer the high resolution images to
your PC and crop it there.

This was captured with the Lumia 1020.

Lossless
zoom in effect: here’s a one-to-one image crop, pixel-for-pixel, from
the high resolution 41-megapixel sample of some of the tomatoes in the
above full-scale image.

Pixel-for-pixel crop from the 5-megapixel image that was captured simultaneously with the 41-megapixel on the Lumia 1020.

This less dramatic zoom, although still a big crop, still retains a lot of details.

This
pixel-for-pixel crop is taken from an image captured from Apple’s
iPhone 5 without flash. For the full-sized image, see the section below
for Image Samples.
Framing and Reframing Images. Another side effect of
the lossless zoom is that you can continuously frame and reframe your
images after you’ve captured them. In traditional photography, you would
zoom, and then snap your picture. In this case, if you change your
mind, the only other thing to do at this point is to crop your image,
resulting in an end photo that is further zoomed in.
On the Lumia 1020, you can zoom before or even after you’ve taken the
image. Consider this, when you zoom in on the Lumia 1020, the camera
will give you two images. The first image is the current Live View
preview on the AMOLED display, showing you the framed, zoomed in shot.
The second image is the non-zoomed in, giving a wider angle of view with
the camera’s 26mm focal length Zeiss lens. This way, when you go and
see the image, you can decide later if you want to have more of the
background, and you can edit to
zoom out. If you want to zoom
in more after you’ve captured your image, you can do so by cropping as
well, but the ability to zoom out and rotate the photo after you’ve
captured your image is a great tool to have.

In
this image, I zoomed in, and then captured the photo, framing the
Vilage Market signage. If this was a point-and-shoot, I wouldn’t be able
to zoom out from this photo after I had taken it.

Thanks
to PureView, this 41-megapixel image was also simultaneously captured
with the image that I zoomed in on. Fortunately, the 41-megapixel image
retains the full 26mm wide field of view of the lens, so if I opted to, I
can zoom out and get more details of the roof, windows, and
people walking inside this building. This “zooming out” happens from the
image above, after I had captured the photo and returned home. It gives
people the ability to tell stories with photos, and also to retell
stories using different details from the same photo.
Smart Camera. Though somewhat confusing, another
camera app that Nokia makes available for download, via the Windows
Phone Store, is the Smart Camera app. Smart Camera takes a series of ten
sequential images and uses intelligent software to analyze the best
image and also to give you some creative control. You can create an
Action Shot where a sequence of images are overlaid on top of each other
to give the illusion of movement.

Action shot shows the trail of motion.
A Motion Focus shot focuses in on the person or object that is in
motion in the sequenced shot and blurs the background to focus in on the
subject. It’s similar to shallow depth of field and gives illusion of
fast moving motion where everything in the background is blurred due to
the speed of what the object in motion is traveling at.

From the same sequence as the above image, Motion Focus blurs out what isn’t in motion.
And then there’s the ability to remove automatically things that are
in motion. As you can see in the image sample just below, everything
that was in motion in the frame was taken out. This is good if someone
walks into your frame or if you’re with friends who like to photo bomb.

From
the same sequence as the above two shots, this one applies the Remove
Motion Object to remove anything that was moving. Great for getting rid
of unwanted photo-bombers.
And while many of these options are available as different, separate
modes, like on Samsung’s Galaxy S4, the attractiveness of this software
solution is that you don’t have to pre-select it. On Samsung, I’d have
to select Action Shot or Eraser Mode before I shoot. Here, by allowing
the camera to take a series of ten images, it stores them all and I can
decide later what mode I want at the end. There is also a Change Face
option that allows users who take portraits or group shots to swap out
faces if someone in the shot wasn’t smiling in one of the ten frames, or
had their eyes shut.
Camera Performance. Though the camera is
feature-rich at this time, I do have a few complaints with the camera,
and hopefully these quirks can be addressed via a simple software update
in the future. The first complaint is sometimes the camera locks up,
and only a restart of the phone would fix this issue. Though the camera
would launch and the controls and dials would work, I cannot capture
images when this lockup happens. This applies to video mode as well.

Too
many standard camera apps could cause confusion. Though the number of
lenses available augment the experience, it could be complicated for
newbies to the Windows Phone platform.
The second complaint I have is that with the Smart Camera app and the
Pro Camera App, along with a number of different lenses and photo
editing suites (Creative Suite from Nokia), there may be just too much
going on. This is on top of the Windows Phone Camera, which also ships
on the Lumia 1020. For those switching from Android or iOS and have no
experience with Windows Phone, this experience may be confusing. Still,
Nokia rectifies this in part by mapping the shutter directly to the
Nokia Pro Camera app, but I feel that the company may do well by
consolidating all the separate apps into one experience.
Video Sample (Galaxy S4 v. Lumia 1020)
Image Samples (Lumia 1020, Galaxy S4, iPhone 5)
Though the Lumia 1020 has a Xenon flash and both the Galaxy S4 and
iPhone 5 have single-LED flash bulbs, the image samples below show
photos captured in all lighting conditions, without the use of any
artificial flash lighting. I wanted to see how each sensor can handle
noise, grain, and details in various lighting conditions without the aid
of a flash.
And though I did post any images taken with the Xenon flash from the
Lumia 1020, it appears that Nokia did correct the white balance issue
when Xenon is used. Because Nokia developed the Pro Camera app, the
Xenon flash now has the proper white balance and won’t render skin tones
orange.
Lumia 1020 Image samples

Captured in a dark parking lot, no flash

The Earl Brothers Band on stage at Amnesia, San Francisco; no flash on a dark stage.

Plants outside a dark window at night; no flash

Main quad at Stanford University at night; no flash

In
the above image, you see a man texting. But what about this man walking
away with the street sign legible? This image was cropped from the
above image.

A
crop from the high resolution photo of the above image still retains a
lot of details, and you can now clearly see a man fishing on the pier by
the bridge along with some chairs in the background. This picture was
taken just after sunrise.

Nice,
shallow depth of field where the tomatoes in the front are in focus and
there is a defocused background with the shelves. The bokeh is greatly
enhanced on the Lumia 1020 (compared with sample shots on iPhone 5 and
Galaxy S4 below) thanks to the larger sensor size of the Nokia phone.
Galaxy S4
The backside illuminated sensor of the Galaxy S4 does a good job at
night, but is no matched compared to the larger sensor with optical
image stabilization of Nokia’s Lumia 1020. Depending on the shots,
sometimes the Galaxy S4 does a better job. For instance, the photo of
the band playing, the Galaxy S4 does a better job, I think, than the
Lumia, but other shots taken at night or indoors with low light during
the day were done better on the Lumia.
iPhone 5
Images captured with the iPhone 5 with decent light are good, but
lack the details of the increased megapixels on the Galaxy S4 or Lumia
1020. Lumia’s camera achieve better details either through higher
megapixel count (up to 41), or over-sampling by analyzing all the pixels
and compressing the image into a smaller 5-megapixel sensor. In darker
lighting, the sensor of the iPhone does suffer and there is apparent
grain and noise in the images.

Flare from lights on this image with iPhone 5′s camera.
Battery Life, Call Quality
As my review unit arrived late due to some delays with AT&T, I
was not able to have an accurate battery life test. I’ll re-visit this
review with more posts and updates in the future about the Lumia 1020 to
give you a gauge of battery life as I use the phone more under more
normal circumstances. As it stands now, I mostly use the phone to take
camera image samples, check emails, and make quick phone calls, so any
battery life indication I would offer would not be indicative of normal
usage. As such, I’ll reserve comment on this topic for now.
In terms of call quality and data speeds, AT&T’s network in San
Jose and San Francisco, California was excellent. In congested San
Francisco, California where rival Verizon’s network would slow down for
data calls, AT&T’s was still fast. On average, I get between 10 to
30 Mbps on the download side here and anywhere between 5 and 20 Mbps
with uploads. In San Jose, Verizon’s network performed almost equally as
well, so your mileage may vary depending on network conditions and
traffic congestion.
Calls, like on all Nokia phones, sounded warm, loud, and pleasing.
The Lumia 1020 had no issues with reception or call quality whatsoever,
and I am overall very pleased with the call quality. I think call
quality sounds better and warmer than on competing handsets on iOS and
Android.
Conclusion
The Nokia Lumia 1020 should be on the short list of phones to
consider for anyone who is looking to upgrade to a new device this year.
Though Windows Phone’s ecosystem isn’t as robust as Android’s or
Apple’s, there are still plenty of apps to choose from, and in most
cases where an official app isn’t available, there is a decent
third-party alternative. 6Sec is a third-party alternative for Vine and I
use Instance as my Instagram client, for example.
Still, despite a growing app catalog, there are still some qualms
with Microsoft’s platform. Though I love the email app, I cannot attach
documents directly from within an email itself. There is still no Xbox
video store where I can purchase, rent, and watch movies on the go on my
phone, and as a heavy user of Google services, I find the lack of
Google apps a challenge, although not an impossible one. There are apps
for Google Drive, third-party clients for Google Talk, and even a Google
Search hub. I just want a better Google Voice client with push
notifications that work.
In terms of what Nokia has done with the platform, it’s nothing short
of amazing. From small improvements like the Glance screen to larger
apps like Nokia Drive+ and Nokia Music, there is a lot of value that
you’re getting with the Lumia 1020, which retails for $300 for a 32 GB
phone. While some may balk at the $300 contract price, the phone is
competitive with the iPhone given you’re getting 32 GB of internal
storage, while at the same time besting every other smartphone on the
market with its insanely awesome PureView camera.
The camera alone should make those who are interested in preserving
memories and telling stories, people with children or pet, or any
photography enthusiast salivating as it’s truly the first highly capable
camera that you can always take with you. Bridging the DSLR gap with a
smartphone, the Nokia Lumia 1020 may just be the smartphone of the year;
I highly doubt Apple or Android will be able to catch up to Nokia
anytime soon.
From low light to bright light, the Lumia not only captures superb
images, but offers users who demand more from their phones a lot of
creative control and flexibility. Now, it’s just up to Microsoft to ramp
up Windows Phone to keep the platform competitive.

\ Glance screen a feature borrowed from Symbian
The Lumia 1020 is simply the best camera phone on the market, and
Nokia extends its leadership proudly once again with this flagship
device. Windows Phone is catching up, and despite not having the latest
quad-core CPUs or 1080p displays, the Lumia 1020 shows that Windows
Phone can deliver on more frugal computing power, all wrapped in an
attractive from factor that’s as beautiful as it is functional.
Editor’s Note. As
the Nokia Lumia 1020 is a popular device, we’ll continue to post about
our experiences with this phone. Given the limited time we’ve had with
the device, we’ll explore more about the camera once we better
familiarize ourselves with how it handles over time and update our
experiences. Additionally, we’ll continue to monitor battery life. As
I’ve personally pre-ordered the Lumia 1020, it will become my daily
driver and I’ll write more about my experiences with the phone, Windows
Phone as a platform, and the apps ecosystem as time goes on.
via: gottabemobile