My Thoughts On The Lumia 1020

Yesterday, Nokia held their July 11 event in New York City and they have taken wraps off the latest addition to the Lumia family called the Lumia 1020. Well prior to launch there was quite a lot of leaks, in fact nearly everything was leaked out 1 hour before the event. Those leaks did take away some thunder for Stephen Elop on stage. I can say that this is the second most leaked device this year and the first place being the Samsung Galaxy S4 which was leaked pretty extensively prior to its launch. Well enough about that today i'll be talking all about the Lumia 1020. Ever since the 808 Pureview launched in MWC 2012, netizens were asking when will Nokia ever combine that sensor with a the Windows Phone OS.

We were betting high on Nokia's 2012 flagship phone dubbed the Lumia 920 but it merely came with only an 8MP camera but Nokia did introduce some pretty cool innovations alongside it. Since then Nokia has introduced 2 other devices based on the Lumia 920 which is the Lumia 928 and Lumia 925. Deep down the DNA of the three devices are there but they are just presented in different forms to suit different needs. After about a year or so since the inception of the 808 pureview, the Lumia 1020 was born and the netizens were overjoyed for the 41MP sensor which is powered by the third ecosystem and not on a dying platform (symbian). Apparently the stockholders were also quite happy with the device as their stocks surged after the event. Oh yeah if you missed the even yesterday you can watch the even here

[Image courtesy of TheVerge]

Moving on to actually talking about the Lumia 1020; I was literally super excited when i first saw the leaked image of the Lumia 1020 earlier this week. The yellow body and black camera lens seemed to match very well. Before i go in too much about my thoughts for the device, i'll first touch on the specifications of the device. The Lumia 1020 comes with a 4.5" Puremotion HD+ display, a 1.5GHz dual core snapdragon processor, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage which is not physically expandable, a 1.2MP wide angle front facing camera, a 2000mAh non removable battery, LTE support and the usual knick knacks like bluetooth etc. The main star of the phone of course is the 41MP sensor which is referenced from the 808 pureveiw. One of the downside of the Lumia 1020 is that is does not have wireless charging built in but Nokia did add to contact points to attach a wireless charging sleeve on to the device.

The overall dimension of the device is similar to the Lumia 920 but this time around Nokia has managed to make it lighter even with a more advanced camera on it; it weighs in at 158g which is a bit lighter than the 808 pureview but is not as light as 2013 flagships by any stretch at all. In this article i won't talk too much about the camera itself as it would be a lot to talk so i have decided to do so in the upcoming article which i will explain every single bit about how the camera works and what does 41MP mean in a smartphone. To sum things up here the Lumia 1020 basically has the same specs as the other 3 flagship Nokia Lumia devices with the exception the Lumia 1020 having 2GB of RAM which is most probably needed so that the camera can process the images with much more ease. You can look up all of the specs in detail below here:

"The Lumia 1020 is basically the Lumia 920 we all dreamed of"

In the event, Stephen Elop was mostly talking about the zooming capabilities thus the hashtag for the event was #zoomreinvented. The thing which i found most impressive on the Lumia 1020 is not the hardware but the software, the engineering team at Nokia has really done a good job. One of the features are that you can take a shot whether zoomed in or out and after that you can zoom back in or zoom back out. Another feature is the low exposure which will open a window to a ton of camera effects like the one they demonstrated on stage which is writing in mid air with light. The Nokia Pro Camera app was just the thing the Lumia 1020 needed to add a little more professional feel to the device. 

The new camera app will allow users to change manual settings like ISO, shutter speed, etc; the UI is similar to the one found with the Galaxy Camera by Samsung but Nokia's version is far more simplier to use. In the coming months Pureview branded Lumia phones like the Lumia 925 will be getting this new camera update with the Amber update. Additionally the 41MP sensor on the Lumia 1020 is back side illuminated and also comes with OIS, i'll cover that in more in depth in the article dedicated to the camera on the Lumia 1020. In the event, Stephen Elop did touch on the audio of the Lumia 1020 which looks to be as powerful as the one found in the Lumia 920. That's pretty much it for the camera section of the Lumia 1020, stay tuned for the dedicated article coming in a few days time.

"Zoom has a new definition"

Earlier today while i was researching about the device i found out that there are some pretty positive feedback from both tech sites and the commenters. It seemed that the people which had their hands on with the device found that it is very nice to hold in the hand and is not too thick by any stretch. The weight was also said to be very balanced. Personally looking at the spec sheet i do think the same, the weight and the dimensions were perfected. The camera grip accessory is something quite interesting as it makes the Lumia 1020 look like a standard point and shoot camera with the inclusion of a 2 stage camera shutter button and a tripod mound, this accessory should be quite a popular one. But one thing i still can't find out is the exact thickness of the 1020 including the camera hump. The Lumia 1020 comes in yellow, black and white and in the US it will be coming exclusively to AT&T on July 26 for $299 and will also be heading to China and select European markets by this quarter. Below here are some sample images taken with the Lumia 1020, Download the original image and try zooming in you will be amazed by the detail which the image poses.


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