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Nokia Lumia 1020 review
Nokia Lumia 1020 review:
A few months after the 808's release, we started seeing the first fruits of this effort in the Lumia 920, but there was work yet to be done. Finally, the time has come for the company to launch the 808's WP8 counterpart, the Lumia 1020, and it's launching on AT&T this Friday for $300 as a US exclusive.
Nokia’s Lumia 1020 is easily the company’s most important device to date—maybe one of the most important we’ll see all year. As other companies focus on upgrading familiar internal components—processor, RAM, etc.—Nokia instead played up to its biggest strength: mobile camera technology. The company has already proved itself worthy with its arguably under-appreciated Lumia lineup, but this is different.
On the surface, the Lumia 1020 isn’t all that different from previous Lumia devices such as AT&T’s 920, or Verizon’s 928. It has that familiar polycarbonate design—you either love it or hate it—with only the camera hump as the main physical differentiation. On the software side, too, things largely stay the same, though there’s some exclusive additions (for now) designed to really make that 41-megapixel camera soar.
Design
The Lumia 1020 comes in black and white, but there's something about the yellow hue that really pops. After all, if you want to attract attention with a 41-MP camera, you might as well have a phone that screams "fun." The black lens and chunky buttons that line the right side add a nice contrast, as does the AMOLED display that seems to float slightly above the rest of the sturdy polycarbonate chassis.
Measuring 5.1 x 2.8 x .41 inches and weighing 5.6 ounces, the Lumia 1020 isn't as light or thin as the aluminum Lumia 925 on T-Mobile (5.1 x 2.8 x .33 inches and 4.9 ounces), but it's certainly an improvement over last year's 6.5-ounce Lumia 920 for AT&T. In comparison, the HTC Onemeasures 5.4 x 2.7 x .37 inches and weighs 5.1 ounces
Display and audio
The 4.5-inch AMOLED PureMotion display on the Lumia 1020 stays true to Nokia's formula of offering bright and colorful images. Although the resolution is a somewhat modest 1280 x 768 pixels, everything from the lock screen and the Live Tile interface to our pictures looked vibrant.The bottom-mounted speaker on the Lumia 1020 gets fairly loud. The soaring vocals in Coldplay's "Yellow" sounded distinct from the guitars, but the overall sound wasn't as robust or balanced as the HTC One's dual speakers.
Software
The Lumia 1020 features the same dynamic and fun Windows Phone 8 software found on previous devices, such as the Lumia 925 and 928. We continue to appreciate the Live Tiles on the Start screen, which let you glance at information such as social updates and how many emails are waiting for you. It's also easy to resize tiles to customize the interface. Plus, you can pin anything to the Start screen, from your favorite sports team from the ESPN app (Yankees for us) to Spotify playlists.
However, Windows Phone 8 also continues to suffer from some weaknesses. For instance, you have to tap the top of the screen to see your battery meter and signal strength, and you can't easily toggle such settings as Airplane Mode, Wi-Fi or brightness as you can on most Android phones. And although you can press and hold the Back button to switch between apps in a card-based view, you can't close apps from this menu.
41-MP PureView camera
The 41-MP sensor inside the Lumia 1020 isn't a first for smartphones, having first appeared inside the Symbian-powered PureView 808 last year. But Nokia has streamlined its imaging system to fit inside a thinner body while layering powerful apps on top to give photo enthusiasts more control. The 1020 boasts Carl Zeiss optics with six physical lenses, and its sensor is capable of taking 38-MP and 5-MP images simultaneously (the latter designed for social sharing). If you shoot in 16:9 mode, the Lumia 1020 captures 34-MP and 5-MP shots at once.
You can also have some fun revisionist zoom history with photos in the other direction. If you zoom in on a subject before snapping a photo, you can then reframe the shot with the press of a button and zoom out. You may even decide to create a whole separate photo. No other smartphone can do this.
In Auto mode, the Lumia 1020 blew away such competing smartphones as the iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One when we took a shot of two colleagues on our office rooftop. Not only did the image have more saturated colors, but we could easily make out fine details and folds in the shirts they were wearing.
Nokia Pro Camera app
The fun really starts when you use the Nokia Pro Camera app, which features all sorts of manual controls via a slick radial interface with multiple sliders. You can tweak everything from manual focus, ISO and shutter speed to white balance. Not sure what any of these things do? Nokia provides an in-depth tutorial that lets you try out a lot of the features to see how they'll affect your photos, as well as offers a glossary. Plus, you can preview many of the settings changes in real time when you're taking pictures.
Camera drawbacks
The autofocus is a little slow, too, so you could miss a moving subject. All of Nokia's competitors have faster cameras. Our advice is to use the physical camera button and press it halfway to focus before firing.
Another drawback is that the Lumia 1020 has multiple camera apps with different interfaces. For instance, the Pro Camera app has a dedicated on-screen shutter button and shortcuts to your gallery in the upper-left corner (one of the last shot you took, and the other for your entire camera roll). With the regular Camera app, you can press anywhere on the display to take a photo and swipe in from the left to access the camera roll. That's confusing.
Video
The Lumia 1020's video capabilities are quite impressive, allowing you to zoom in up to six times while still maintaining a quality image. And with Nokia Rich Recording, you'll enjoy stereo sound.
Overall performance
Equipped with a 1.5-GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor and 2GB of RAM, the Lumia 1020 offers the same snappy performance we've come to expect from Windows Phone.
On the WP Bench -- which measures CPU, memory, storage and GPU performance -- the Lumia 1020 scored 224, which is the exact same score as the Lumia 925 recorded and just a couple of ticks behind the Lumia 928's score of 228.
The Lumia 1020 did get warm at times, especially when the 4G LTE radio was active, but not disturbingly so.
Pros: Sharpest photos ever from a phone; Pro Camera app provides lots of creative control; Great flash; Bright and colorful display; Optional Camera Grip offers DSLR-like feel
Cons: Bulky backside; Noticeable lag on shutter and shot-to-shot time; Windows Phone still trails in apps and features; Pricey; Too many separate photo apps
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