The big, circular bump on the back of the Lumia 1020 is impossible to miss. Place the phone on a table and it rests at an angle, slightly propped up by the protrusion. Hold it in your hand and you’re always fondling the circle’s edges.
But the phone’s uniquely shaped backside isn’t without reason. In fact, it’s there for a really great reason:Nokia’s Lumia 1020 packs the best smartphone camera available, one with a gargantuan 41-megapixel sensor, Xenon flash, six physical lens elements, and the software to support it all.
The Finnish company had previously trumped all smartphone cameras with its 41-megapixel PureView 808 last year. It won accolades and plenty of press buzz. The actual Symbian-powered phone, however, was mediocre. And where the Lumia 1020′s raised back looks fairly elegant and sleek, the PureView 808 looks as if somebody had just slapped an extra piece onto an already bulky phone’s back.
Which is to say, I’ve been eagerly waiting for Nokia to make the Lumia 1020 since the PureView camera made its debut. And luckily, this new Windows Phone-powered mobile does not disappoint.
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| Photo by Jim Merithew/WIRED |
The Lumia 1020 is a refined piece of hardware. At 10.4mm thick (minus the camera) and 5.6 ounces, it’s both thinner and lighter than the Lumia 920. The familiar matte, polycarbonate shell — which comes in white, black and yellow — envelops the phone. The clicking sensation of the volume rocker, lock button and camera button all feel sturdier and more responsive. And the 4.5-inch 1280 by 768 resolution AMOLED display is bright and crisp. The battery lasted a full day in my testing, with regular use and plenty of photo-taking. And it would probably last longer than a day if you were caught without a charger.
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| Sample photograph from the Nokia Lumia 1020. Click to enlarge. Photo by Alexandra Chang/WIRED. |
Most importantly, the camera is absolutely amazing. It takes better photos than any other camera phone and is just as good as most point-and-shoots in its price range (it’s $300 on contract from AT&T). The physical camera hasn’t changed much since the PureView 808. You take 38-megapixel photos in a 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio. The sensor uses pixel oversampling, stuffing seven pixels worth of data into a single pixel’s footprint. The results are undeniably sharp, clear images with tons of data for incredible digital zoom capabilities. The Lumia 1020 has up to 6x zoom. You’ll lose some clarity when you zoom in all the way, but for the most part, you can crop photos at your leisure without getting a grainy image.
Though you can take full, 38-megapixel resolution photos, the images saved to your camera roll are actually a more manageable 5 megapixels. You get the clarity of the shot without it taking up a huge amount of space in the phone’s 32GB memory.
Videos shot on the Lumia 1020 are also some of the best I’ve seen from a smartphone’s camera. Pixel oversampling gives you crisp-looking 1080p videos, and the image stabilization technology inside makes videos taken by even the shakiest hands easy to watch. Plus, a new microphone captures excellent sound quality to match the picture quality.
The camera software is just as impressive, and it’s the distinguishing feature that makes the Lumia 1020 a much better camera phone than the matching physical camera in the PureView 808. The Nokia Pro Cam app is easy to use, with plenty of power. If you leave everything as is, with all auto settings, you’ll take consistently great photos. The camera button makes it easy to focus, and lock focus, by pressing halfway down and holding there until you’re ready to press all the way to take a shot. But you can also customize plenty of settings — flash, white balance, focus, ISO, shutter speed and exposure — to make sure you get the absolute best shot. (You can adjust white balance and focus for video.)
The app makes it easy to tap a certain setting and adjust it in a radial menu. You’ll see how those adjustments will make a photo look through a live preview in the viewfinder — something I sorely missed in the original stock Windows Phone Camera app that came with the Lumia 920. If you know you want to change multiple settings at once, just drag the camera icon up and you’ll see multiple radial menus laid across the screen. Other bonuses include an exposure bracketing feature that lets you take multiple photos, three or five, at different exposures. And Nokia packs several exclusive “lenses” like Cinemagraph and Nokia Smart Cam — a tool to help you take action shots, remove moving objects, change people’s faces, and the like.
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| Sample photograph from the Nokia Lumia 1020. Click to enlarge. Photo by Alexandra Chang/WIRED. |
Once you’ve taken your photo, you can crop from a full-res version by tapping a circular thumbnail at the top of the app. The tool lets you produce multiple closely cropped shots from a single photo. In one instance, I took a photo of a swimming hole and zoomed in super close to a fish that you could barely see in the original image. The caveat: Your full-res photos exist only in Nokia Pro Cam. You won’t be able to crop as closely in the camera roll, and the only way to get full-res photos out of Nokia Pro Cam is to connect the phone to a computer via USB. So if you really want to share or edit a full-res, rather than a 5-megapixel, image, you still need to physically wire the phone to a computer to transfer the larger files.
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| Sample photograph from the Nokia Lumia 1020. Click to enlarge. Photo by Alexandra Chang/WIRED. |
Quickly editing and sharing even your regular photos is still a challenge on Windows Phone 8, however. The platform currently lacks the most popular photo apps, including Instagram, Snapseed, an up-to-date Flickr, 500px, and Snapchat. It’s clear that Microsoft, along with Nokia, are working to change this. Hipstamatic’s Oggl, which is available now, has a backdoor to Instagram, allowing you post to the popular photo sharing network, along with Facebook and Twitter. Vine is also going to make its way onto Windows Phone at some point — though they aren’t talking release dates yet, it will be a huge win for the platform once the app is available.
Beyond the camera, the Lumia 1020 is as good as any other Windows Phone 8 handset. The OS is always speedy and easy to use. The on-board apps work without problem. Typing on the touchscreen keyboard is decent, though not the best. But really, the main problem is that Windows Phone 8 is lagging behind iOS’ and Android’s app ecosystems. There still aren’t enough people using WP8 smartphones and so, not enough developers building quality apps for the platform. It’s slowly getting there, but for now, you just won’t get access to as many great apps on a Windows Phone, Lumia 1020 or otherwise.
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| Photo by Jim Merithew/WIRED |
That said, if you want the absolute best camera on a smartphone, then the Lumia 1020 is for you. At $300 with a two-year contract, it’s the same price as an iPhone with equivalent storage, and its camera blows away the iPhone’s, along with all other smartphones we’ve tested this year. Nokia is leading the pack when it comes to smartphone imaging technology.
You just have to be OK with hitching your wagon to Windows Phone. It’s definitely trailing behind when it comes to the best apps, but who knows, maybe the Lumia 1020 and Nokia’s imaging SDK will be enough to spur developers to hop on.
WIRED Best. Camera. Phone. Hands. Down. Camera button is well-made and sturdy. Easy to focus and lock focus. Excellent audio quality for a smartphone. Really great on-board camera app. Good battery life. Slimmed down from its predecessors…
TIRED …but still bulky compared to other smartphones. Lagging app ecosystem with Windows Phone 8. Camera slow to launch out of the lock screen.
-Wired.com
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