Design
The Nokia Lumia 1020 is the phone that has been waiting for a long time. It runs on Windows Phone 8 and uses the same photography technology as the Nokia 808 PureView, which had a great camera but ran on the legacy Symbian OS.
The Nokia Lumia 1020 is not a flagship phone, but it is perfect for people who would like to use it as a camera. Externally, the phone is somewhat similar to the Lumia 920, but with a matte rather than glossy surface.
The case is also made of bright polycarbonate, the phone seems rather large and heavy. This is primarily due to the camera, the lens of which protrudes a few millimeters forward. Because of this, the thickness of the phone is 10.4 mm, and the weight is 158 g. There are also certain problems with ergonomics due to the camera, which makes the phone inconvenient to hold in hands. As for the rest, the body of the phone is pleasant to the touch, the edges are conveniently rounded.
On the right side of the phone there are sound control buttons, camera and power / lock buttons, the left side is completely free of buttons and ports. A microSIM card slot, a microphone for noise cancellation and a 3.5mm headphone jack are located on the top of the smartphone, a USB port and a speaker grill are on the bottom. Memory cards are not supported; instead, the manufacturer offers 32GB and 64GB versions of the phone.
The back cover houses the camera module, xenon flash, LED backlight and camera lens.
Screen
The 4.5-inch screen of the Lumia 1020 can hardly be called large now, which makes it not so pleasant to watch videos on the phone. In terms of technical specifications, the Lumia 1020 has a Super AMOLED screen with a resolution of 1,280 x 768 pixels. The contrast is excellent, the color display is also on par and, thanks to the anti-reflective coating of the display, the image is clearly visible even in direct sunlight.
But the screen has one interesting feature, the pixel density here is 332, which is higher than the iPhone 4, but the screen of the Lumia 1020 is not as sharp. The thing is that it uses a PenTile matrix, which uses two subpixels per pixel instead of three. This greatly reduces the sharpness of the screen and a slight blurring of the image is noticeable on the display.
Work and operating system
The Nokia Lumia 1020 is equipped with the Windows Phone 8 operating system, or rather one of its versions - Amber, developed specifically for Nokia. Although it differs little from the original operating system: added the ability to unlock the phone with two taps on the screen, decrease the volume of the call if you turn the phone upside down, and also set a large number of wallpapers for the desktop.
The phone is powered by a Krait MSM8960 dual-core processor, which has a frequency of 1.5 GHz and 2GB of RAM. These specifications are mainly needed to ensure the operation of the camera. There's also the rather outdated Adreno 225 graphics accelerator, but that doesn't seem like a big deal because there aren't that many good games in the Windows Store. All decent games are in the Xbox section and are quite expensive.
The Live Tile system is also used as a desktop. The size of the "tiles" can be customized. If you flick to the right of the home page, a list of all your apps will open.
The Lumia 1020 has a lot of decent apps. First of all, this is HERE Suite, a collection of navigation applications from Nokia.
Nokia Drive is for navigating in the car, and it works pretty well, especially since it's a free version. You can download maps for offline use, there is also voice navigation.
HERE Maps is an alternative to Google Maps that also allows you to download maps in advance.
The Lumia 1020 has a lot of social services, they are all combined into one People program, where you can enter your Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and LinkedIn accounts.
It also has support for Outlook, Yahoo !, Hotmail, and Google email clients.
Camera
This is a key feature of the Lumia 1020. The camera has impressive performance for a mobile phone: 41 megapixels, dual LED / xenon flash, 1 / 1.5 inch sensor, optical image stabilization. It is the most advanced mobile phone camera at the moment.The most impressive resolution is 41 megapixels, although the camera is primarily designed for 5 megapixel images and has a maximum effective resolution of 34 megapixels.
The Lumia 1020 offers three separate camera apps. This is a standard Windows Phone 8 program, Nokia Smart Lens and Pro Mode applications for advanced settings.
Windows Phone 8 program
The basic Windows Phone 8 app is very simple. Click on any object on the screen and the camera will focus on it and take a picture. This program is not intended for quick access to the wide functionality of the camera, but it can be used to quickly take a photo. The control buttons allow you to switch between photography and video recording, front and main cameras, turn on and off the flash, and also switch between modes, which in this phone are called Lenses. Panorama mode is available, the rest must be downloaded from the Windows Store, very often for money.
Smart lens
The first additional camera software from Nokia is called Smart Lens. It allows you to take a series of 10 pictures, and then combine them into one, removing unwanted objects, create a blur effect, or take a picture showing several versions of the same moving subject.
Smart Lens is more suitable for photos you upload to social media, rather than serious shots.
Pro Mode
Pro Mode provides you with a simple and straightforward interface that offers quick access and easy control over many functions. You can change: focus, white balance, ISO, shutter speed and exposure compensation. The only fixed setting in the phone's camera is the aperture (f / 2.2). When you change the settings, a preview of the result appears on the screen.
Camera operation
Pro Mode is quite fast, but without a doubt the biggest problem with the Nokia Lumia 1020's camera is its speed.
Although focusing is fast, the phone needs a four second break between shots. This is much slower than the iPhone 5, which only needs a half-second pause. The situation gets worse if you are using a xenon flash that needs to be recharged after use. This speed of work is most likely due to the need to process the photo and transfer information from the 41Mpx sensor to the 5Mpx photo.
Image quality
With a huge 1 / 1.5-inch sensor, you can expect great image quality and the Nokia Lumia 1020 will not disappoint you. No competitor can deliver the same results in image detail and clarity.
The Lumia 1020 delivers excellent results when shooting wide-angle images, given the 25mm equivalent focal length. The Pro mode is capable of simultaneously creating 5Mpx and 34Mpx photos.
However, the edges of the photo are still a little blurry.
Flash and low light shooting
Low light performance is better than the average phone. The reason is the presence of optical image stabilization and xenon flash.
The Lumia 1020's lens can change its position many times per second using tiny motors located in the camera body. This allows the phone to take clear images using longer exposure times.
When shooting static subjects, the Lumia 1020's stabilization works great, with images not blurry even in mediocre lighting. But when photographing people, stabilization is not so useful, any movement becomes a blur in the photo. This is why the Nokia Lumia 1020 has a dual flash. An LED flash is needed for focusing because it gives a directional stream of light, and a powerful xenon flash with a white balance close to daylight (5600-5800 K) is needed to illuminate subjects.
Macro
This mode in the Nokia Lumia 1020 is a bit disappointing because the focusing distance is only 13cm. The 25mm focal length doesn't help either. But if you analyze the result, you will see that it is not so bad.You can't take a photo very close, but the detail is really high.
Panorama
Despite the lack of a built-in HDR mode, there is Panorama here. This mode was not specifically designed for phones with high-end cameras and is not as good as the full-size panorama mode in the iPhone5. The pictures are taken in a slightly reduced resolution, so the result is a little disappointing. Better to try to combine your photos yourself or install another program.
Video recording
Video recording is not the main function of the Nokia Lumia 1020 camera, so its quality is far from perfect. Modern phones have already started to support 4K, while the camera of this device still records video in 1080p.
In reality, this is quite enough and the phone has other features that are worth paying attention to. For example, when recording video, image stabilization works, which was used in photographs. Of course, without a tripod, even with stabilization, you will not completely get rid of the “shaking hands” effect, but the quality of video recording is significantly increased.
Another notable plus is the sound recording quality. This phone uses Nokia's Rich Recording system, which are HAAC stereo microphones that enhance the volume of the recorded sound.
Front-camera
The front camera of Nokia Lumia 1020 does not have any outstanding characteristics and cannot even come close to comparing with the main camera. It has a 1.2 Mpx sensor and is mainly used for video calls. Video recording is possible, both with low resolution and 720p.
Multimedia
The Nokia Lumia 1020 comes with a standard Windows Phone 8 music player that is both beautiful and easy to use. Nokia has slightly improved the audio experience for headphone listening. There is an equalizer with seven modes of operation and a Dolby Headphone DSP mode, which allows you to create a surround sound experience even when using regular stereo headphones. But no audio effects work when listening through an external speaker. It is located on the bottom edge of the device and is unable to provide a stereo effect. Although the sound is not bad even at maximum volume, the quality cannot be called something memorable.
Battery
Nokia Lumia 1020 is powered by a 2000 mAh non-removable battery. Battery life depends on how you use your phone. Nokia says the phone can last 16 days or 384 hours in standby mode. This is much more than the iPhone 5S. But if you use the internet, the xenon flash, and play, the Lumia 1020's battery life will not impress you. Like all modern phones, the Nokia Lumia 1020 needs to be charged every day.
There is an energy-saving mode that turns off the automatic synchronization of programs that require Internet access (updates to e-mail and social networks). This mode increases the operating time of the phone up to one and a half days.
Output
Nokia Lumia 1020 is a beautiful phone with a great camera. However, if camera quality is not the most important feature of your phone, you should consider buying the cheaper Nokia Lumia 620 or Nokia Lumia 925. Unfortunately, Windows Phone 8 is not able to show all the advantages of the camera, and the lack of applications in the Windows Store is all is still noticeable.
