It's been more than an year since the unveiling of the original Nokia 808 PureView smartphone - it's only now that we see the technology implemented into a Windows Phone. And from what our encounter with the Lumia 1020 shows, the wait was well worth it. The smartphone is bound to make the Microsoft platform the new leader in smartphone imaging and the new focal point for everyone interested in mobile photography.
The camera aside, the Nokia Lumia 1020 doesn't bring anything over the Lumia 920. In fact it even lacks wireless charging capabilities, requiring an optional accessory for it. And yet, we do like the 1020 AMOLED screen better than the LCD on the Lumia 920, but the Lumia 925 already has that in a much more +compact shell.
Nokia Lumia 920 • Nokia Lumia 925
However, we still feel that the Lumia 1020 is in a better position to attract customers than its predecessor was 8 months ago. Windows Phone has significantly matured in that period and now has very little gaps in the apps department. This means that those wanting to try the latest and greatest in the camephone department and get a taste of the live tiles no longer have to worry about sacrificing the overall smartphone experience. And yes, a notification center would be nice, but it's not a real deal-breaker.
What might turn out to be a bigger problem however is the high asking price of the Lumia 1020. The smartphone is set to debut in the US on the AT&T network for $300 with a two-year contract. This makes it over $100 (depending on the deal you get) more expensive than the HTC One (also 32GB) and Samsung Galaxy S4 (16GB with microSD card slot) and the same price as a 32GB Apple iPhone 5. If that kind of pricing carries over when the smartphone hits Europe, it means that you'll have to pay about €700/£600 for it and that is really way more than Nokia can afford to charge for its flagship at the moment.
HTC One • Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4 • Apple iPhone 5
It's beyond doubt that this will be the best cameraphone on the market for some time to come (probably until Nokia releases its successor), but the fact remains that it's got a chipset more than twice slower than its competitors and a screen of less than half the resolution. There's also the issue of the size - the Lumia 1020 is larger and heavier than just about every other flagship out there.
As we see it - the Nokia Lumia 1020 really has the potential to become a hit. Not only that - it can lay the foundations for something bigger - make WP8 desirable before quad-core 1080p flagships arrive in the holiday season and cause explosive growth. Or it can remain a niche product that only a few enthusiasts care about if the pricing remains like that - your call, Nokia.
Formerly Nokia Maps and Nokia Drive, the mapping and navigation features from Nokia were rebranded to HERE earlier this year. Although they are no longer exclusive to Nokia WP-handsets, only high-end Lumia devices will get the Drive+ global navigation suite for free out of box.
HERE Drive+ offers free, life-time voice-guided navigation anywhere in the world. All you have to do is download a voice in your language of choice and you're good to go. Of course, to make use of the key selling point of Drive - offline navigation - you have to download a map for a country of your choice, too.
Nokia Drive+ does voice-guided navigation
With Drive+ you can easily plan routes (all offline, unlike the early iterations of this app) and you can tweak various settings for each route - fastest/shortest/economical route can be selected and you can choose whether the app will use or avoid motorways, toll roads, ferries, tunnels, unpaved roads and motor trains. There are icons to remind you of the selected settings.
Drive+ uses big, clear instructions on its screen in addition to the voice prompts, which is ideal for in-car use. You can switch between 2D and 3D mode and switch the color scheme (day, night, auto). There are speed alerts and real-time traffic information.
Tweaking the route-planning algorithm • day and night color schemes
We do miss a few options - like setting a starting location other than your current location and downloading maps for an entire continent. Still, Nokia offer quality maps and offline voice-guided navigation out of the box, which puts them ahead of other Windows Phone makers an even other platforms (both Android and iOS require a data connection to plan the route).
Nokia Drive will work in most of the world
The most recent update to the HERE suite (July 2013) adds an overview of traffic conditions in your area, including your drive to and from work with the My Commute app. My Commute shows you an at-a-glance look at your specified commute with a special Live Tile on your homescreen. You can setup up multiple commutes as well.
Commute alerts show up on your homescreen as a Live Tile
Nokia Maps takes on other duties - instead of navigation, it's more of a replacement for paper maps that you can take as you explore a city. It will help you discover new places, read a quick description, see photos, read reviews and check what renowned guides like Lonely Planet, Insight Guides and Qype have to say about it.
Nokia Maps has a ton of info
The Maps app also offers walking, driving and public transport navigation but it only shows a list of instructions. It shares data with Drive so you don't have to download the same maps twice.
Maps can be used for basic navigation too
The former Local Scout and City Lens features have been integrated into the Places section of HERE Maps, and gives you a quick view of restaurants, shops, galleries and other POIs around you, including an augmented reality view via the camera called LiveSight. Tapping the virtual signs in the camera interface pops up more info about the place, as well as directions.
The places interface lets you view POIs on the map as well as through the camera
The Nokia Lumia 1020 headliner is its 41MP camera at the back. And while the resolution is the same, the camera module has been significantly redesigned since the Nokia 808 PureView came around.
One of the few things that the two PureView sensors have in common is that even though they technically are 41MP units, they aren't actually able to take 41MP photos. Here you can see all the different image aspects and their respective resolution. The sensor has a total active surface of 7728 x 5368 pixels, which does amount to 41MP, but depending on the aspect ratio you choose, it will capture either a 7728 x 4354 pixel image (34MP) in the 16:9 mode or a 7152 x 5368 pixel image (38MP) in the 4:3 mode.
Using the new Nokia Pro Camera app, the Lumia 1020 can save a photo in both 34MP and an oversampled 5MP variant. We'll touch more on that later on. Mind you, the default camera app is limited to shooting only 5MP photos in both 4:3 or 16:9 modes.
Probably in an attempt to keep the size of the module down, Nokia has decided to make the Lumia 1020 camera sensor smaller than the one in the 808 PureView. It's 1/1.5" instead of 1/1.2" and this means it has somewhat smaller pixels - 1.12 microns instead of 1.4 microns.
However, the new sensor has a BSI design, which improves light sensitivity. This means it offers lower noise levels in low light, so that probably makes up for the difference in size. There's also the fact that the new 6-element ZEISS lens has a wider aperture than the old one (F/2.2 instead of F/2.4) so it lets more light in.
Finally, there's the Optical Image Stabilization, which is still a rarity among smartphones, but an immensely useful thing to have. The Finns have naturally reworked the thing to accommodate the larger sensor and now you get to take shake-free videos and far better pictures in low light, provided that the subject you are shooting isn't moving.
In case you are not familiar, Optical image stabilization compensates for the movement of you hands and lets you take longer-exposure still shots without introducing blur due to camera shake. Longer exposures, in turn, allow lower ISO setting to be selected and still get the same exposure, only with less noise.
The downside is that those longer shutter speeds are only good for still subjects - any moving object would surely become a blurry trail on the photo.
The Nokia Lumia 1020 camera lens is nicely wide at 26mm - here's how its field of view (in both 4:3 and 16:9 mode) compares to the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the HTC One. The advantage over the Samsung flagship is quite significant and even the 28mm One can't fit as much in the frame.
The final improvement that Nokia made to the Lumia 1020, compared to the 808 PureView is the reduction of the minimal focus distance from 20cm to 15cm. This means that the Lumia 1020 is able to get closer to the subject and produce more detailed macro shots.
Now that we've got the technical stuff out of the way, we can move on to the new Pro Camera app that puts the whole thing in motion.
With Windows Phone 8 being the only operating system that Nokia is working on right now (RIP, Symbian), the Finns have taken care to add as much value to the Lumia brand as possible. And since Microsoft doesn't really allow UI customizations, adding value translates to supplying exclusive apps and services.
The Nokia Lumia 1020 comes with the new Amber update preinstalled but that doesn't change the user experience dramatically. It does add a few features like Glance Screen, FM radio support and a new camera lens (more on that in a minute) but the rest is barely different from the previous WP8 iterations.
The Nokia Glance Screen is one of the coolest features that the Amber update brings along. It's a tribute to the MeeGo lockscreen (and Symbian smartphones of old), where you can constantly see a clock and flags for any missed events right on the black standby screen. And just like on the Nokia N9, Glance screen lets you to wake up the phone with a double tap. The feature leverages on the AMOLED screen to achieve very good power efficiency as only the pixels needed to display the clock and notifications are lit up.
There are several options to the Glance Screen feature. It can either be Timed (after a pre-set period of time it turns off the screen completely to save battery) or always on, if you want to be able to see it at all times.
Weirdly, the Lumia 1020 missed the fourth option called Peek, which is present on the Lumia 925. It allows you to wave over the phone's face to display the clock and notifications, much like Samsung's Quick Glance.
Nokia Glance Screen options
If you don't need the Glance Screen feature, you can disable it altogether. Then you will simply have to push on the unlock button to reveal the lockscreen. It displays the current time and date and shows calendar events, emails and missed calls.
The lock screen • Music controls
There's a reasonable level of flexibility and functionality to the lockscreen - the Live Apps service allows apps to display notifications and images. You can set one app to display big notifications ("detailed status") and up to five more apps to show less ("quick status").
The lockscreen wallpaper can also be controlled by apps - you can let the music player change the lockscreen image to the album art of the currently playing track or let one of the installed apps choose the image (e.g. Bing's beautiful background images or photos from your Facebook account).
The Modern UI is a vertical grid of Live tiles, which can be reordered the way you like. Almost anything can be pinned to the homescreen - apps, contacts, web pages and more.
The home screen and main menu
Windows Phone 8 lets you resize the live tiles. Upon a tap and hold, you'll get an extra resize button, next to the unpin one. You can opt between quarter, normal and double size. If you select the smallest one though, the tile will be just a static icon (as is in the regular menu).
Resizing a tile
Most Live tiles display relevant info such as the current date, pending calendar events, missed calls, unread emails and more (third party apps do it, too). The Marketplace tile displays the number of updates available, while the Pictures tile is essentially a slideshow of your photos. It's nice to have all that info always available at-a-glance. You can look at them as homescreen widgets of sorts.
WP8 can do multitasking - well, not true multitasking, but more along the lines of iOS. Apps not in the foreground are suspended, but the OS has ways to take over and carry out the task for them (e.g. continue playing music). But just like Apple's iOS, if an app needs to run in the background (sat-nav apps, messengers, etc.) it can. The WP offers both kinds of multi-tasking and it's up to developers to choose how their apps behave.
The multi-tasking interface
To switch between apps, you press and hold the Back key. You'll get thumbnail snapshots of the apps, ordered chronologically left to right.
You can scroll the list horizontally to select an app and a tap will bring you back to your running or suspended app. You can't "kill" any of those apps from here - to exit one, you must bring it to front and use the Back key to close it.
If you keep on hitting the back key, you will effectively be closing all of the open apps one by one, which is very unnatural, especially when you've got an open Internet Explorer, which has to go all the way back to the first loaded page before it closes. Overall, it's best to let the OS manage the apps and not worry about which ones are opened or closed.
Opening the settings menu displays two sets of options: like on the start screen, you can swipe between System and Applications. System covers all the settings you can think of like sounds, color theme, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Accounts, etc. The Application settings let you configure each app you have on the device.
We would've liked to see some kind of quick toggles in Windows Phone 8 to spare you the need to go all the way to the settings menu to enable Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and the likes.
Another feature we feel is missing is a place where you can see all of your notifications from various apps. Live tiles manage to show notifications from each app to some extent, but they don't really have enough room for things like e-mail subject and such, while Android and iOS notification areas do. Microsoft has confirmed that it's working on just such a feature and that we should see it in a future update to WP 8, although recent rumors point to that being delayed to 2014.
Settings for the phone's storage
Being a WP8 handset, the Nokia Lumia 1020 also supports voice commands - you can dictate or have the phone read text out, you can initiate searches and so on. Unfortunately, the Windows assistant is still far behind the competition as far as recognition speed and accuracy are concerned.
The Lumia 1020 also comes with the Data Sense app, which shows you the amount of data you've used. Both cellular and Wi-Fi traffic is accounted for. There are different data limit types: one-time, monthly and unlimited. The first two accept custom bandwidth limit values, while the latter is applicable if you have an unlimited data plan, but would still like to track your usage.
Data Sense is useful if you're on a limited data plan
The can also restrict the background data usage for all apps, provided you're near the data limit that's been previously set. This will prevent some apps from functioning properly, though.
The new Nokia Lumia 1020 features the nicely helpful Kid's corner. You can select the apps and the types of media content that goes in and password-protect it, so you can safely share your smartphone with your kids without worrying that they will mess up your settings or access inappropriate content. When activated, the Kids corner is accessible by swiping left of the lockscreen. If you've secured it, your kids won't be able to return to your standard lock and home screen without the password.
The Kid's corner
The Nokia Lumia 1020 uses the Qualcomm MSM8960 chipset (1.5GHz dual-core CPU, 2GB RAM and Adreno 225 GPU). That's as good as it gets for WP8 devices at this stage, although Android competition has pulled quite far ahead - the LTE-Advanced Galaxy S4 already broke the 2GHz barrier and with a quad-core Krait processor at that.
A good thing is, the WP8 platform doesn't feel sluggish at all . Navigation is fast and animations are nicely smooth and fluid. There are places where you can feel a bit underpowered - loading heavier apps like Drive+ takes longer than it should on a flagship device and using the Camera Pro app to simultaneously capture full-res and downsampled shots simultaneously extends the shot-to-shot time significantly.
Microsoft keeps a pretty tight control over the hardware of Windows Phone devices, so understandably the Lumia 1020 brings little surprises here.
Above the screen you will find the earpiece, the ambient light and proximity sensors, as well as the 1.2MP front-facing camera.
The ambient and proximity sensors sit alongside the front-facing camera and the earpiece
Below the screen are the three touch-sensitive buttons for getting around the Windows Phone 8 UI. These are probably the most generously spaced capacitive keys in business. That and the extra space below them will be much appreciated for allowing an extra solid grip of that big and heavy handset.
The usual three keys at the bottom
Two-thumb typing in landscape is quite comfortable, but the uneven thickness makes getting a secure hold harder.
Nokia Lumia 1020 held in hand
There is absolutely nothing on the phone's left side but things get a lot busier on the right. The volume rocker is there, along with the power/lock key and a dedicated camera button. The latter would launch the camera even if the phone is locked.
The left side is bare, with all three keys on the right
At the top you get the 3.5mm audio jack, the secondary microphone and the microSIM tray. You'll need the SIM eject tool supplied in the retail package or another suitable sharp object to release the tray, but that's often the case with microSIM-packing devices, so we won't be deducting any points here.
A view from the top
Moving on to the bottom of the phone we find the microUSB port, which is flanked by the loudspeaker and the lanyard eyelet. There's no visible hole for the primary microphone, so it should be located behind the grille, too.
The microUSB port, the lanyard eyelet and the loudspeaker grille are at the bottom
The back of the device is where the a large round place featuring the 6-element ZEISS lens for the 41MP camera, the xenon flash and the LED flash, which also doubles as a video light. The bump is noticeable, but it's certainly smaller than those earlier leaks and the official photos made us believe.
The 41 megapixel camera and its entourage
Unfortunately it's located too low on the phone, so when you hold it one of your fingers usually ends up on the bump. Now that doesn't add too much to the thickness feel of the smartphone but it means you might get the occasional fingerprint on it, so make sure you clean the lens properly before starting the photo sessions.
The Lumia 1020 doesn't have a removable battery cover, which means you can't access or replace your battery. You can extend its capacity by another 1000 mAh if you get the optional grip cover, which also adds a larger shutter button and a comfortable grip.
Even without it the Lumia 1020 is said to last for up to 13h 20 min of talk time or 384h of stand-by on 3G networks, which is pretty decent. We'll have to wait to spend more time with the smartphone and do a proper battery test before we see how close those numbers are to reality.
The two dots at the back are used to connect to the optional wireless charging shell. Unlike the Lumia 920, the 1020 lacks that feature from the box and you have to get the optional cover to make it work. The combo of the two is certainly bulkier but you only need to connect the cover when you are actually using it, so we find this the better solution.
Aside from the non-removable battery, the other sacrifice mandated by the unibody design is the lack of expandable storage. Now 32GB should be enough for most users, but if you are not among them, you'll have to take your business elsewhere.
