News - 41 megapixel Nokia Lumia 1020 officially unveiled (inc videos)

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Features and advertising lean heavily on imaging capabilities.

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Anyone happy with a 4.5" screen should seriously consider this as their next phone unless the price in the UK goes through the roof. $300 + contract in the US would indicate this could be one of the most expensive phones out there.

Shame though the camera is really the only innovation here. Perfect opportunity for Microsoft/windows to pump out a 1080p screen, larger screen, USB 3 should become more a norm, expandable memory etc etc..


I know Windows is mostly the restricting factor here, but all the up coming reviews will highlight all these draw backs.

Can't wait to get this phone, should be a nice upgrade from my Lumia 800 :)

I was very close to ordering a 925 the other day.
Now I just need to decide if I can hold out and wait for this or just go with the 925 anyway.

To take a decent number of photos at 41 mega pixel will chew up the storage quickly. I assume it has a microSD slot (if not then big design flaw) and as those go up in capacity this should suffice. Sky drive is nice but rather useless if you are in back of beyond with no wifi and limited mobile reception as I am when on holiday.

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Originally Posted by Brewster0101

I know Windows is mostly the restricting factor here, but all the up coming reviews will highlight all these draw backs.

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No it supports removable SD card storage, Nokia do this on their lower end devices. Apparently the reason they don't on the higher end ones is to 'ensure a good experience' basically we can't be trusted to buy fast enough microSD cards.

However I disagree about the screen. The PPIs we've got on mobiles are crazy, text is already pin sharp. All ramping the screen resolution really does for my eyes is drain the battery faster, demanding more GPU/CPU time, and most games don't support it.


According to the keynote, they have made it smaller than the 920. A lot of reviewers said OMFG its so fat and yes, it is about 2mm thicker than a HTC ONE. As such Nokia removed the wireless charging, this makes me a sad panda.

The lack of USB3 isn't a problem, currently the flash memory in these things is so slow it isn't saturated by USB2. It's the lack of USB on the go which is a problem.

However this technology sounds great, and I'd love it on a windows 8 phablet too.

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Originally Posted by cjs150

To take a decent number of photos at 41 mega pixel will chew up the storage quickly. I assume it has a microSD slot (if not then big design flaw) and as those go up in capacity this should suffice. Sky drive is nice but rather useless if you are in back of beyond with no wifi and limited mobile reception as I am when on holiday.

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Well it doesn't store the 41megapixel images in a RAW format, they come out at about 7-9meg jpegs apparently.

I've not been on holiday and away from WiFi for more than a week in the last 3 years now. In fact I only had no WiFi then because I was in the middle of the Sahara Desert. Granted coverage is pretty ropey in Devon too.

I think they really should go with 64gb as standard. It's a premium priced device after all.

Most people will be taking 34 mp 16:9 images, they come out at under 10 meg.
On the 808 you have to choose if you want full res or "pureview", the idea of saving both simultaneous is great, as you could move the full res ones on to pc/storage and keep the downscaled ones.

Bear in mind that 16 gigs of space will give you nearly 2000 shots most people won't need to worry too much about managing storage. I haven't run out of space on the 808, though I will have to get rid of some stuff soon.

There's good and bad news on the camera front, on the plus side the lens tech and OIS has been given a boost but the sensor size and therefore pixel size has also been reduced, but supposedly compensated by use of BSI instead of FSI. We'll have to wait and see whether it matches the 808 but those are some tiny pixels, I fear that the full res images will be noisier than the 808 and will defeat the point of having that resolution. The 808 already exhibits a general issue of highlight clipping it's fairly easily overcome, but it's annoying and I suspect it'll only get worse with the 1020.

I like the size of the 808, I think this'd be too big for me and lacks the niceties of symbian connectivity (HDMI, anyone?)
The camera app looks great, and the battery pack grip is a nice accessory.

I'm on the whole impressed by it, but there are some niggling issues (the smaller sensor, sealed battery, oversized screen). If I were buying a new phone it'd probably be the one for me but I have no issues with the 808 at the moment and there'd need to be a killer feature for me to change.

Having a good camera always with you is brilliant and hopefully this'll open it up more of the masses and average people, like me, can take shots like this :)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ps6b89177e.jpg

This was done by switching to 8mp and zooming in max, so no pureview oversampling, and then just tweaking the colours on the phone itself.

I'm fairly sure that Telephonica (O2) have signed an exclusive deal to get the 64gb version of the 1020.

Really wanting to give this phone a try, but have recently got a HTC One. I like me a half decent camera phone... If it reviews well, then i might consider selling the One and getting a SIM free version.

Any ideas on pricing yet?

Are the optics really that good or the sensor that big, yes it will be nice but 41mp is surely more marketing than useful.

Good news on the 520, I love mine.

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Originally Posted by Percy1983

Are the optics really that good or the sensor that big, yes it will be nice but 41mp is surely more marketing than useful.

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No, it's not. It's about oversampling. From Nyqust we know you need about 7 times as much (thanks to Bayer). This means that a 5mp image does this quite well.

This allows the image at 5mp to be much, much sharper, and gives a really large effective pixel size. It solves the issues of converting Bayer to 'screen' RGB very well too.

They have a good whitepaper explaining a lot of this, but to dismiss it as more marketing than useful is incredibly ignorant.

But so many pixels on such a small sensor surely just introduces more noise, to which supersampling will then clear that up.

I guess my point is I can be pretty sure my 'only' 10mp DSLR takes better photos.

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Originally Posted by Percy1983

I guess my point is I can be pretty sure my 'only' 10mp DSLR takes better photos.

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Well yes, because the optics are better, and the size of the damn thing is about 50 times larger.

When it comes to the relative quality between the mobile phone and the DSLR the gap has gotten smaller...

I guess this is where I am going, is it worth sticking so many pixels on such a small sensor with such optics, I just get a feeling the same results would come out even at 20mp.

Its just the same as when somebody buys a 14mp camera in argos for £50 and thinks its better than my 'only' 10mp camera.

I suppose the point is resolution is only one part of the equation and in this case too much emphasis is on the one part.