Lumia 1020 available in the UK today

[TheAnimus]

For £549.99 from Three off contract... Ouch.

But ultimately for a camera, a premium of say £200 isn't much money.

So I was thinking, who here in this photography end of Hexus, would buy a smartphone just because of its camera?

[kalniel]

Given I haven't bought a smart phone for anything else so far, then a decent camera is as good a reason as any. But decent camera for me means a camera that lets me take the shots I want, and smart phones aren't there yet (ie more about the handling than the image sensor).

[Saracen]

For £549, a smartphone would need to be able to do my washing, clean the house, cook my dinner, maintain the car and walk the dog.

Put it this way. I might pay £549 for a compact camera, IF I was convinced it was worth it, but I wouldn't give a hoot if it had a smartphone capability.

It all comes down to what people want from a phone. My use for a phone is for those rare occassions when I want to make a call when not at home, or to let immediate family or VERY close friends get hold of me in an emergency. And that's the ONLY thing I want from a phone. I don't even want text messages. I certainly don't want to be able to browse the web, tweet or update my facebook page, mainly because I don't tweet or have a facebook page.

The vast bulk of my photography is SLR based, and I can't imagine any way in which a smartphone camera is ever going to replace that. I have a decent compact, and can't imagine a smartphone camera even matching that any time soon. And that camera is adequate for my carry-about needs and didn't cost anywhere near £549.

I guess what I'm saying is that I have no need or desire for a smartphone, period. If someone offered me the latest, greatest smartphone at £150, the only reason I'd buy it is to sell it on for a profit. I might pay £50, maybe at a push £100, for a smartphone just as a toy, but so far, I haven't even paid that. If my current Kindle died, I wouldn't blink at £100 to replace it, because I use the Kindle. But a friend told me about a decent budget smartphone at £70, and I'm struggling even to justify that to myself.

And finally, I haven't forgiven MS for trying to force Win 8 MUI on desktop users to leverage their tablet and smartphone market. I won't buy a Win8 smartphone or tablet, at any price, period.

[Infinite]

So I was thinking, who here in this photography end of Hexus, would buy a smartphone just because of its camera?

No, but I would take the camera into consideration when buying a phone.

If I wanted a dslr photos taken on my phone I'd get this QX100

[kalniel]

If I wanted a dslr photos taken on my phone I'd get this QX100

How would that help? It's still a compact camera sensor and lens (albeit a good one - basically an RX100). The quality is unfortunately still miles behind a DSLR.

[TheAnimus]

Interesting mix of replies. Saracen I don't think counts, because as you say, you wouldn't buy a smartphone anyway.

For me, I think it is almost OK priced. It is still £70 cheaper than the new iPhone, despite having some better features. The deal at the moment including a wireless charging accessories, camera cover and tripod are very good too....

But alas for me, it isn't nearly enough of an 'upgrade'. My current phone does everything just fine!

[Saracen]

Interesting mix of replies. Saracen I don't think counts, because as you say, you wouldn't buy a smartphone anyway.

For me, I think it is almost OK priced. It is still £70 cheaper than the new iPhone, despite having some better features. The deal at the moment including a wireless charging accessories, camera cover and tripod are very good too....

But alas for me, it isn't nearly enough of an 'upgrade'. My current phone does everything just fine!

I wouldn't argue that I "don't count", but it's not quite the case that I wouldn't buy one. It's more that, first, I wouldn't buy one at anything like that price, and that, in large part at least, is because I wouldn't use it for what most people seem to use it for. I would not, for instance, put any personal information beyond a very minor level on it, because I simply don't trust it to stay private. So .... no details of friends and contacts, no names and addresses, no time-planner data, and no emails. And there are NO circumstances under which I'm providing that kind of data to 'social media' sites. No circumstances at all, now or ever. And that includes job hunting and/or business development. So not even linked-in, never mind facebook or twitter.

Oh, and no personal or business banking or financial data either.

All I'd use it for is effectively phones calls, and the occasional bit of mobile web browsing, when I'm neither at home, nor where a wifi tablet will work.

So, do I count? Not unless or until a phone comes along where privacy from the likes of both MS and Google is absolutely guaranteed, because until then, the things I'd be willing to use it for are so limited that at anything like 'premium' prices, it simply isn't worth the money to me.

At the "toy" end of the price range, then a simple smartphone with a basic "snaps" level of camera, yeah, that's possible. Hence why I've been looking at sub-£100 models.

But for a "serious" camera, a smartphone is of no interest to me.

I guess it breaks down into what I classify, for ease of description, as "photography", or "snapshots".

Photography is, to me (and most people that take photography seriously) where I am starting out trying to create a high quality image with a particular intent. That intent might be "artistic", or it might be commercial (weddings, news photojournalism, standard comnercial stuff be it products or boardroom pretty pics, etc), or personal satisfaction and interest, but the image is the point of the exercise.

Snaps, on the other hand, are fire-and-forget images, where either I walk past something or something happens around me and I grab a quick snap.

Smartphone cameras, so far at least, fall into the "snap" category. And no way am I paying a significant premium for that. The cameras built in to even cheap (sub £100) smartphones will do all I want for snaps. For something where I'm taking more care over photography, they aren't adequate.

So while, yeah, I don't count because of my lack of use for a smartphone, if I was prepared to risk giving my life's data to Google and thus fully utilise a smartphone, I STILL wouldn't care about a high-end camera facility in one, because it's neither one thing nor t'other. For snaps, it's overkill, and for "photography", it's inadequate and compromised.

So, maybe I do kinda count, after all.

[KeyboardDemon]

I bought mine in America for $664 (after discount, with a free Camera grip case and $20 worth of App Store vouchers), it was locked to AT&T but it only cost me $3.25 on eBay to get an unlock code so in total it worked out to around £420, but I didn't buy it for the Camera alone.

[Bobster]

will be testing one soon

[KeyboardDemon]

will be testing one soon

This is my first Windows Phone 8 device and so far I like it.