Kevin BosticNokia on Thursday announced the new, 41-megapixel Lumia 1020, a Windows Phone 8 handset that will try to turn the Finnish phone maker's photography cachet into unit sales.
The new Lumia handset is the spiritual successor to last year's 808 PureView. That Symbian-powered handset also sported a massive camera sensor, and Nokia has long promised that a comparable PureView model would debut in its Lumia line.
The 1020 has a suite of photography options meant to complement its oversized sensor. Chief among these is the Nokia Pro Cam mode, which allows users to make changes to the camera's white balance, ISO, and exposure. In order to ensure that users can share photos easily, the device takes two versions of any particular shot: one in the 41MP resolution and another in 5MP resolution.
The 1020 can also attach to an optional camera grip. This accessory gives the Nokia handset a look closer to that of a traditional camera, but it also packs a shutter button and a battery attachment that plugs into the Lumia's microUSB connector.
Aside from the camera, the 1020 packs a 4.5-inch AMOLED PureMotion HD+ display outputting at 1280x768. Inside, it has the same 1.5GHz dual-core MSM8960 processor that the Lumia 925 and Lumia 920 bore, though the 1020 has 2GB of RAM in order to better process photos.
The new handset — which will launch on AT&T on July 26 for $300, with the UK's O2 and Three set to get the device in the third quarter — is Nokia's latest attempt at clawing back market share in the wake of Apple and Samsung's rise. Once the leader in the mobile phone business, Nokia's fortunes took a tumble with the emergence of the iPhone, and the company has since struggled to retain relevance in an increasingly Android and iOS-dominated market.
Christine McKee
William Gallagher
Sponsored Content
Malcolm Owen
Mike Wuerthele and Malcolm Owen
Andrew Orr
110 Comments
Sigh. The more megapixels does not make a better photograph
SOunds great - now make it truly useful by having a 20x Optical zoom lens, ultra-stabilizer app/hardware, medium-light enviro setting, better than 1/250th sec, and the storage capacity to have at least a couple hundred high-res photos -without affecting phone compactness - then it will become more of a sharp-shooter camera than a quick-pic shooter.
While I would not buy one, I think that this is a valid approach. There are quite a few people (not tens of millions, but a significant amount) who do care about the camera quality of a phone most. Having OIS, a more powerful flash and 3x zoom is certainly not bad. And having a phone model that has no peers is certainly a proper strategy (if it works out remains to be seen). I do not really understand the logic of marrying such a camera with an OLED screen that does not render some colors (and especially skin tones) properly though.
Nokia used to be the king of cameras on phones. It is very true that megapixels mean squat when it comes to the actual quality of a photo. But since most consumers have no clue about that 41MP will be an impressive selling point to the 90% of the public that don't know any better.
What's the file size of photos taken with this thing?