Hands-On: Nokia Lumia 1020

Nokia just revealed the Lumia 1020, a smartphone that is more camera than cell phone. Nokia hopes the 41-megapixel camera will entice people to become Lumia converts. We spent a few moments with it and here are our first impressions of the new phone. 

At a look, the 1020 doesn't look much different from the 920 or 928. It's about the same style, and uses the same style terminology that we've seen from Nokia for several years now. It comes in white-colored, dark, and yellow-colored, and is made from only one thermoplastic spend to make it powerful and solid. As with other Lumias, it has curved factors and smooth  top/bottom factors. It seems significant, but not far too so. Despite the large photographic camera indicator within, Nokia did a extensive job of maintaining the product slim and smooth.

The most obvious difference is the camera module on the back of the phone. It is round and black, so it stands out on the yellow and white versions, though not so much on the black version. The module itself sticks out a bit from the back, but is nowhere near as large as the huge hump on the PureView 808 from last year. It is an attractive phone, and I especially like the yellow version. 

The control buttons are the same as on every other Lumia system. All the significant manages are on the right advantage, such as the quantity toggle, display secure key, and devoted two-stage photographic camera key. Each key provides good journey and reviews, and is easily found with the thumbs. The earphone port is on top, as is the hatch out protecting the SIM card slot. The microUSB slot is on the end. 

The components is only 50 percent the tale here, though. Nokia is debuting some amazing new application to go along with the photographic camera. It is known as Nokia Pro Camera, and uses a concentric sequence of jewelry to let customers modify the digital camera's actions personally. For example, you can set the shutter rate or the ISO, and the photographic camera will instantly modify the other picture-taking factors to coordinate what you've selected for an precise visibility. It's a really awesome function. You can also use the jewelry to modify lighting and white-colored stability on the fly. You can set exposures all the way up to four a few moments for unclear results if you're the creative kind. 

The camera takes 41-megapixel and 5-megapixel images at the same time, so you have a large master photo for editing and zooming, and a smaller photo for sharing on social networks. The optical image stabilization means that photos should always be in focus and the zooming lets you see crazy amounts of detail. The demos that Nokia had on site were impressive and pretty much every sample image I looked at appeared to have come from a professional's dSLR. Almost everything about the camera's operation was fast. It was quick to open, quick to focus, and quick to adjust the settings. It was a hair slow to actually capture and process the image, though. This is a drawback of the large camera sensor. Even so, it's still fairly quick. 

The relax of the application is conventional Windows Cellphone 8 things. The 4.5-inch AMOLED show looks as excellent as The lenders other ClearBlack Shows, but I wish it were complete HD rather than 1280 x 768 p.

Nokia will offer several components with the 1020, the most exciting of which is a photographic camera keep. The keep contributes some significant large to the 1020, but gives your hand a lot of property to keep onto the phone. There's a technical shutter key that works with the cell phone's own key, and the keep also provides additional battery power pack and a tripod install. Nokia didn't say how much the equipment will cost, but I liked the way it sensed and proved helpful. 
 

The 1020 may be a solid device, but the $299 price point will likely scare people away. It will be available from AT&T beginning July 17.