The Nokia Lumia 1020 (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)Sometimes it's hard to work out what the USP is on a smartphone - that's not the case with the Lumia 1020. It's right there, bulging a few millimeters out of the back of the handset. The Zeiss lensed PureView camera is Nokia's masterstroke, but they've strapped it to a solid hardware platform that has already shown itself to be capable in the smartphone world.
Specification and hardware wise, the smartphone part of the Lumia 1020 is very similar to the Lumia 925 and Lumia 928 which we've already seen - a 1.5 GHz dual core Qualcomm Krait CPU, the Adreno 225 GPU, 32 GB of internal storage, and a 2000 mAh fixed battery are common numbers across Nokia's high end handsets.
The bulge on the back can't be helped - even with years of practice this is a relatively huge camera unit to get into the handset, so the 10.4mm depth at the base of the unit will see another 4 mm added to it as the circular unit comprising the lens, LED focusing light, and Xenon flash is added to the back. The smooth curve of the polycarbonite case blending the camera unit back to the flat profile on the rear fits nicely in my hand. I found that resting the bulge gently over my middle finger when holding the handset led to a feeling of security and grip - something that contrasts swell with the smooth back of a handset like Sony's Xperia Z.
The notable hardware change is in the RAM - the Lumia 1020 has been bumped up to 2 GB, compared to the 1 GB you would expect to see on the Lumia 925 and 928 handsets. Given the processing required and the size of the unedited images, the increase in RAM is required to keep the same smooth and (almost) lag free user experience intact.
Right then, I've danced around the 1020′s major point long enough. A 41 megapixel camera. Forty. One. Megapixels. Boom, marketing done.
Once you start to look at what Nokia's engineers are doing with all those pixels, you'll realise that it's not about taking a picture that has 41 megapixels, it's about drastically improving the quality of your regular five megapixel images. By taking the large image and using most, but not all of, the pixels in the back-illuminated sensor (typically 38 megapixels worth depending on the aspect ratio you choose), the Lumia 1020 can interpret the light from multiple pixels in the sensor to create a 'super pixel' which is built up of the equivalent of seven pixels worth of information. These super pixels overlap each other as well, so the resulting five megapixel image is created from far more visual information than on any other camera equipped smartphone.
That's the first trick to the PureView system on the Lumia 1020, and the theory behind this is similar to that seen on the Symbian powered Nokia 808. The second trick is to employ optical image stabilization in the lens unit. No matter how steady you hold you hand, there will always be a tiny amount of shake that you impart on the casing of your smartphone, so the Lumia 1020 employs a mixture of physical frames, springs, and motors to stabilise the entire optical assembly in the handset as you take the picture. That stability means the shutter can remain open for longer, allowing for more light to pout into the handset and onto the back side illuminated sensor with all those information capturing pixels, without any shake appearing in the final image.
All the technical wizardry and numbers boils down to this: the Lumia 1020 takes in more light, which lands on more pixels, that gather more information, than any other camera on a smartphone out there. All of that added together means you can take stunning pictures on your phone with great clarity and detail, even in the darkest of environments.
Notice that I say you can take stunning pictures, not that you will take stunning pictures. The art of taking a photograph is still needed, although Nokia is doing their best to help with that as well.
Nokia Lumia 1020
news by July 26, 2013 at 06:22AM
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