Nokia’s Lumia 1020: everything you need to know

Nokia Pro Camera, the application taking center stage on the photography-focused Lumia 1020, will be making its way to more of the company’s smartphones. A post on Nokia’s official blog notes that the app will come to PureView-branded Lumia phones — that’s the 920, 925, and 928 — as part of this summer’s “Amber” software update.

Pro Camera gives mobile photographers a more in-depth shooting interface, allowing them to adjust exposure settings such as ISO and shutter speed. Owners of other phones won’t be able to take advantage of the 1020’s large 41-megapixel sensor, of course, but the added control afforded by the app should go appreciated nonetheless.

After a cascade of hardware announcements surrounding the Lumia 1020 and its 41-megapixel PureView camera, Nokia said relatively little about software functionality and the Windows Phone 8 platform. The question is, do consumers want a 41-megapixel smartphone? And can you convince current iPhone and Android users to switch platforms for hardware features alone? Join Nilay Patel for an interview with Nokia CEO Stephen Elop to find out.

Need to catch up on Nokia’s Lumia 1020 event? We’ve got you covered with this 5-minute recap — that’s 7.3 seconds for every megapixel in the camera! (While you’re at it, check out David’s hands-on with the 41-megapixel smart camera phone and Nilay’s interview with CEO Stephen Elop.)

With the Lumia 1020 today, Nokia’s revealed its latest in a line of camera phones that introduce rather impressive imaging performance in a pocketable frame. We’ve all heard the headline spec — a massive 41-megapixel sensor squeezed into the body of a Lumia smartphone — but what should we expect with this camera?

The details we have so far (see our Lumia 1020 hands on here) lead us to expect similar excellence from this camera as we got with the 808 PureView. There’s a good reason for that: from what we can tell, the camera package on the Lumia 1020 is quite similar to what Nokia placed in that massive hump on the backside of the 808. The most important feature is the sensor size: 2/3-inch. That’s unfortunately smaller than the 808’s 1/1.2-inch sensor, but that’s still far larger than what’s found in traditional smartphones (1/3.2-inch) and it’s the same size as the sensor in the rather good Fujifilm X10. And sensor size matters because bigger sensors capture more light — which means better pictures. The Finnish company is also using the same software technique here that led to such great images with the 808 PureView last time around: oversampling.

At a small, almost awkwardly intimate event at Pier 92 in New York CIty, Nokia just unveiled its latest PureView creation: the Lumia 1020. After a 45-minute buildup to the event that was nothing more than a slideshow of beautiful pictures “taken with a Nokia Lumia smartphone,” we had to see the device for ourselves.

At first blush, it’s impressive. The 1020 is handsome and sleek, rounded and not quite so boxy and large as some of the other Lumia phones we’ve seen. It’s not small, though: the 41-megapixel lens coming out the back is large enough that it props the phone up off a table when it’s laid down flat, and the 1020 certainly doesn’t match the sleekness of the 920. The device comes in black, yellow, and white – the yellow is as awesomely ostentatious as always, but we’re smitten with the sleeker black model too.

After weeks of leaks, Nokia is making its Lumia 1020 handset official on Thursday. The Finnish smartphone maker has just unveiled its latest flagship Windows Phone on stage at an event in New York. The Lumia 1020 is a big upgrade over Nokia’s previous Windows Phone efforts for one reason alone: a 41-megapixel camera. Nokia is taking its PureView 808 sensor from its Symbian days and adding a number of enhancements to bring it to Windows Phone.

The 41-megapixel Pureview sensor includes optical image stabilization, 6-lens Zeiss optics, and a xenon flash, making it the centerpiece for the rear of the phone. It can shoot still images at 38-megapixel in 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios. At the same time as it captures the high-resolution images, it also takes an oversampled 5-megapixel image using the sensor that can then be easily shared thanks to its smaller file size. The Lumia 1020 supports 1080p video capture, complete with 4x zoom and up to 6x at 720p. Nokia is releasing a Pro Camera app with the Lumia 1020 to take advantage of the sensor and manually adjust flash, focus, ISO, white balance, shutter speed, and exposure. It also includes a number of editing functions to crop and alter photos. Nokia is bundling a leather wrist strap with the Lumia 1020, making it even more point-and-shoot-like, but a optional Camera Grip accessory provides a casing for the device with extra battery, a shutter button, and even a tripod mount.