     |
| |
| |
Let's face it -- we can't be sure Nokia's Lumia 1020 is worth the hype until it's taken a thousand shots of Big Ben and Westminster tube station. Fortunately for us, the PureView-toting handset is landing in the UK from today. We've managed to wrangle confirmation that Vodafone, Three and O2 will be selling the unit, but alas, EE currently has no plans to offer the handset to its million-strong LTE customer base. We suspect more than a few of you, disappointed at Cupertino's latest imaging update, may be throwing your cash at the screen right now.
Filed under: Cellphones, Cameras, Mobile, Microsoft, Nokia
Source: Nokia (Twitter)
Optical engineering is something that we take for granted these days, with almost every smartphone packing its very own camera for our convenience. But if you take a look at the delicate structure inside a mobile camera module, you may appreciate the technology more every time you snap a shot. Like this cut-out diagram of the Nokia Lumia 1020's camera, for instance: you can see how the six lens elements and other tiny parts are tightly packed together above the 41-megapixel sensor. The elements are actually a combination of five plastic lenses plus one glass lens, with the reason being a taller module would've been made if all the lenses were made of glass.
And to enable optical image stabilization, ball bearings are used to counteract hand movement -- there's one near the bottom right corner of the above image. Luckily, the module is also designed to withstand normal drops, so neither the bearings nor lenses would fall out of place unless you try really hard. One more shot after the break to compare sensor sizes.
Check out all the news from today's Nokia event at our hub!
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Nokia
One of Lumia 1020's main attractions is its Nokia Pro Camera app, which completes the phone's 41-megapixel camera with a bunch of handy features. In our video after the break, you can see Niina (not a typo) from Nokia demonstrating the manual focusing and lossless digital zooming. The latter actually works both ways: even if you've zoomed in before capture (and still get native 5-megapixel resolution), you can also zoom back out while browsing these photos, as the app captures both the zoomed-in 5-megapixel image as well as the full 38-megapixel image simultaneously. This way you can reframe the image and even focus on a different subject, as CEO Stephen Elop showed us in our earlier interview. But if you don't need this feature, you can simply set the app to capture just 5-megapixel images by default.
Check out all the news from today's Nokia event at our hub!
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Nokia
Since Nokia's released yet another phone with a big camera, we thought it'd be fun to let this Lumia 1020 meet its glorious pixel-loving forerunners. These are, of course, the 808 PureView and the N8 that bucked the trend of phone photography during their time. In terms of sensors, the 1020 comes with a new 1/1.5-inch, 41-megapixel BSI sensor, which is smaller than the 808's 1/1.2-inch, non-BSI offering of the same resolution. Still, both chips are understandably larger than the N8's 1/1.83-inch, 12-megapixel sensor, which may sound less exciting but was well ahead of its time. We'll try and get some sample shots from each of these in a moment for a quick comparison, so until then, enjoy our hands-on photos below.
Check out all the news from today's Nokia event at our hub!
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Nokia
That 41-megapixel Windows Phone you've been hearing all about? Well, despite the NY launch event, it will indeed launch in the UK. In fact, it'll get here later this quarter. O2 and Three have announced that they'll be offering the Lumia 1020 in stores and online and while both networks currently aren't running an LTE service, Three has promised the phone it offers will be Ultrafast ready, broadly meaning it might run on 4G, but it'll certainly offer up to DC-HSPA speeds at launch. Telefonica, the parent company of O2, has promised that an "exclusive variant of the device" will make an appearance in select European and Latin American markets. More news from the other networks when we hear it.
Check out all the news from today's Nokia event at our hub!
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Nokia
Nokia's sure taken its time, but its 41-megapixel Windows Phone beast is now finally out of the bag. Naturally, we have to compare this Lumia 1020 with its recent siblings: externally it's closer to the 920 than the slimmer 925 or 928, except for its earpiece and, well, the camera. That said, the 1020 is somehow a lot lighter and a little thinner than the bulky 920, while packing the same 2,000mAh battery. Clearly, the lack of built-in Qi wireless charging and perhaps that Gorilla Glass 3 screen are responsible for this weight loss.
And needless to say, the Symbian-powered 808 PureView didn't come with as many goodies compared to its Windows Phone cousin -- even the newer lens is faster with six elements instead of five. Feel free to check out our detailed comparison table after the break.
Check out all the news from today's Nokia event at our hub!
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Nokia
