More interviews? Don't mind if we do. Nokia's got plenty to talk about on the Lumia 1020 front, and it also has plenty of people to do the talking. After a sadly brief interview with CEO Stephen Elop, we thankfully got to spend a bit more time with the Matt Rothschild, the company's head of sales operation for North America. Like Elop before him, Rothschild seemed visibly excited to show off the company's latest flagship device, locking it into the camera grip in front of him, which was itself screwed into a magnetic Gorilla Pod. "The next time you're at one of these," he said with a smile, "you'll be shooting it on a Lumia."
As his Australian accent betrays, Rothschild's done his fair share of traveling, a fact that's certainly given him a bit of a global perspective on what truly is a global company. We kicked things off by asking the executive how the North American market stacks up to the rest of the globe. Rothschild seems positive on that front, suggesting that, in spite of having stumbled a bit over the past few years (our words, not his, incidentally), Nokia is in a good position to offer an alternative to a smartphone field so dominated by the likes of Samsung and Apple.
Filed under: Cellphones, Cameras, Mobile, Nokia, AT&T
As expected, the Nokia Lumia 1020 arrived with 41 megapixels in tow at today's event in New York City. Got questions? Yeah, us too. Thankfully, we had a bit of time to sit down with none other than Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, who was fresh off the on-stage Q&A, wearing a slick pair of bright yellow Converse All-Stars, in honor of the eye-popping color scheme of the handset he showed off earlier today. Elop seemed genuinely excited by his new device (even jokingly correcting me when I called it his "new toy"), taking a picture of us immediately after entering the room -- or, rather, he took a picture of our own Richard Lai and zoomed out to reveal me. The concept of re-framing is a huge part of what Nokia's selling -- take a picture first and worry about framing it later. With 41 megapixels, it's easy enough to zoom in or out after the fact.
Richard brought along a trio of handsets for comparison, including the N8, 808 PureView and the recent Lumia 925, so naturally we started with a little history -- much like the press conference itself. Of interest was at precisely what point Nokia began to envision optics as one of, if not the, key focus of its handsets. It was an appropriate visual from Elop's point of view -- the executive sees all of the above as entries in the company's evolutionary line. Nokia's focusing on improving the experience a bit with each and every link, says Elop, with the latest handset building atop of the lessons learned. The Lumia 1020 is, naturally, a culmination of those lessons.
And here she is, in all of her glory. We've been hearing plenty about the Lumia 1020 in the lead up to this event, and now, after a proper on-stage unveiling, we've finally got our hands on one. Granted, it's not the eye-popping yellow version Elop showed off on-stage (we got to play with the white and black versions), but it'll do nicely. As expected, the hardware's a beauty on this thing. There's that slick unibody design we've come to expect from recent Lumia devices, and in spite of amped up optics, the company hasn't really done too much to sacrifice weight and profile. On the front is an eye-catching 4.5-inch AMOLED PureMotion HD+ display 1,280 x 768 pixel display, which nicely compliments Windows 8's bright UI. Nokia's also promised that the Gorilla Glass 3 display works well with gloves and is still readable in sunlight, but we'll have to get back to you on both of those.
Remember that thing we said about the slim profile? We'll there's one important, but understandable caveat to that. The lens juts out a bit on the back of the thing, so if you try to lay it on that side, it won't sit flatly -- but as Elop said, the back is the new front, so maybe rest it on that shiny display, we guess... About a third of the back side is monopolized by that big lens. Along the top, you'll see a large flash along with three buttons -- one for volume (for that amped up speaker Nokia's built in), one for power and one, naturally, for the camera. That, after all, is kind of the point here.
Check out all the news from today's Nokia event at our hub!
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Nokia
We had a, um, sneaking suspicion something like this might be happening -- but we wanted to see it in person, just to make sure. After an accidental tip off, Nokia and AT&T are finally ready to show off the latest flagship Lumia for real. Meet the Nokia Lumia 1020, complete with all 41 million of those reasons we've been hearing about for a while now. That, naturally, is a not so subtle reference to the second-gen PureView 41-megapixel sensor, packed with what the company's calling the "largest back side illuminated sensor available on a smartphone." Around the front, you'll find a 4.5-inch 1,280 x 768 pixels (at a 16:9 aspect ratio) AMOLED PureMotion HD+ display protected by Gorilla Glass 3 and -- the company adds -- offering super-sensitive touch, even when the user's got a pair of gloves on (not that we're thinking about such things in mid July).
The image-focused Windows Phone handset also features six-lens Zeiss optics, manual shutter, xenon flash for different light levels and second-gen optical stabilization. On the software side, you'll get a Nokia Pro Camera app, so you can manually adjust flash, focus, ISO, white balance, shutter speed and exposure -- you know, like on a real camera. On the video side of things, you'll be able to shot 1080p at 30 frames a second with 4x zoom (and 6x in 720p), while the built-in mics promise high quality even in loud settings. Using the app, you can also reframe photos, zoom, change orientation and more.
Check out all the news from today's Nokia event at our hub!
Filed under: Cellphones, Cameras, Peripherals, Mobile, Nokia, AT&T
