As expected, Nokia has launched the Lumia 1020 in India. Nokia has not officially announced the price of the device and says that it will announce the price of the device one day before it will be available in the market, which is October 11. Nokia says that this is due to the fluctuating currency, but says that it will be close to $800 which currently converts to Rs 49789.60. The Lumia 1020 represents the best of Nokia’s camera technologies as it packs in a 41-megapixel ‘PureView’ camera with optical image stabilization and a xenon flash in device running on Windows Phone 8. The phone was originally unveiled globally on July 11.
Nokia retains its uni-body polycarbonate construction and the phone is available in yellow, white and black. The camera module on the Lumia 1020 takes precedence, and it features a massive 41-megapixel sensor that has an aperture of f/2.2, which is also responsible for the hump in the rear. The idea behind all this camera technology on the 1020 is that Nokia combines 7 pixels into 1 superpixel using a technique called oversampling. Using the oversampling method, the Lumia 1020 is able to compress the data of 41-megapixel sensor into high quality 5-megapixel images. It retains unprecedented detail and is able to reduce image noise to a great degree using Nokia’s custom imaging algorithms.
Another major advantage of this technique is that the device is able to achieve lossless zoom, which is akin to having an optical zoom lens. Nokia says for images the phone can achieve 3x of lossless zoom. The same technology is also available for videos and users can attain 4x lossless zoom while shooting videos at 1080p or 6x zoom while shooting at 720p.
The lens on the Lumia 1020 also has a 6-element lens and combined with optical image stabilization the phone is able to achieve unprecedented low-light performance, shake free videos and images without motion blur.
Nokia has also built a new camera app known as Pro Camera, giving its users more granular control over the camera. The app features a radial interface that allows the user to manually control ISO, white balance, metering, shutter speed and exposure settings in real time, unlike any other camera phone on the planet. There is a menu option that will allow the user to have a custom grid in place including grid formations for the rule of thirds, golden ratio, crosshairs or even a square frame. Users can also shoot photos at maximum resolutions and standard resolutions at the same time via a feature called dual capture.
As far as the core innards of the phone are concerned, it is powered by a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus CPU clocked at 1.5GHz, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of internal memory and it has a 4.5-inch ClearBlack AMOLED display with a resolution of 1280×768 pixels. There is no microSD card slot, but the phone has a 2,000mAH battery, NFC and also a 1.2-megapixel camera.
Other software features include Nokia Music, Nokia Mix radio, the Here Maps suite, Nokia Smart camera and Nokia Rich Recording. The Lumia 1020 runs on the Windows Phone Amber update, which enables Bluetooth 4.0, double tap to unlock and a clock on the lock-screen.
Design wise, the device is not the slimmest one around the park. It is quite bulky thanks to its massive camera sensor at 10.4mm and 154 grams, but at the same time it is wildly lighter than the Lumia 920 which was launched earlier in the year.
Lumia 1020 users can go for a camera grip accessory which houses a separate 1,020 mAh battery, a tripod mount and a two stage camera button. When the Lumia 1020 is housed in the accessory then it dons a profile similar to the Galaxy S4 Zoom and even has a 4-LED indicator on the side to notify the user about battery life. Nokia is also offering a wireless charging shell, that adds wireless charging capabilities to the device. The camera grip will have an MRP of Rs 7,500 and the wireless charging shell will come for Rs 3,200 and the charging pad will come for Rs 4,000.
Nokia is also offering a voucher worth Rs 1,000 for users to by apps. Vodafone subscribers will get 2GB of 3G data per month for 2 months. Nokia is also offering year long insurance for the device in association with New India Insurance. The phone will be available in the market from October 11 onwards.
Photo: Harshita Rastogi