Gadgetory

the Nokia 808 PureView wowed us last year with its 41 megapixel camera now that the technology has made its way to Windows Phone in the form of the Nokia Lumia 1020 you've been asking us how those cameras stack up let's find out I'm Michael Fisher this is PocketNow and this is Nokia Lumia 1020 versus Nokia 808 PureView to start with we should mention that PocketNow is not a photography site we will be covering the cameras more extensively than usual in this comparison and we do have some excellent tutorials on the 1020 shooter at pocketnow.com but if you're looking for an expert level review for professional photographers this isn't it like most of our features this comparison is targeted at folks just a bit geekier than the average consumer and if you happen to like that kind of stuff we make more of it every day so follow PocketNow on social media and subscribe here on youtube and if you own a PureView device or any other smartphone with a camera and you want to share your shot join us at forums dot pocketnow.com we're deviating slightly from our normal comparison format with this one folks because let's face it the real story here doesn't extend much past the camera the hardware differences are obvious and the software is night and day the 1020 running Windows Phone is the only choice if you want a 41 megapixel camera on a US carrier because the 808 PureView running Symbian isn't available in America and you probably wouldn't want to use its OS even if it was not because it's bad necessarily but because it's an older os that's not long for this world so if you're here you want to know how these cameras stack up first and foremost as a disclosure we're comparing 5 megapixel PureView shots in this video most of which were taken with automatic settings at some points we tweaked a setting or two to give the phone's the best possible chance at a great shot it will have these photos along with some raw samples available in the comparison post at pocketnow.com cameras and they both bear Nokia's vaunted PureView branding these are totally different modules in terms of their construction and feature sets from sensor size and type to post-processing approaches to lens construction it's pretty amazing just how much these devices don't have in common probably the most important improvement the Lumia 1020 brings to the table is its optical image stabilization a system of ball bearings and small motors which allows the 1020's camera module to float within its housing to a degree minimizing the shaking and jostling that comes with say walking down the sidewalk the image isn't Rocksteady but it's definitely less jumpy than the 808 and the 1020 Just's it's focused faster as well the older phone doesn't give up the fight entirely though audio quality is better on the 808 and color reproduction is more true to life more on this in a second for now here's a few video samples shot in varying conditions to help you draw your own conclusions or is turned on in the software rather hopefully that is making a bit of difference and hopefully we get some autofocus adjustment there either way it doesn't appear to be able to get quite as close to to a subject fill the frame so we can hear how the audio performs in the Lumia 1020 and and the few review 8:08 we're going to get a suite door entry position here I got to get my final measure talking over the trend noise see how they do two devices deal with these with sound Michael Fisher with pocket now Lumia ten we're tasting here the 1020's optical image stabilization doesn't just come into play in the camcorder the more stable shooting platform means the Lumia can use longer exposures in automatic mode to deliver the kind of low-light performance that made the earlier Lumia 920 famous now that comes at a cost it almost always means more noise in the shot as well but it also means you can see what you're shooting with low-light being the new make-or-break factor in mobile photography the 1020 wins handily here some of the results in almost no light are truly remarkable without the flash it's possible to approximate the results with manual settings on the 808 but because there's no hardware image stabilization you're not likely to get as clear a shot without a tripod turning the flash on gives us similar performance on each phone which makes sense as they're both four meter xenon units according to nokia here we can see the added sharpening that comes with the Lumias post-processing approach it's not always welcome as we'll see in some of the daylight photos but in this case it is useful for making out text the 808 results are fuzzier by comparison those results are mirrored under fluorescent indoor lighting as well with the 1020's camera rendering this text much more crisply and clearly than the 808 but at the cost of added noise once again returning to the earlier scene for a second with Flash disabled we get a nice reminder that as good as these cameras are they're not perfect neither could make anything of this almost pitch-black basement room with no lights and no flash on automatic settings returning to more conventional shooting conditions the differences in the end results become even more apparent where the 808 hues very closely to real-world colouring the Lumia 1020 does not the Lumia amps up the saturation quite a bit resulting in photos which are much more vibrant but also less true to life there are also some white balance issues in automatic mode if there's a hint of green or yellow in your photo chances are the 1020 will boost it or accent it in most lighting conditions the Lumia can occasionally deliver results then the 808 but that's a rarer situation usually the trend is hot and saturated we're not sure what Nokia's reasons were for tweaking the output this way but it's worth mentioning that other popular modern smartphones also crank up their vibrance and sharpness and post-processing whether Nokia was consciously keeping up with the Joneses or boxed in by the unique constraints of Windows Phones architecture we're not sure but the effect is definitely not a subtle one viewed side by side importing the pure view experience from the 808 to the 1020 Nokia consumer eyes to the camera the 1020 definitely reflects that compromise somewhat its images are sharper but noisier it's camera app is slower it packs a smaller sensor and it lacks a dedicated image processor and an ND filter but in exchange you get that optical image stabilization and that supreme low-light performance bundled into a package that's thinner running on a modern platform instead of a dead one that platform also allows for a much richer more intuitive viewfinder experience than the 808 Lumia 1020 users can manually set focus and shutter speed and they can take advantage of a host of apps and tutorials that make the camera much easier to learn and much more fun so which one is better well the 808 delivers more accurate photos there's really no question about it well the 1020 gets more mileage out of its hardware ultimately we think the 1020 gets close enough to the performance of the 808 to earn the true PureView name while also bringing many more features to the table and streamlining the experience for the average consumer the 8 awaits results will still be more pleasing to the eye of a professional photographer but the trade-off being stuck on a venerable but dead-end platform with far fewer features doesn't really seem worth it given the choice we think most folks would go for the 1020 and at the end of the day that's the one we'd recommend to a modern-day buyer like I said at the top of the video folks you can find all the samples you just saw in this video over in the comparison post at pocketnow.com starting August 14th but before you go anywhere please drop us a like if you enjoyed the video leave us a comment down below if you have some feedback do follow us on social media and check out our full review of the 808 PureView and the Nokia Lumia 1020 both of those at PocketNow until next time this is the Michael Fisher thank you for watching and we'll see you soon