Gadgetory

it's been the go-to choice for many smartphone photographers for about nine months now but the Nokia Lumia 920 has finally been ousted as king of the smartphone photography hill by the Nokia Lumia 1020 or has it I'm Michael Fisher this is PocketNow let's find out when it launched in the winter of 2012 the Lumia 920 promised to bring Nokia's high-end PureView camera experience to Windows Phone and it did that at least in name the devices optical image stabilization and excellent low-light camera performance served it very well but it's eight point seven megapixel resolution meant it couldn't replicate some of the more advanced features of the 41 megapixel Nokia 808 enter the Lumia 1020 the long-awaited long rumored fusion of true PureView technology and Windows Phone and the smart phone photographers dream device but with a hefty price tag of two $99.99 on an exclusive AT&T contract in the u.s. is the 1020 really enough of an improvement over the much cheaper Lumia 920 let's find out in this comparison and make sure to follow PocketNow on social media so you don't miss our full Lumia 1020 review coming soon from the front these devices look quite similar notwithstanding the different casing colors of our review units here the WXGA displays are identical in size at 4.5 inches and the button configuration earpiece and camera placement and even carrier and manufacturer logos are placed in more or less the same places on the front the differences are in the details the ten twenties display is AMOLED instead of the nine 20s LCD technology delivering the now-familiar super saturated color and true blacks along with much improved side visibility the protective layer atop the screen is made of newer third-generation Gorilla Glass as well which should offer greater scratch protection along the sides the Lumia 920's ceramic buttons have been replaced with aluminum ones on the 1020 and the speaker ports have also been condensed into a single row off to side making room for a lanyard hole for all you wrist strap users out there we were sad to see the nokia smile eliminated on the 1020 the top and bottom bearing a much more symmetrical cross-section than the nine 20s but it takes looking around back to see the biggest hardware change the tidy and minimalistic in lozenge-shaped camera bezel of the 920 has given way to a massive aluminum disk in the center of a flared crater that totally dominates the backside of the 1020 while the 920 featured a holistic and balanced artistic back cover design the 1020 is comparatively brutal it's almost funny in its complete lack of subtlety there's no question that the centerpiece of the 1020 is its 41 megapixel camera the only other detail on the phone's back cover is the dual contact point for the wireless charger attachment something not needed by the 920 and a concession nokia made to get the 1020 s mass down on that subject let's talk about how they feel in the hand at 158 grams the Lumia 1020 is much lighter than the 185 grams of the Lumia 920 and that's pretty evident when you pick these devices up now it's not light enough to seem cheap in fact the polycarbonate casing feels quite premium in the hand especially considering that all the 1020 color options are offered in a matte finish instead of the gloss found on some of the 920 colors the 1020 can't win all the points though it's impossible to overlook that camera bump on the backside well it's easy to feel it out with a fingertip due to the surrounding flare in the casing it definitely sits right where your fingers want to go when holding the phone in portrait now while it's much easier to avoid getting a fingertip in the lens on the 1020 than it was on the 920 there's no denying that the camera hump makes the newer phone the more awkward one to hold and the more awkward one to place on a tabletop as well under the hood there's an interesting mix of similarities and differences which make clear that the 1020 is not just a 920 with an 808 camera bolted on to start with the embedded batteries are different while they boast the same and power rating the output at different voltages and they therefore carry different watt our ratings Nokia's official specs bear this out and they cite different values for many scenarios with each device to see our full review when it lands for more detailed battery endurance information each device is powered by the familiar dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon s4 running at 1.5 gigahertz augmented by 32 gigs of non-expandable storage out of box there's between 24 and 26 gigs free on each the 1020 does pack an extra gig of ram for two gigs total and it also adds a barometer to the 920's sensor package of accelerometer compass and gyroscope the rest of the load out from Wi-Fi to 3G to 4G to bluetooth to NFC is common between the devices in terms of the general Windows Phone 8 experience these devices offer very similar experiences outside the camera which we'll get to in a second that said the 1020 does ship with Windows Phones gd-r to package alongside Nokia's amber update among other improvements the new software gives you the ability to adjust display color saturation and temperature to your liking it also includes some fun usability bonuses there's a persistent clock called glance mode on the standby screen together with the option to double tap to unlock the phone which is nice if you're a fan of terrestrial radio there's good news here as well because the updates UNCHR upon the FM radio functionality of Nokia's Lumia devices nice touch now while these upgrades are a little feather in the 1020's cap for now some Lumia 920's are already receiving their update packages as this video hits the feed so it won't be long before this particular advantage is nullified on AT&T so 9:20 owners rejoice we said before that the camera was the unquestioned centerpiece of the Lumia 1020 s hardware and guess what that's true in software as well where the 920 ships with just the bare-bones windows phone camera app the 1020 comes out of the box with no fewer than three camera shortcuts the traditional Windows Phone app alongside Nokia's smart cam and Nokia pro cam now the stock Windows Phone 8 camera is nothing special and frankly we wonder why it's even included Nokia's smart cam might best be thought of as a value pack wrapping a lot of individual lenses into one title so you can capture action shots remove unwanted photo bombers and so on but it's the Nokia pro cam app which drives the 10 20s massive 41 megapixel shooter and it's this app you'll be using most often thankfully pressing the camera shutter defaults to pro cam out of the box just be ready to wait about 1.5 seconds longer for the heavier app to load and for the camera hardware to engage on the 1020 versus the 920 after all you don't get something for nothing we'll have a separate video going in-depth on all the features of the 10 20s various camera apps so here we'll just focus on how it compares to its predecessor we put these phones side-by-side when we fired up a bunch of photos using out of box defaults that's 8 megapixel resolution with Auto settings on the 920 and a special dual shooting mode on the 1020 that captures both a 5 megapixel JPEG and a full resolution 34 megapixel photo for editing purposes in the low-light conditions that made the 920 famous the results are still impressive with default settings but it also becomes evident how the 920 almost tries too hard compared to the 1020 s dimmer but clearer shots the simple fire-and-forget action of the 920 s camera in low-light is still excellent and it's actually more convenient if you don't like fiddling with settings but the 1020 is capable of truly stunning low-light photography if you know what you're doing or even if you just read the tutorials in more conventional lighting the differences are less dramatic but still significant once you look closely on average the 1020 produces colors which are deeper and more true to life than the 920 and of course the higher resolution means far off detail like text is almost always much more readable with the newer phone the higher resolution also allows for one of the hallmark tricks of the Lumia 1020 the lossless zoom that together with the 1020 s much more customizable focus exposure and white balance settings means the phone is capable of some truly beautiful photos well beyond the reach of its predecessor in terms of video results were comparable in a side-by-side walking test the image stabilization worked quite well on each phone with each one delivering crisp colorful 1080p video with rich full sound the 1020 lagged behind the 920 in terms of adjustment speed taking just a bit longer to automatically adjust focus and exposure but otherwise the video performance between these phones was right on par the remaining differences between these devices are pretty minor callers said we sounded similar and voice testing and all the standard functions of a smart phone from texting to tweeting to browsing worked almost identically on each device the added gig of ram might help the 1020 and some of its more ponderous tasks like running the heavy camera apps but in everyday use these phones don't perform all that differently the real dividing line as you might have expected is the 10 20s onboard barometer just making sure you were paying attention no of course the primary difference here is the camera and the 920 shooter is still an excellent choice and still outperforms almost any other on the market the 1020 s camera absolutely schools it in every aspect but simplicity sure the ten twenties RAW images will take up more room and the cameras hardware and software are definitely more cumbersome but in return you get a camera that will literally outperform any other smartphone camera that has ever existed whether that's worth an extra two hundred dollars on contract is as always up to you but given the generational leap in camera performance that the 1020 represents we think the pricing is just right listen if you want to save money on a solid camera phone the Lumia 920 is still an excellent choice especially since it'll also eventually get the pro camera software update but if you're looking for the closest possible thing to a professional-grade photography experience on a smartphone there's just no comparison the Lumia 1020 is the device for you folks we're still comparing the Nokia Lumia 1020 against other devices on other platforms and we're giving you in depth feature explorations just as quickly as we can make them both here on YouTube and video form and in text form at pocketnow.com so visit our channel page here visit our website but before you go anywhere please do leave us a like if you did enjoy the video drop us a comment below if you have something to say and if you enjoyed the video please subscribe to our channel until next time this has been michael fisher with PocketNow thank you for watching and we'll see you soon you