As someone who takes a lot of photos with my phone, this interests me a lot. Though as someone who has previously used Windows Phone, I'm very skeptical about going back to it.
This is the first device that makes me wonder about Nokia's WP-exclusive decision. They didn't go with Android to avoid becoming "yet another" Android manufacturer, and I agree with that sentiment (look at how few are turning a profit). However, there are no Android devices that really excel at stuff like photography- I think that Nokia could have carved out an interesting niche in solidly built, feature-focused devices.
I've had the Lumia 928 for 3 weeks now. My three previous phones were iPhone 3G, iPhone 4 and iPhone 4s.
Part of me wishes that I would've gone Windows Phone sooner but the realistic part of me realizes that Windows Phone 7 was still nowhere near the quality of iOS.
Windows Phone 8 is a completely different matter though. It's superior to my old iPhones in almost every way. Live tiles, SkyDrive integration (much better than iCloud especially if you get the 25 GB free from Microsoft), much better maps application, tight OneNote integration, native Office support, excellent Remote Desktop support. The other thing that's important to note is that the web browsing is just as good and email is just as good. I actually do those two things more than any other function on my phone.
The image stabilization and a proper optics set seem nice, but honestly 41MP sensor is practically useless itself. Even professional cameras with high quality sensors are not usually sensor resolution limited - i.e. increasing resolution wouldn't be much use since at the pixel level the image is already at a significant noise level/optics limited. For such a small sensor and f-number, I guess 41MP is not only useless, it's detrimental, because you're paying for nothing. Although it's possible it may improve quality a bit wrt lower resolutions due to downscale averaging.
The 928, Windows8 mobile and Nokia Maps are amazing. Best decision I made was waiting for Nokia to get its act together. Windows 8 phone could be the best mobile OS if they release some more APi's for musical production and get some better applications in the market.
I switch between iOS and Android, but the Lumia phones do seem attractive to me despite WP. They could have really differentiated in the android market, or at least forced Samsung to make some better hardware choices.
I am a huge fan of android , but using wp since the past 3 months, I hope that people who comment badly about wp will use it once before complaining about it.
I used Windows Phone 7. The UI was fantastic. The platform innovation was poor. The Maps app (including the Nokia one) was poor- and utterly terrible at interpreting addresses. Any IM experience outside of the built-in (and not extendable) native options was awful.
I want to like WP, but in many ways it was a mercy when MS decided that my (few month-old) phone wasn't going to get any updates any more and persuaded me to head back to Android.
* Entering text beyond 5 lines is a nightmare, as lag increases wich each keypress
* No Skype unless I unlock it
* In that venue: locked phone, requires a substantial amount of money to develop on it
* Taking a picture has a 5% chance of hanging the whole camera, requiring a restart. Also: no timer for the camera
* No connection under Linux, as the USB upgrade was not backported to my version of WP, and it doesn't plug as a regular USB drive. I'm guessing support for my phone is gone, which should also be added to the list.
* Can't remove the USB card (explicitly forbidden in the manual). Uploading media requires the installation of Zune. Yep, you read that right, Zune
* No way of changing the default search engine
* Cannot edit playlists for music, which BTW must be created with Zune while plugged onto my PC
I'm glad you are glad with your WP, but implying that anyone who complains about it is doing it just for the sake of it is, IMHO, a bit misleading.
They ruined the design of the old Lumia for the benefit of a better camera. Who's really clamoring for that? And who's willing to pay $299.99 with 2 year contract for it?
Hmm, there was a time when function was occasionally considered over form..
The phone is hardly ruined, it's just a high end handset for people in a particular niche, one I happen to belong to (long gave up carrying real cameras, don't give two heaps about Android/pointless OS wars or "mobile apps" or any of that crap, adore the notion of a reasonably high end camera that requires zero effort to bring with me).
Design is often about trade-offs, and based on the parent comment, you seem to have entirely missed the point of this particular design.
I am clamoring for that. A smartphone that combines the best of the 808 pureview[1] sensor and the improvements of the Lumia 920 like image stabilization and better dynamic range[2]? Yes please. Also, I'm in Europe so don't need to worry about US contract woes.
My first impression is, does more mpegapixel instantly make the Nokia Lumia 1020 a better phone? If you truly want to take good photos, use a real camera, like a DSLR. Admittedly, 41-megapixel is quite a wow factor, but based on the hardware specs it seems it's more of a camera than a phone. The other questions is, do people want to every photo to be 20MB+?
>> If you truly want to take good photos, use a real camera, like a DSLR
As the saying goes, the best camera is the one you have with you.
The reality, however, is, that your best camera is actually the one you left at home.
>> 41-megapixel is quite a wow factor
This camera is a little more than just the megapixel count. It appears that they use something similar to pixel binning to use those 41 MPs to make better 5MP images.
It's also worth noting that this and the 38 MP Nokia 808 phone have a 1/1.2" sensor, larger than all but one fixed lens compact camera, including cellphones. The only compact with a larger sensor is the Sony RX100/RX100 II. Not quite DSLR quality, but higher quality than you'll get out of most compacts.
The high MP counts allows you do downsample/pixel bin for higher quality images and also allows room to crop, providing a digital zoom which doesn't suck.
The article does a really bad job of explaining what's going on here- the resulting photos won't be 41megapixels. It uses that huge amount as a means to "smooth out" the noise/oddities in the photo, and save it as a more reasonable 5MP or 8MP image.
I don't think this is supposed to replace DSLRs or Digital Rangefinders. But this will replace the point and shoots and possibly MILCs.
I truly love the quality from my DSLR but it's hulking compared to my MILC (a Sony NEX). For most things the NEX is good enough. If the quality can come close to that of MILCs, then I might just carry this kind of phone for most uses and take the DSLR only for staged shots and the like (non-P&S situations) and forget the MILCs and P&Ses.
You really need to read the article and research a bit more. It is not just about the megapixel number anymore. The resulting photos can be set to be as small as ones produced by a 5mpx camera. The wow factor is the ability decide what you want in the photo after taking it.
Anyone wanna comment on what one is supposed to do with a 41-megapixel picture taken under the optical limits of a camera crammed in just a few cubic millimeters?
We're talking resolutions way beyond what's needed for most prints, and laughable on any electronic display. Even a stunning near-futuristic 4K display is just 9MP; need to reach 8K to start being useful. Flip side, anything needing that level of resolution is going to demand some darned good (i.e.: big) glass in front of it.
I appreciate the view that "what could you possibly need X for?" often has good answers, but there are outer limits of human perception.
Only use I see is digital zoom (a la cropping), and that better prove stunning.
I really wish this would rattle Android market share (I know it won't), because I would never in a hundred years have guessed that the camera in my Nexus 4 is as terrible as it is. My Samsung Focus had a better camera =(
I always mock my GF for having an iPhone (she buys stuff for looks), but if we need to take a picture, hand me that baby because I chose Nexus 4 over the Lumia 928.
But why?? It's not possible make use of more than 10mp unless you're printing a billboard? And that is if you get whole 10mp of sharpness. The best DSLR/Hasselblad images are limited by the cameras optics. There are other vital properties of a camera, like dynamic range and color accuracy. Going to extreme in one spec is absolutely pointless without improving all other aspects of the system.
In my experience, 99% of people don't know the first thing about taking a good photograph. They will not be helped by a 41-megapixel or even 41-gigapixel camera.
Beyond a point, all the pixel density does is dramatically increase their storage requirements - on the camera, on the computer they sync with their camera, and on their backup device. 41 megapixels is well into the realm of negative marginal returns.
In a weird way, if you can capture enough of the light field over time (an insane amount of data by the way) you can "go back" and get whatever picture you want. Which has the potential of allowing complete novices to grab the raw data with some local sensor, and to out source the 'picture taking' to someone who can look at it and return the picture that they should have taken. I know, its crazy talk and off the wall, but my friends in computational circles say that its no more crazy to them than a 1TB hard drive possibility was to me back in 2000.
It does not take 41 megapixel pictures, only 5 megapixel pictures. It used a 41 megapixel sensor, then down-samples it. This results in a higher quality picture.
"Another neat trick: the Lumia 1020 actually creates two images every time you press the camera button in Nokia Pro Camera—a super high-res version for editing and archiving, and an oversampled 5-megapixel copy for easy sharing via email or social networks such as Twitter and Facebook."
Nokia are never gonna learn. Megapixels and Gigahertz don't matter any more. What matters is the experience. Jolla are doing this perfectly right. Focusing on the software to deliver an amazing and unique experience.
I really don't understand all you Symbian lovers / WP haters. Symbian was the shittiest mobile OS that I have ever used. I would use Windows Mobile before Symbian. I remember when all the Nokia lovers were raging about the N97, so I decided to pick one up for something like $700 because it seemed like a great phone (and it had great specs for the time). It was the worst phone experience I ever had. Even after doing all the updates and mods that everyone suggested, it was still extremely buggy and slow.
No. If you engaged two neurons you will realise it took as long to turn the assembly from the giant jut out hump to the slight rise it is on the lumia.
I see this copy/paste a lot. And while MP doesn't mean better dynamic range, lower noise, faster shutter speeds, or higher ISO performance saying that it isn't "higher quality" is nonsense.
Higher megapixels literally mean more information about a scene stored by the sensor. Now that information might not be more accurate than a camera with lower MP, but even with that being the case it does better allow you to sub-divide the picture (crop it) and generate new scenes/images without noticeable pixelation.
I shoot with an SLR. I've read this "MP is meaningless" stuff a million and one times. But the people spouting it are almost wrong. Yes, there is FAR too much focus given on MP over more interesting things (e.g. dynamic range) but people take a basic truth too far.
After going from 10 MP to 16 MP, sorry, but it did make a difference. In particular the freedom it gave me in post.
Maybe this would've had a chance with Android, but with WP8? It's a niche offering within a niche OS market. It's like offering Battlefield 4 for Linux only.
Does the phone OS really matter to the non-hardcore phone user any more?
I don't use much more than the core apps that are available on any of the major mobile OSes, and the differences in the UI between the big four (or more accurately big two and little two) aren't significant enough that I couldn't go from an iPhone to Blackberry to WP without many headaches at all.
The main headache (edit: a minor one at that) for me in switching platforms would be that I have to spend a bit of time retyping in all my passwords to the services that I use.
[+] [-] untog|12 years ago|reply
This is the first device that makes me wonder about Nokia's WP-exclusive decision. They didn't go with Android to avoid becoming "yet another" Android manufacturer, and I agree with that sentiment (look at how few are turning a profit). However, there are no Android devices that really excel at stuff like photography- I think that Nokia could have carved out an interesting niche in solidly built, feature-focused devices.
But oh well.
[+] [-] 300bps|12 years ago|reply
Part of me wishes that I would've gone Windows Phone sooner but the realistic part of me realizes that Windows Phone 7 was still nowhere near the quality of iOS.
Windows Phone 8 is a completely different matter though. It's superior to my old iPhones in almost every way. Live tiles, SkyDrive integration (much better than iCloud especially if you get the 25 GB free from Microsoft), much better maps application, tight OneNote integration, native Office support, excellent Remote Desktop support. The other thing that's important to note is that the web browsing is just as good and email is just as good. I actually do those two things more than any other function on my phone.
[+] [-] darkmighty|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ladzoppelin|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] psbp|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] miguelrochefort|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] znowi|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] limejuice|12 years ago|reply
• 41MP 1/1.5" BSI sensor (capable of 34MP and 38MP output images depending on aspect ratio) • Mechanical shutter • Zeiss F2.2 27mm equivalent (for 4:3 still images) six-element lens • Xenon flash • LED light for video • Windows Phone 8 OS • 4.5" AMOLED WXGA (1280x768) display • 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor • Front facing 1.2MP camera • 2 GB RAM, 32 GB internal memory
source: http://connect.dpreview.com/post/6384275680/nokia-lumia-1020...
[+] [-] ing33k|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] untog|12 years ago|reply
I want to like WP, but in many ways it was a mercy when MS decided that my (few month-old) phone wasn't going to get any updates any more and persuaded me to head back to Android.
[+] [-] probably_wrong|12 years ago|reply
* Entering text beyond 5 lines is a nightmare, as lag increases wich each keypress
* No Skype unless I unlock it
* In that venue: locked phone, requires a substantial amount of money to develop on it
* Taking a picture has a 5% chance of hanging the whole camera, requiring a restart. Also: no timer for the camera
* No connection under Linux, as the USB upgrade was not backported to my version of WP, and it doesn't plug as a regular USB drive. I'm guessing support for my phone is gone, which should also be added to the list.
* Can't remove the USB card (explicitly forbidden in the manual). Uploading media requires the installation of Zune. Yep, you read that right, Zune
* No way of changing the default search engine
* Cannot edit playlists for music, which BTW must be created with Zune while plugged onto my PC
I'm glad you are glad with your WP, but implying that anyone who complains about it is doing it just for the sake of it is, IMHO, a bit misleading.
[+] [-] GR8K|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yread|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yread|12 years ago|reply
My only complaint is that it is a bit slower than my compact..
[+] [-] tambourine_man|12 years ago|reply
It's called cropping, and it's been around forever.
Does it save RAW? If not, it's useless to me.
[+] [-] ebbv|12 years ago|reply
Nokia really doesn't know what they're doing.
[+] [-] hosay123|12 years ago|reply
The phone is hardly ruined, it's just a high end handset for people in a particular niche, one I happen to belong to (long gave up carrying real cameras, don't give two heaps about Android/pointless OS wars or "mobile apps" or any of that crap, adore the notion of a reasonably high end camera that requires zero effort to bring with me).
Design is often about trade-offs, and based on the parent comment, you seem to have entirely missed the point of this particular design.
[+] [-] vanderZwan|12 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.dpreview.com/articles/8083837371/review-nokia-808...
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbvhZ-Mq4aQ
[+] [-] chenster|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slantyyz|12 years ago|reply
As the saying goes, the best camera is the one you have with you.
The reality, however, is, that your best camera is actually the one you left at home.
>> 41-megapixel is quite a wow factor
This camera is a little more than just the megapixel count. It appears that they use something similar to pixel binning to use those 41 MPs to make better 5MP images.
[+] [-] revaaron|12 years ago|reply
The high MP counts allows you do downsample/pixel bin for higher quality images and also allows room to crop, providing a digital zoom which doesn't suck.
[+] [-] untog|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mc32|12 years ago|reply
I truly love the quality from my DSLR but it's hulking compared to my MILC (a Sony NEX). For most things the NEX is good enough. If the quality can come close to that of MILCs, then I might just carry this kind of phone for most uses and take the DSLR only for staged shots and the like (non-P&S situations) and forget the MILCs and P&Ses.
[+] [-] manojlds|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ctdonath|12 years ago|reply
We're talking resolutions way beyond what's needed for most prints, and laughable on any electronic display. Even a stunning near-futuristic 4K display is just 9MP; need to reach 8K to start being useful. Flip side, anything needing that level of resolution is going to demand some darned good (i.e.: big) glass in front of it.
I appreciate the view that "what could you possibly need X for?" often has good answers, but there are outer limits of human perception.
Only use I see is digital zoom (a la cropping), and that better prove stunning.
[+] [-] JimmaDaRustla|12 years ago|reply
I always mock my GF for having an iPhone (she buys stuff for looks), but if we need to take a picture, hand me that baby because I chose Nexus 4 over the Lumia 928.
[+] [-] Demiurge|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] auctiontheory|12 years ago|reply
Beyond a point, all the pixel density does is dramatically increase their storage requirements - on the camera, on the computer they sync with their camera, and on their backup device. 41 megapixels is well into the realm of negative marginal returns.
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] russellsprouts|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] akruckus|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ck2|12 years ago|reply
They will be able to capture large swaths of a city with just a few drones.
[+] [-] owaislone|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edent|12 years ago|reply
Is it because WP couldn't handle the camera - or were Microsoft actively crippling Nokia's technical advantages over the other OEMs?
[+] [-] dntrkv|12 years ago|reply
I really don't understand all you Symbian lovers / WP haters. Symbian was the shittiest mobile OS that I have ever used. I would use Windows Mobile before Symbian. I remember when all the Nokia lovers were raging about the N97, so I decided to pick one up for something like $700 because it seemed like a great phone (and it had great specs for the time). It was the worst phone experience I ever had. Even after doing all the updates and mods that everyone suggested, it was still extremely buggy and slow.
[+] [-] logofdoom|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] superuser2|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] UnoriginalGuy|12 years ago|reply
Higher megapixels literally mean more information about a scene stored by the sensor. Now that information might not be more accurate than a camera with lower MP, but even with that being the case it does better allow you to sub-divide the picture (crop it) and generate new scenes/images without noticeable pixelation.
I shoot with an SLR. I've read this "MP is meaningless" stuff a million and one times. But the people spouting it are almost wrong. Yes, there is FAR too much focus given on MP over more interesting things (e.g. dynamic range) but people take a basic truth too far.
After going from 10 MP to 16 MP, sorry, but it did make a difference. In particular the freedom it gave me in post.
[+] [-] slantyyz|12 years ago|reply
People are already groaning about the $299 w/contract price of this phone.
[+] [-] ceautery|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidcollantes|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] malkia|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mtgx|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slantyyz|12 years ago|reply
I don't use much more than the core apps that are available on any of the major mobile OSes, and the differences in the UI between the big four (or more accurately big two and little two) aren't significant enough that I couldn't go from an iPhone to Blackberry to WP without many headaches at all.
The main headache (edit: a minor one at that) for me in switching platforms would be that I have to spend a bit of time retyping in all my passwords to the services that I use.
[+] [-] rgulati|12 years ago|reply
Offering Battlefield 4 for only Linux would do wonders for Linux adoption. Linux on the desktop needs something like that to push it.
[+] [-] blackcoffeee|12 years ago|reply