One of 2013’s most anticipated handsets, Nokia’s Lumia 1020, has been launched in South Africa. At a recommended retail price of R9 999, the Windows Phone-powered 1020 is available at its launch through MTN and Vodacom in black, white and yellow.
The Lumia 1020’s 41-megapixel camera, with PureView technology, six physical lenses, Carl Zeiss optics and optical image stabilisation, promises some of the sharpest images from a phone camera.
The device is able to capture blur-free videos with stereo sound and, using Nokia Rich Recording, sound pressure levels are six times louder than regular smartphones.
A new feature in the Lumia 1020 is dual capture, which simultaneously takes two photos, one 38-megapixel image and another 5-megapixel one for easy sharing across social networks or e-mail. Users are able to go back to the 38-megapixel image for advanced editing, and zooming.
The Nokia PureView Pro technology in the 1020 combines the phone’s 41-megapixel sensor with Carl Zeiss optics. The large sensor allows for pixel oversampling — an image taken in full resolution is reduced to a lower-resolution picture to give it high definition and light sensitivity, enabling “lossless zoom”. Shooting in 1080p will give you 4x lossless zoom, and shooting in 720p will give you 6x lossless zoom.
Optical image stabilisation, meanwhile, cancels out the effect of shaky hands, allowing for more light to enter the sensor for better low-light photos.
Essentially, PureView technology delivers high image quality, lossless zoom and superior low-light performance. The second-generation PureView technology found on the Lumia 1020 was introduced on the Nokia 808 PureView handset.
Nokia’s snap-on ergonomic camera grip with extra control buttons is available separately. The camera grip provides a Xenon flash, mechanical shutter, has a tripod mount, and offers an extra (is this coincidence?) 1 020mAh of battery life. It is listed on the Orange online store at R790.
The Lumia 1020 features a 4,5-inch Amoled screen with a resolution of 1 280×768 pixels. It has a 1,5GHz Snapdragon S4 Plus processor, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage with 7GB of SkyDrive cloud storage, and weighs 158g. It also has support for near-field communication and 4G/LTE networks. There’s a 2 000mAh battery and a 1,2-megapixel front-facing camera that takes wide angle shots.
As with every other Lumia handset, users get access to Nokia’s Here location mapping service, Nokia Drive+ and Nokia Music.
The Lumia 1020 is available from Vodacom for a recommended retail price of R10 399 on prepaid at any of its retail stores. However, the operator’s online store lists the phone for R9 149. It is available on contract for R399 per month on a Vodacom Smart S package, which includes anytime talk, mobile Internet and anytime text.
The device is available at the Orange store for R9 090 (yellow variant only), with the white and black versions fetching R9 340. — (c) 2013 NewsCentral Media
