The highly anticipated Nokia Lumia 1020 camera-phone was unveiled at Nokia's "Zoom Invented" event in New York City on July 11. The device, which is more camera than phone, could mean the death of an average semi-professional digital camera is nigh.
The 1020 will directly compete with the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom, which is also designed to be more camera than phone. These two smartphones are among the new camera-phones launched this year to take on a different market – those who prefer to have a camera with smartphone functionalities , rather than a smartphone with camera functions.
With that being said, we compare the specs of the two devices.
First off, the Nokia Lumia comes with a 4.5 inch AMOLED screen with a resolution of 1280 x 768 and 332 ppi. It uses Nokia ClearBlack and PureMotion HD technology, making the screen crystal clear. It is powered by a 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor with 2 GB ram and Adreno 320 GPU. It also has an internal storage of 32GB for all the photos you take with the camera phone, including a microUSB slot.
Perhaps the most impressive feature of the Lumia 1020 is the Pureview 41-Megapixel rear camera. The lens comes with a Xenon Flash, Carl Zeiss optics, six lenses and optical image stabilization. The photos taken with the 1020 are impressive, even in lowlight, and can certainly compete with some of the average semi-professional digital cameras out there.
The 6x high resolution zoom feature is great and can capture amazing details without compromising pixels. Video can be recorded in high-definition with a combination of high-quality sound.
The body of the Nokia Lumia 1020 is slim and is available in three different colors – white, black and yellow. It runs on the Windows 8 operating system.
The price of the Nokia Lumia 1020 will be $659.99. AT&T will exclusively carry the Nokia Lumia and will be offering the device at $299.99 with a 2-year-contract. AT&T will release the Nokia Lumia 1020 on July 26.
Meanwhile, let's take a look at the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom.
The Galaxy S4 Zoom has a slightly smaller screen than the 1020 – measuring 4.3 inches with 960x540- resolution. It comes with 8 GB internal storage but has an expandable microSD card slot. It is powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core processor and runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean mobile operating system.
The Zoom has a 16-megapixel camera with 10x optical zoom and optical image stabilization. It too has Xenon flash and LED flash. It captures high definition 1080 p video and has a 1.9 megapixel front facing camera.
The Zoom is visibly bulkier than the Lumia 1020 and is available for $671.
When comparing the features of the two 'camera' phones, the Nokia Lumia 1020 is definitely the winner -with higher specs in almost every way. The price of the two devices are very similar, but if you can't adapt to the Windows 8 operating system and must use an Android phone, then consider the Galaxy S4 Zoom.
