Saturday 12 October 2013

Unboxing the Nokia Lumia 1020 & first impression!

Some of you may already heard that I ordered a Nokia Lumia 1020.

I recently posted a Lumia 925 unboxing, which I got for free with a renewal of my contract (it will be a Christmas present for my brother)... now I got to unbox the Lumia 1020 and this time, the phone is for myself (replacing my Nokia 808)!

For the Lumia 1020 I paid 400.- CHF (~325.- Euro) with a renewal (24 months) of another family members contract (letting me use that subscription was kind of a birthday present to me :)).
At this point, I would also like to thank Franz for his generous donation, making the Lumia 1020 even more affordable to me ;)

I pre-ordered the Lumia 1020 at the end of September, which means I will get a free camera grip.
Unfortunately I will have to wait for that accessory, it is not available yet in Switzerland.

Last Tuesday my Lumia 1020 arrived and I took a few pictures of it for this unboxing :)


First impression

Up ahead a few words about the Lumia 1020.

As you probably know, I used a Lumia 920 alongside my Nokia 808 for the past six months.
And the Lumia 1020, without its camera, is basically nothing more than that... no surprises here, the 1020 performs exactly the same as the Lumia 920.

For the full specifications of the Nokia Lumia 1020, I recommend to visit gsmarena.com ;)

Form factor/design
The 1020 is a little bit slimmer and weighs a little bit less than the 920.
Because of that, the phone feels more comfortable than the 920, but still not as good as the 925.

Sadly the pointy corners and sharp edges still are as uncomfortable as on the 920, when holding the phone in landscape. The 925 or 820 with their round corners and soft edges feel a lot more natural.

The camera bump on the back doesn't really get in my way when holding it, but its kinda annoying when you put it on a desk... the phone keeps tilting over when you touch it.

Internals
Looking at the technical specifications, the Lumia 1020 is just "yet another Lumia".

Compared to the 920/925, the 1020 comes with an additional GB of RAM (total of 2GB RAM), but the others perform perfectly fine with "only" 1GB... maybe future versions of Windows Phone will improve the multitasking, in which case it may become a real advantage after all.

The speaker is worth mentioning though.
While the 920 comes with the same great speaker the Nokia 808 has, the speaker output through two bottom grills was less than ideal.
To slim down the 925, it came with a significantly less powerful speaker.
The 1020 does a much better job, it has easily the best speakers on any Lumia out there!

Compared to the Android flagships, the Lumia's CPU and GPU are outdated and weak.
But as far as the user experience goes, everything works fast and smooth. So for me its absolutely fine.
However, with the next generation of Windows Phones just around the corner, the price tag of the Lumia 1020 is questionable.

Conclusion
If you like Windows Phone, but camera is not your top priority, the Lumia 920 or Lumia 925 will do just as fine (and of course there are countless other options from other manufacturers).

If the camera IS your top priority, it doesn't get any better than the Lumia 1020 (maybe except for the Symbian powered Nokia 808 PureView).

But honestly, the 1020 is extremely hard to judge.
It sure has the best mobile camera (again: apart from the 808), but other than that it still is the same phone as the Lumia 920, which was released one year ago... and even back then, the raw power of the 920 wasn't that impressive.

The next generation of Windows Phones is expected to be announced at the end of this month, bringing support for more powerful hardware. That does not make the 1020 obsolete, but with that in mind, I think its overpriced.

All that doesn't change the fact that I think its a really great phone!
In fact its the only phone currently on the market, that I considered to replace my beloved Nokia 808 PureView and I am really happy with the 1020 so far.

However, I recommend to wait for the price to drop, or if you already have 808 (and Symbian works fine for you) skip the 1020 and wait for the next "worlds best camera-phone" ;)

Unboxing

So after a pretty long "first impression", here are the photos ;)











Content
As you can see in the photos above, the only "extra" you get with the Nokia Lumia 1020 is a coupon for "Cewe Foto".
Obviously a service that lets you order poster sized prints of your photos via a pre-installed application on your Lumia (btw. the app is fully removable :p).

Other than that, everything else is expected.
A wall plug/USB cable for charging and a "WH-208" headset (the same one my Lumia 920 came with and similar to the 808's default headset).

Btw. for the non-German/Italian/French speaking users, the three flyer's above are only information's about the Lumia's optical image stabilisation.

The content of your Lumia 1020 box may vary depending on your country/operator variant.
What I have here is the "Swisscom" operator variant...

Final words
So here you go, that was my first impression and the unboxing of the Nokia Lumia 1020.

Unfortunately I do not have the time and resources to pull off a full review and big camera comparison shoot-out, but I will try my best to deliver some interesting information about my new phone as soon as possible (and most likely step-by-step).

Ideas I have for future posts include a little comparison between the 1020/925/920 to help you decide which Lumia is right for you, a camera comparison (devices I currently have are the 1020/925/808/N8) and maybe some general information's about how WP is doing as a Symbian-replacement for me personally :)

If you have any suggestions for future posts or questions about the Lumia 1020 and Windows Phone 8, drop a comment below!

10 comments:

  1. Fabian Hüllmantel12 October 2013 at 19:53

    Nice review mate :)

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  2. Much fun with the new phone!

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  3. Thank you!
    I am having fun with it already :)

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  4. Mich würde die Soundqualität der (Video)-Aufnahme interessieren: Live-Musik, Stereo-Bild

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  5. And please compare N8 and 1020, that could be interesting.


    And please tell about the battery work, people says it's just poor.


    I just found your great blog today, and hey, it's great work you all do!


    PS As I still use and love my Nokia N8 I have a questions - is there any keyboard app different than Swype, original Belle keyboard or Windows Phone like keyboard like made by flotron? Does your mod One change keyboard?

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  6. Excelent, i too have a 808, and know i own a 920, i bought it just to get to know WP8 while i get my hand in a 1020, when i do, I will give the 920 to my wife, my first impression on WP8 is the BATTERY, it just drains to fast, not as fast as a Android, I LOVE that my Symbian 808 could just operate with out charging for DAYS, Now im a slave of my charger again, not having a FULL DAY of Charge sucks..

    in other matters, the interaction with WP8 is excelent i have manage to get applications for all most avery app i had in my 808, the Pictures so far are excelent, i have seen a difference especially in COLOR they are more vivid, than in the 808, but the lack of Zoom with in the zoom is killing my...

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  7. I share your opinion about WP8... even if its not as far as Android/iOS (app/feature wise), it does everything I need.
    The only software I am missing, coming from Symbian, is a file browser and true multitasking.
    On the hardware side, I miss stuff like the microSD card slot, HDMI, USB OTG, FM Transmitter and the lock-slider to activate the torch...


    But since I got a lot of new features and a better user experience, I think it was a fair trade-off for now.


    The battery life is not so bad I think.
    It drains very fast, when browsing the web, playing games and stuff like that... but with moderate use, it gets me through the day quite reliable.


    According to the "Battery Sense" app, my 1020 (with my current configuration) consumes about 0.8-1.5% per hour in standby.
    While using it for simple tasks (email/whatsapp/sms/twitter), it goes up to 5%.
    However, playing Halo Spartan Assault needs about 30% per hour :s


    Not sure how good the competition is nowadays.
    The iPhone 4 I used for a couple of weeks last year was already used, so the battery probably wasn't working at full capacity anymore (it sucked big time!).
    The high-end Androids are all larger in size and can fit in up to 3000mha batteries... but I don't see myself using a phone even bigger than the 1020.
    And I am not so sure that Symbian would do much better on dual-/quadcore cpu's and large, high resolution screens.


    I hope you get your 1020 soon and that your wife will be happy with the 920 ;)

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  8. Hi Juliusz,
    Thanks for the compliment :)



    I am doing this all in my free time, so it may take a while until I can post a camera comparison.
    But I will throw in the N8 against the 1020 for sure ;)


    I commented above about battery life. It is not so bad for a 2013 device...
    But compared to our old Symbian devices, all new phones have poor battery life these days.


    I don't know any other keyboard apps... there are some mods for example in the daily mobile forum, that can change the skin.
    But thats just cosmetics. My CFW doesn't change the keyboard btw.

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  9. Ich hab jetzt doch noch ein Video, dass ich uploaden kann!

    Hab ein paar Minuten an den Swiss Indoors in Basel gefilmt...


    Nicht gerade ein Meisterwerk, aber zeigt Audio-, low light-, focus- und zoom performance.


    Bin grade am uploaden, werde es in den nächsten paar minuten hier auf dem Blog posten ;)

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