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!