Earlier than I used to be an Android person, I was actually into Home windows Cellphone. Again then, Nokia was already doing a little fairly nice issues with smartphone cameras, from the Symbian-powered Nokia N8 (which I owned) and 808 Pureview to the Nokia Lumia 1020 operating Home windows Cellphone. Again in 2012, a 41MP digicam was fairly wild, and Nokia was utilizing the sensor in a approach not generally seen on a smartphone, making it a fairly large deal.
Whereas I’ve had a number of Lumia telephones (I nonetheless have my Lumia 950), I by no means owned the 1020. So when my good friend not too long ago gave me his, I made a decision it was the right alternative to take it for a spin to see simply how nicely the digicam has held up over time. And since it has been 12 years because it launched, I made a decision to match the Lumia to my present favourite machine in Android imaging, the OnePlus 12.
Evaluating the Lumia 1020 and OnePlus 12
The Lumia 1020 solely options one rear digicam, with a complete decision of 41MP and a complete usable decision of 38MP. By comparability, the OnePlus 12 digicam setup consists of three rear sensors, together with a 50MP main sensor, a 64MP telephoto digicam with 3x optical zoom, and a 48MP ultrawide digicam.
Whereas the Lumia 1020 is proscribed by its single digicam lens, it has a singular approach of capturing pictures for the time, letting customers concurrently seize a 5MP picture and a full-resolution 38MP picture. Utilizing pixel binning, the cellphone is ready to obtain “lossless” zoom whereas retaining the 5MP decision whereas nonetheless taking a second full-resolution picture even when zoomed in.
The thought with the Lumia 1020 is which you could zoom in whereas taking the photograph, or you possibly can take the full-resolution picture and “reframe” it later to get primarily the identical high quality. Nonetheless, apart from solely having one sensor, subsequently missing any optical zoom and the flexibility to take ultrawide pictures, the Lumia 1020 is proscribed to roughly 3x zoom, which continues to be “lossless,” that means you will get a 5MP picture regardless.
In the meantime, the telephoto lens on the OnePlus 12 not solely supplies optical zoom at 3x however can even present as much as 6x of in-sensor zoom whereas sustaining picture high quality.
That stated, I made a decision to maintain zoom ranges at 3x to see how the Lumia 1020 fared in opposition to the devoted telephoto lens of the OnePlus 12. I additionally captured each the zoomed 5MP picture and full-resolution 38MP picture collectively.
The outcomes
One factor price noting is that initially look, there’s not a lot distinction between the Lumia 1020’s 5MP picture and 38MP picture when taking unzoomed pictures and even when cropping in later on the identical relative zoom distance on the full-resolution shot. The distinction in high quality would solely present up in case you zoomed into the 5MP picture and 38MP picture after the actual fact, with the latter retaining extra high quality at 100% zoom.
When evaluating with the OnePlus 12, what’s constant throughout every of the pictures is that OnePlus handles varied lighting circumstances significantly better than the Lumia 1020. That goes for publicity, colour saturation, and even noise, all of which hinder the Lumia’s pictures in a technique or one other. That is type of to be anticipated given how previous this cellphone is, though the Lumia nonetheless manages to supply respectable pictures if there’s good lighting.
Simply do not attempt to take pictures at night time, because the Lumia digicam will undergo, even with pixel binning and the built-in optical picture stabilization.
Whereas taking pictures, I struggled lots with the response time of the Lumia 1020. Opening the digicam app takes about 3-4 seconds, even when utilizing the devoted digicam button. Not solely that, however really capturing a photograph can take a few seconds because the digicam finds its focus. Nonetheless, I’ll typically discover myself shocked with simply how nicely the shutter pace is ready to seize shifting objects, regardless of how a lot work the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 is doing to take and course of the picture.
You may see beneath how the cellphone was capable of properly seize the birds flying round, with the wings stored pretty in focus. The scene itself was a bit chaotic, however each telephones weren’t too phased by all of the motion. Even a few of right now’s greatest Android telephones would battle with all of the flapping wings (taking a look at you, Samsung).
How far we have come
What I noticed whereas testing the Lumia 1020 was that whereas it was doing a little spectacular issues in 2012, digicam expertise has come a good distance in smartphones. Not solely are telephones now outfitted with a number of lenses to attain issues like wider pictures or higher zoom, however the greatest Android digicam telephones (and even not-so-good ones) usually make use of a number of the identical strategies that the Lumia was utilizing even again then, solely higher.
Telephones just like the Vivo X200 Professional have taken smartphone pictures to some spectacular heights, giving us near-DSLR high quality and permitting anybody to take spectacular pictures with a faucet of a button. Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Extremely, with its large 200MP digicam and quad-camera setup, does a terrific job of giving customers a really versatile and accessible digicam system to rival its closest opponents just like the iPhone.
The Lumia 1020 was fairly a marvel for its time, and I’d have beloved to personal one again when it first launched. However having one now makes me actually respect simply how far we have include smartphone pictures.
