Nokia Lumia 1020 by Wanty

[Anonymous]

Get a cup of tea and get comfy, I have a lot to say.

You can review the specifications here

I currently use a Sony Z, and all my smartphones have been on Android baring an old XDA Zest that was on Windows Mobile 6.1. When I've had Lumias demo'd to me I've loved them, but there has always been something that stopped me going there so decided to trial it, and it would also help with my product knowledge.

First impressions

Good, it looked nice and I actually didn't mind the bulge on the back of the handset that houses the lovely 41MP sensor camera, it sat nicely in my hand, but I do have small t-rex hands so might be different to others. All your buttons are down the right hand side, we have a normal volume rocker, then down to a lock/standby key in the middle and down at the bottom is the dedicated camera key (big big plus for me). A standard 3.5mm jack at the top with your microsim tray and a second microphone, and micro USB underneath (awkward for using it while charging).Build quality seems very decent and I think it would stand up to a fair few knocks. The back of the phone seems to show up greasy finger prints so I think I'd have to get a case purely for that.

I'll be honest, it took me longer than normal to figure out this phone, I'd start playing music and not have a clue where to go back to where it was playing from. It took longer than I'm used to set up, I had to get my Gmail account to sync my contacts, then mess about trying to remember my Windows/Xbox account so I could download apps, but that then imported all my old MSN contacts (remember MSN?). Suppose if it's your first smartphone then its easier.

Screen

The screen is lovely and vibrant with lovely rich colours; the blacks are very black thanks to the AMOLED screen. You can't seem to adjust the screen brightness though, you can up and down the saturation or colour balance but not dim the screen, seems odd. Responds very well to touch, in fact a little too well, the inside of my pocket managed to skip a few tracks on my music. Below the screen we have the touch back/home/search buttons, I like they're always on the screen and not pop ups like you get on some phones.

Call and texts.

I found I had to make sure my ear was perfectly over the earpiece to be able to hear well, and I would have liked to have been able to make it louder but the voice quality was good. I would say that loudspeaker seemed to be better than my Sony, I didn't have to speak as loud to be heard.

An odd quirk, I was on the phone and kept noticing flashes behind me but nothing when I looked. It was only after a while I noticed I had my finger on the camera button and it was taking photos while I was on the call, thank god I was in my house at the time, I'd have been mortified! Haha. Texting was texting really, the keyboard is nicely sized, although there is no haptic feedback, only a plinky plonky sound and this drove my hubby nuts, so I kept it on

Internet.

I used the stock Internet Explorer browser, was nice a fast and displayed pages nice and clearly, did have a few "oops, your browser doesn't support this" while mooching on Buzzfeed. Didn't manage to figure out where the back/forward buttons were. Not much to say other than that really.

Kids Corner.

I didn't need to use it, but felt it deserved a mention. Kids Corner is essentially a sand box area for kids to use where they can only access what you want them to meaning that they can't mess up your settings or access something inappropriate, you get out of Kids Corner by putting in a password. As a parent I love this, when my boys were young they'd play with my phone, but they'd often change the language to Korean or manage to delete apps.

Camera

Absolutely stunning. It's got to be one of, if not the best camera I've used on a smartphone. The quality of the images both inside and out, low and good light were fantastic with only a few duds, it has lovely depth of field on images. Only downsides was that it did struggle with macro images, and the time between shots is very poor. Oh, and the front facing camera is so clear it is useless for selfies because it shows how rubbish I look in the morning

I like cake, don't judge me!

OS & Apps

I hated the livetiles at first, I need order in my life and this is the opposite of my phone, but I actually came to like it once I figured out which tile was what. Nokia could have done with bundling some of the apps together, there must have been at least 4 or 5 camera apps as stock. The phone book is great, I can merge with Facebook and access all my friends content from there. Rooms is a good addition, but only compatable with iOS so far.

I suppose this is merging into a review on Windows as well as the Nokia, but I struggled with the OS. It's a very closed off environment and it seems like nothing is easy with it, mutitasking could do with some work to get the fluidity of other handsets, there are no toggles for connectivity without going to settings, no battery indicator; you have to download apps to do basic things. The Marketplace is slowly getting bigger, Android was similar until developers took ages to realise there was something other than iOS out there, hopefully they'll invest in Windows apps eventually but until then you do have to settle for similar apps rather than the real thing. No Candy Crush?! What is that all about?! I am going to miss playing my wordament game though 😞 Decided to trial Nokia Music, really liked this and think I might have continued with it, good content (£8.99 a month).

Overall I did like the phone, but I couldn't see myself jumping ship, the things I did like were not enough to make me put up with the things I didn't like I'm afraid. My son however loves it and wants it for his upgrade, so it really is horses for courses.

Negatives -

Poor battery life (needed to be back on charge once I got home from work)

No TV out (DNLA only)

Restricted operating system and lack of apps

Pros

Gorgeous camera quality and features

Crisp clear screen

Build quality

Nokia Maps

[MI5]

Nicely done

[Anonymous]

Very nice review.

I managed two chocolate digestive biscuits and three slurps of my coffee before I finished this in depth lovely review.

[Anonymous]

Oooh you can't beat a choccie digestive.

Unless it' a jaffa cake, but they're cakes so don't count.

[Anonymous]

Mmmm Jaffa cakes.

Full moon..... Half moon.....

Remember the TV Advert ?

Sorry I go off topic..... Me bad..... 😞

[jonsie]

Great review @Anonymous although I must say that this phone seems far too complicated for me to try and get used to.

[Anonymous]

I think that too much is going on with no sense of order for it to see complicated.

[Anonymous]

Nice review wanty

[Anonymous]

Enjoyed reading that Wanty. Balanced and informative. I like a half decent camera but don't like carrying lots of kit around so could be useful in the future.

[Cleoriff]

@AnonymousLovely informative review.  I particularly liked the pictures of the cakes (as I am in Spain

at present and have no access to such delights!)