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Archive 2014 · camera smartphone advice needed - lumia 1020

OpticalFlow
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · camera smartphone advice needed - lumia 1020

Hi,

I hope this is Ok in the ALT forum as I occasionally see mobile phone threads.

I'm not much into phone cameras but due to our daughter dropping our Powershot G11 my wife doesn't have a useable camera that she can operate anymore. Also, her old smartphone is somewhat underpowered such that answering calls and GPS navigation is sometimes delayed by many seconds simply due to lack of processing power.

So now I'm thinking of giving her a smartphone with a good camera for xmas. We don't want to go for any current top of the line model - upper price limit is 250 EUR, we typically buy returned/refurbished consumer electronics with warranty.

Requirements for the phone are fairly straightforward:

* being able to place/answer calls with no lag
* Threema for instant messaging
* GPS with good offline navigation app (as we often cross the border in Europe and cross-country data roaming is prohibitively expensive) - App/Maps might have to be priced into the 250 EUR target price.
* Skype
* reasonably responsive web browsing
* flickr-App
* good battery life
* torch App

Camera-wise the important criteria are:
* image quality
* video quality
* AF speed
* shutter lag

I have experience with Android and iOS devices. Apple/iOS is out of the question for me, partly due to the price target, partly because I dislike the extreme degree of planned obsolescence to drive sales (not allowing multiple App versions in the store to allow use on older versions of iOS - apple more or less bricked my 2nd gen iPod touch).
I don't mind Android too much except for bloatware that comes with many phones. While I have rooted my old phone to install Cyanogenmod I'd prefer something that is fairly slick and easily upgradeable out of the box.

I have no experience at all with Windows phone but after some initial research I think the Nokia Lumia 1020 might fit the bill. Refurbished like new 1020's can be found on ebay for around 150 EUR. It also seems to tick the boxes for the basic phone and mobile internet requirements. I hear the free GPS navigation software with offline maps is pretty good.
Image and video quality that I have seen on the net were rather impressive, but I have no clue about shutter lag - is it possible to capture kids with this phone? Or with any phone for that matter?

I don't have any Android devices on the radar, there are just too many devices to get my head around. I thought the Nexuses may be worth a look as supply of software updates through google seems to be fairly good. However, price-wise probably only the Nexus 4 would be within my budget.

As someone who doesn't follow the phone market much at all I'd be interested to hear your opinions on the Lumia 1020 vs Nexus or other Android alternatives.

Thanks in advance

Nov 30, 2014 at 06:15 PM

Karel Geertsem
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · camera smartphone advice needed - lumia 1020

The 1020 has a surprisingly good camera - as long as you stay away from the 41 MPixel (JPEG or RAW) modes. 5MPixel down-sampled images are good. It is however very slow, bad for taking pics of kids. I don't use it for video.
Another big problem is battery life (probably the case with most smart phones). Somehow forums indicate that there are 2 "versions", one with good battery life, another with bad, just do a search. Unfortunately, I have the one with bad battery life. Also, be aware of an overheating problem (only a small percentage has this problem). Nokia will "fix" this with a "heat distribution tape"... ughhh... and while it is send in for repair they will do nothing about the battery life problem ... (Arvato Germany).

All in all: good but slow camera, risky/bad consumer service.
Oh, and the torch app: Windows phone does not have many apps. A very well received torch app wants lots of priviliges, basically access to all functions of and all data on your phone (as is unfortunately the case with most smartphone apps on any platform).

Dec 01, 2014 at 02:58 AM

OpticalFlow
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · camera smartphone advice needed - lumia 1020

Thanks Karel,

battery life is indeed an issue - my wife's workplace has fairly bad mobile coverage so that phones typically require above average power just to stay connected to the cell network.
I wasn't aware of the overheating problem. Seems like the 1020 will not be the right device then.
Back to the start in terms of short-listing … any alternative suggestions with good cameras?

Dec 01, 2014 at 03:26 AM

andreas612
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · camera smartphone advice needed - lumia 1020

Panasonic lumix cm1? It has the same sensor as the rx 100 from sony which is pretty good. However, i dont have any knowledge regarding batterylife and such.

Dec 01, 2014 at 03:37 AM

WhyFi
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · camera smartphone advice needed - lumia 1020

I think that you can plug "[any phone model] overheating" in to a search engine and get plenty of results - to a certain extent it's the nature of compact, powerful electronic devices and millions of samples in the wild. Most often, battery and "overheating" (which is rather vague - if a phone goes in to thermal shutdown, which is exceedingly rare, I'd call it overheating, but many people characterize warm to the touch as overheating) problems arise from software issues where processes are left to run wild in the background (GPS locating services are notorious for this kind of thing). These issues are often addressed with OS updates.

This is certainly a good place to ask about the camera performance, but I'd encourage you to peruse a phone forum (like windowscentral.com - believe me, the users there are not afraid to voice grievances) where there's a much larger user base to get a better idea of whether or not there's a problematic issue. In the case of the 1020, it's been out for more than a year and I'd be surprised if bugs weren't ironed out already - I would do a search for recent examples/complaints.

I don't have a 1020, but I do have a 928 (a 920 variant) - I have no qualms about image quality, but the shutter lag and AF is way too slow to capture my 3-year-old, unless I'm: a) bribing him to sit still or b: using the manual focus to pre-focus and then do a burst capture when I anticipate that he's coming in to range (it's worth noting that the stock Lumia camera app is great for easy access to manual controls). I'm doubtful that any phone out there is meaningfully better in this regard, but I've been wrong plenty of times.

Dec 01, 2014 at 09:35 AM

Tmuussoni
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · camera smartphone advice needed - lumia 1020

All smart phones with decent cameras are a compromise in some way: either the camera sensor & lens combination makes it just too big to fit even your pocket or the IQ leaves much to be desired.

I think Lumia 1020 is a good balance of the two things. The ability to shoot Raw is huge as most smart phones with cameras do not allow you to do that. If your wife doesn't really care for RAW images, then it doesn't really matter which model you pick (imho).

Dec 01, 2014 at 09:44 AM

Karel Geertsem
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · camera smartphone advice needed - lumia 1020

WhyFi wrote:
I think that you can plug "[any phone model] overheating" in to a search engine and get plenty of results - to a certain extent it's the nature of compact, powerful electronic devices....

Unfortunately, there is a separate category for it on the Nokia support page (automatic: repaired under warranty, so it must be a known problem). Oh, by the way, mine is from august this year (might have been on the shelves longer of course). Before the heat distribution tape "solution" it really became uncomfortably hot (no thermal shutdown, but much more than just "warm") around the base of the camera (a bulge) at random moments. Believe me: you would pick it out of your pant-pocket really fast. Generating all that heat must cost a lot of energy.

However, taking OP's quest to a smartphone forum is a good idea.

Dec 01, 2014 at 09:47 AM

Karel Geertsem
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · camera smartphone advice needed - lumia 1020

Tmuussoni wrote:
.... The ability to shoot Raw is huge as most smart phones with cameras do not allow you to do that. If your wife doesn't really care for RAW images, then it doesn't really matter which model you pick (imho).

I respectfully disagree. 41 MPixel DNG files are huge, almost 50 MBytes (JPEG 1,5 MBytes) and the memory of the camera is not extensible. With some maps on your camera, maybe some music, you will run out of memory really fast while taking pics and/or video. Also, the 41 MPixel files are awful. Lots of noise, lots of false detail. It is a huge waste of time trying to get something good out of them in e.g. Lightroom (should you know how to process them, please be so kind and tell me). On the other hand, Nokia has done a great job with their software downsampling the RAW files to really good 5 MPixel JPEG's.

RAW=waste of time and memory, JPEG = good! The camera remains very slow though.

(Oh, and the lens is a fixed 28mm or so equivalent)

Dec 01, 2014 at 10:01 AM

OpticalFlow
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · camera smartphone advice needed - lumia 1020

Thanks for the additional replies. I reckon the heat issue and the long shutter lag basically rule out the 1020 for me although the still image quality is impressive (based on flickr samples).
I just saw that the Nokia Offline GPS navigation is now also available for free on Android.

I did skim through several phone forums and reviews. Problems with many of the "reviewers" there is that they try to justify their own purchasing decision ... also, many don't seem to have any ideas about cameras and photography. Anyway, I will have to do some more home work. Thanks again.

Dec 01, 2014 at 10:30 AM

WhyFi
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · camera smartphone advice needed - lumia 1020

OpticalFlow wrote:
I just saw that the Nokia Offline GPS navigation is now also available for free on Android.

Just be aware that HERE Maps is separate from HERE Drive, which is the turn-by-turn navigation. According to the HERE website, only HERE Maps is available for Android at this time.

OpticalFlow wrote:
I did skim through several phone forums and reviews. Problems with many of the "reviewers" there is that they try to justify their own purchasing decision ... also, many don't seem to have any ideas about cameras and photography. Anyway, I will have to do some more home work. Thanks again.

Which is why I specifically recommended using multiple resources for the info that they're best suited to provide. By all means, ask camera-specific questions here (although I have seen more than a few legit photogs on phone forums), but when it comes to broader usage/reliability issues, don't rely exclusively on anecdotal evidence from a small pool of users in any one place. And yes, it should go without saying that many will justify their purchases, but it's not too difficult to take things with a grain of salt. Looking at the 1020 specifically, I don't see any relevant google search results for "Nokia 1020 overheating" in the last 30 days. Extending the search results to cover the last 12 months shows that most results are from 10-12 months out - frankly, it's not something that would concern me at all.

At the end of the day, I don't care one bit about whether you get a 1020 or not, I'm just pointing out that, given the market that we're talking about, your current criteria will yield absolutely zero suitable candidates for your search.

Dec 01, 2014 at 11:21 AM

Tmuussoni
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · camera smartphone advice needed - lumia 1020

Karel Geertsem wrote:
I respectfully disagree. 41 MPixel DNG files are huge, almost 50 MBytes (JPEG 1,5 MBytes) and the memory of the camera is not extensible. With some maps on your camera, maybe some music, you will run out of memory really fast while taking pics and/or video. Also, the 41 MPixel files are awful. Lots of noise, lots of false detail. It is a huge waste of time trying to get something good out of them in e.g. Lightroom (should you know how to process them, please be so kind and tell me). On the other hand, Nokia has done...Show more →

I understand your point, the RAW files could behave much better as there is definately room for improvement in the Raw conversion. But for me having the ability to edit RAW files gives a opportunity to change AWB (very important) and do some tonal enhancements to your own liking is where the benefit exists. JPG does not give much room for editing. However, if the person is not interested in RAW editing, then it doesn't really matter. I can't really give any tips here, maybe I am not that much of a pixel peeper. On the other hand I don't even expect the raw files to match my Sony A7R output

And you are right about lack of memory card which is a kinda PIA, but on the other hand for me that was never a problem either as I don't have music on the phone. Everyone these days are using the internet on the phone so if you enable it the phone automaticly uploads all images to cloud service. In this case Microsoft Onedrive. So essentially I have never ran out of free space on the phone when I store images on the cloud service. Note that you have to update the OS to Windows Phone 8.1 to upload the maximum quality JPG files to Onedrive. Another issue here is that automatic uploading of RAW files does not seem to work, but I do it manually anyway. For most situations downsampling to 5 Mb Jpeg is more than enough, quality wise

This is of course, just my opinion. My dream phone camera would still be Pureview 808, but with a modern UI. Too bad 808 did not not have the latter and that phone was bit too fat...Can't have it all. Maybe in future with the introduction of curved sensor tech we will see some improvements in camera tech, quality and size wise. Or perhaps Sony's per pixel exposure patent. Time will tell.

Dec 01, 2014 at 11:21 AM

Karel Geertsem
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · camera smartphone advice needed - lumia 1020

Yes, indeed, if you have a cheap & lots of data plan or WiFi around most of the time, there are no memory restrictions.
And I agree with white balance tweaking in RAW, although I rarely feel the need with the 1020 jpeg's.

Now there might be a dream camphone I totally forgot about, because you can only get it in Germany and France:

Oh well, I live in the Netherlands, close to Germany... price might be a small problem though.

Dec 02, 2014 at 07:33 AM


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