Nokia Lumia 925 or 1020

Since no one goes to the mobile section of the forums, might as well post this here

Should I buy a 925 or put down $90 more for a 1020? Is it all that worth it?

I tend to do a bit gaming and take a somewhat decent amount photographs with it, but I'm also studying photography so I have a professional camera.

Is $90 dollars more worth the difference?

1 GB ram to 2GB ram

8 MP Camera to 41 MP camera

16GB storage to 32 GB storage.

Thank you in advance :)

The camera is outstanding on the 1020. It is worth whatever price you pay.

HOWEVER, this comes with a couple clarifying points.

1) You must be interested in using the Windows Phone OS. I cannot stress this enough. While it is intuitive (more so than either Android or iOS) it is feature-lite by comparison. The new 8.1 update is sure to bring some improvements, but it is very slim in terms of use, and if this is what you want for a phone, rather than a portable computer, then go for it. It's an excellent platform for ease-of-use and quick response times (I can send texts almost instantaneously when they come in).

2) The 1020's camera is a monster battery hog. Taking 40-50 pictures drains the battery by nearly 20%. You can easily empty the battery after about an hour or hour and a half of pictures/video. Have a charging method with you at all times, or a backup (the Nokia brand camera grip comes with an additional battery pack).

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That all said, it's possibly the best cellphone for taking pictures, by far. It's software catalogue for different types of lenses (burst images with Blink, Smart Cam for instant "perfect" shots, a gif lens that automatically generates a gif image, etc) is huge, and the images it generates through point and shoot are well beyond what any other phone camera can do. If you are into photography and don't want to carry around your professional camera at all times, this would be an excellent thing to have with you. All the major photo options are manually adjustable with the slide of the on-screen shutter button, and it has an amazing macro mode (which most cameras on phones can't do without additional software/apps).

Optical image stabilization, down-sampling from 34MP (it generates two images, one 34MP and one 5MP when taking a picture, and the smaller one is generated from the data of the larger) for incredible image quality that can easily be shared, incredible low-light performance (it only struggles with image quality in near-darkness), and the best feature about the phone, period, is "shoot now, zoom later" (the extra-large image can be cropped without loss of quality without the person holding the camera fussing about setting the perfect frame).

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The 1020 is a very unique piece of hardware that likely will never be seen again in the phone market. It's entire existence is based on the camera hardware, and it should be bought for that reason alone. Nothing else about the phone is noteworthy beyond it's aesthetic appeal (I personally love the smooth lines and feel of the material the case is made of). It has several disadvantages (tiny battery for how much power the camera uses, and it cannot be swapped) but none of them take away from that camera, my god.

If it weren't for the amazing pictures it takes (I'd be glad to share some I've taken if you are interested), I'd be fully regretting the phone.

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If you are interested in a phone for anything other than ease-of-use and the camera, you should really look into an Android product (especially Samsung).

You'll get a cool camera, sure, but your phone is gonna suck. Windows Phone isn't worth anyone's time right now. If you're a professional photographer, I don't see why this phone would appeal to you if you have dedicated devices for picture taking. I also think that stupid protrusion from the camera lens is atrocious.

Get the 1020. The extra gigabyte of RAM will make it future proofed and the extra 16GB's of storage will do wonders.

Even if you already have a professional camera you may still turn to the phone at those times you don't carry your camera on you but wished you did.

This got me drooling. I never owned a fancy gadget before. Care to post some of these photos you're raving about?

Gladly.

Click to open larger version. Descriptions in consecutive order. All images are the "shareable" 5MP versions. The full versions that I access through the phone have incredible zoom range (the first one has cars you can clearly see down the road).

Descriptions:

• Taken through vehicle windshield on Manitoba Hwy #207 near Giroux, MB
• Taken in Manigotagan, MB
• Taken in my bedroom with single light bulb on
• Taken in Whiteshell National Park
• A relatives dog, macro focus
• Taken through hotel room window in Dauphin, MB
• The most in-focus (of her nose at least) and detailed image of my cat that I have taken so far
• Forgot my favourite one, another part of the Whiteshell, notice the fog on the lake

@foxhound_fox: Holly shit these are amazing. I can't believe these are the "watered down" version seeing the level of details and precision clear in them. It makes you wonder how the other versions would look like.
I really wanted to buy a Lumia but there was no way in hell I could have afforded it.

They really aren't "watered down" per se, just a lower resolution. They sample all the picture data from the larger, 34MP version, so it's all still there, just with less pixels per square inch. The thing about the huge ones is that you really can't use them outside of the "lossless zooming". There is no display that really could display them in all their glory (, so these 5MP images are the best of both worlds.

That doorknob picture for instance is 1728 x 3072 (2.09 MB) at 5MP, while the larger image is 4352 x 7712 (11.6 MB). That's pixels 5,308,416 vs. 33,562,624 pixels. A 1080p display is 2,073,600 pixels.

I'll post one of the big ones, just to show you.

Huh? What are you talking about?

Windows Phone is featureless, playing catch-up, and backed by greedy Microsoft.

Oh, so basically you've never used a Windows Phone except for 10 minutes at the store. Right.

Yeah, it's worth the extra $90

That's cute. With Windows Phone 8.1 the OS has everything the competition is offering except the keyboard is by far better than anything on Android and Apple has a crappy keyboard to begin with. Cortana is also my favorite VA and is more useful than Siri and more personal than Google Now despite still being in beta.

Microsoft greedy? Oh right because Apple isn't greedy right? Samsung must be out for consumer interest and certainly not profits to.

@TwistedShade: Windows Phones are getting better for sure, but I don't see why anyone would choose it over a much less restricted Android device. WP lacks sideloading and just now got customizable tones. They're also playing catch up in terms of getting apps as soon as they're launched. Microsoft is at the position Android was when Apple was big, but I don't see Microsoft taking off in the same way due to Microsoft being behind it and Google being the better company.

@FelipeInside: Nope, not true at all. Nice try though.

I have a 920, 1020 and 1520 pn my account. That said if you can't get a 1520 or it's equivilent then get the 1020. As for the Windows Phone bashing.... I use apple, google android and Microsoft products on a daily basis for work, and I use Windows Phones for personal use because I like them and they do what I need them to do. Coming from Android I really don't miss the extra crap apps as all I really need are the twenty or so good ones I get on WP8.

@foxhound_fox: those pictures are gorgeous. I'm not entirely sure I believe they were taken with a phone.

There's still a huge market for walled garden type devices as shown by the iPhone's continued success, not everything needs to be as open as Android is and in Android's case that can lead to plenty of problems like malware, viruses, and pirating.

App situation is real but it's getting better and I believe WP8.1 will really help the OS take off and that'll attract more developers.

Although with this being said I'll make it noted I have and love my Gnote 3.

They are. I wish I had my old phone so I could take a picture of myself taking a picture with the 1020, and then post the nice image with the other image of the phone taking the nice image.