Nokia announces arrival of Lumia 1020, the 41MP Windows Phone

MANILA, Philippines - Despite falling behind Samsung and Apple in the global smartphone segment, Nokia just isn’t ready to throw in the towel yet. And longtime lovers of the Finland-based company are in for a treat as Nokia has just introduced the Lumia 1020, which sports a 41MP camera—and it comes in yellow.

This isn’t the first time Nokia has come up with a 41MP camera as it already introduced the feature in the Symbian operated 808 in 2012. It would be Nokia’s last Symbian flagship model as the company has adopted Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS.

So what’s so good about the Lumia 1020? Its technical specs include a 4.5inch 1280x768 AMOLED 332 PPI Puremotion HD screen, Corning Gorilla Glass 3, 41MP PureView camera with Carl Zeiss optic and Xenon flash, 1080p HD video recording, 2GB RAM, and a 32GB internal memory, which I think is an important factor to consider with this phone.

Why?
Because if you’re mainly going to use this phone to endlessly take pictures, you might find yourself running out of memory easily as the Lumia 1020 doesn’t come with a SD card slot. One feature of this device is “dual capture” wherein it “simultaneously takes a high resolution 38 megapixel image for endless editing opportunities, and creates a 5 megapixel picture that is easy to share to social networks”.

Add the memory you’ll use up for video recordings and your music, and you’ll probably end up backing up your media more often than usual. Though I have to admit I myself am having trouble expending my Ipad’s 32GB memory.

Other than that, however, early reviews of the Lumia 1020 seem to be favorable. Microsoft even went double-time to upgrade its Windows Phone OS to enable its photo viewer to accommodate all the image information taken by the 41MP monster.

The apps that come with the Lumia 1020 are expected to make shutterbugs shutter-happy as long as their batteries last—which could be a long while as well. The Lumia 1020, as the new flagship product, will have a $79 camera grip that has a battery pack for an extended life and a tripod dock for those selfies, both photo and video.

With the announcement comes the speculation of when the Lumia 1020 will arrive in the Philippines. My estimate is holiday this year and while the Lumia 1020 seems to be clicking on all cylinders so far, it’s interesting to see what other features this camera phone or phone camera has to offer… and more importantly, if it will be enough to shift the tide towards Nokia’s favor heading into 2014.