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Nokia Lumia 1020 packs 41-megapixel camera whopper

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Re: Nokia Lumia 1020 packs 41-megapixel camera whopper

#141
post #120
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the risk of starting a device war, I'd agree with everything you've said, except that Android does a lot of those important things better still. Maps in particular- Google Maps is utterly unparalleled. But it's all down to the user- I have no requirement for Remote Desktop support, so that doesn't matter to me. I don't use OneNote or Office, and use Dropbox for file syncing.

Long time ago I had an old Windows phone, HTC Diamond and some other wierd pda/phone type thing that was awful. Since that I went "Android" - I've used HTC Hero, Desire, Xperia Arc and Xperia S. Now I'm using Lumia 920 I got from my workplace. I used to think that Google Maps was great, but after using Nokia's HERE maps I have to say, HERE is better. Not sure if it's the hardware, but first of all it's A LOT faster t…

Offline maps has been available since at least 2 years. I think you had to long tap a point, choose Save offline from the menu, choose the dimensions of the square that pops up and the square becomes available offline.

Re: Nokia Lumia 1020 packs 41-megapixel camera whopper

#143
But why?? It's not possible make use of more than 10mp unless you're printing a billboard? And that is if you get whole 10mp of sharpness. The best DSLR/Hasselblad images are limited by the cameras optics. There are other vital properties of a camera, like dynamic range and color accuracy. Going to extreme in one spec is absolutely pointless without improving all other aspects of the system.

Re: Nokia Lumia 1020 packs 41-megapixel camera whopper

#144
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably the individual pixel size is smaller though? So where's the true advantage here vs having fewer larger pixels which would presumably have less noise anyway.

The Nokia's pixels by my calcs are ~1.44 microns which is a little larger than an iPhone 5's pixels (~1.4 microns). The Nokia sensor has around 5.5x the surface area of the iPhone 5 but only 5.125x the resolution. So basically the Nokia's advantage is having both a high quantity of pixels and having larger pixels.

That's really interesting. Thanks! Very impressive to see that in a phone.

Re: Nokia Lumia 1020 packs 41-megapixel camera whopper

#145
post #7

My first impression is, does more mpegapixel instantly make the Nokia Lumia 1020 a better phone? If you truly want to take good photos, use a real camera, like a DSLR. Admittedly, 41-megapixel is quite a wow factor, but based on the hardware specs it seems it's more of a camera than a phone. The other questions is, do people want to every photo to be 20MB+?

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Re: Nokia Lumia 1020 packs 41-megapixel camera whopper

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comes with 32 GB I think and the photos are 5MB I think.

5 MB only? Wow. My 12 megapixel Canon D30 used to take raw photos that were 20-24 MB in size. The 32 GB will get reduced by the OS, I am sure.

Surely this phone does not store raw images.

Re: Nokia Lumia 1020 packs 41-megapixel camera whopper

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a long time iOS guy who's been using Windows Phone (Nokia) for over a year, I can honestly say it has the best UI in terms of usability for the form-factor. You're right - the map smokes all others. The only issue I have is the non-webkit IE browser and lack of a few key apps.

IE 11 will include WebGL support [1], and due to Microsoft's 'core systems' sharing across big Windows and Windows Phone, this is likely to propogate down to the phone. However the lack of webkit will remain :( [1] http://www.infoq.com/news/2013/06/ie11

The big issue with not previously including WebGL support was glaring security issues right? Doesn't WebGL essentially use root access to your gpu?

Re: Nokia Lumia 1020 packs 41-megapixel camera whopper

#148

In my experience, 99% of people don't know the first thing about taking a good photograph. They will not be helped by a 41-megapixel or even 41-gigapixel camera. Beyond a point, all the pixel density does is dramatically increase their storage requirements - on the camera, on the computer they sync with their camera, and on their backup device. 41 megapixels is well into the realm of negative marginal returns.

"Another neat trick: the Lumia 1020 actually creates two images every time you press the camera button in Nokia Pro Camera—a super high-res version for editing and archiving, and an oversampled 5-megapixel copy for easy sharing via email or social networks such as Twitter and Facebook."

Re: Nokia Lumia 1020 packs 41-megapixel camera whopper

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this copy/paste a lot. And while MP doesn't mean better dynamic range, lower noise, faster shutter speeds, or higher ISO performance saying that it isn't "higher quality" is nonsense. Higher megapixels literally mean more information about a scene stored by the sensor. Now that information might not be more accurate than a camera with lower MP, but even with that being the case it does better allow you to sub-d…

The issue I have with super-high megapixel cameras isn't that number, it's the sensor density. At certain densities, light begins to behave different because of the shape of the sensor and it doesn't capture the image correctly anymore. This is part of the reason why a 16MP SLR and a 16MP point-and-shoot have vastly different image qualities. As for your SLR, 16MP, even around 20MP is still well within the "light beh…

> This is part of the reason why a 16MP SLR and a 16MP point-and-shoot have vastly different image qualities.

I'm sure the fact that the SLR's sensor is physically sixteen times larger has nothing to do with it...

As I said above, MP is just one way to measure a sensor's performance characteristics, and they have kind of ignored some others (dynamic range in particular).

I'm not sure I follow your argument about "light behaving differently as pixels get smaller." I'm not even sure if that argument has scientific merit.

Re: Nokia Lumia 1020 packs 41-megapixel camera whopper

#150
post #73
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nokia Maps is _amazing_ and has been since the Symbian days, even more so by the fact that you can download maps beforehand (whole countries) and use them offline. Utterly unparalleled might be a bit harsh.

Google Maps can download maps beforehand, but for some reason it won't let you plan a route without an internet connection. Probably because their route-finding algorithm would crush a phone or something :)

it usually just says "offline map not available for this region", or something like that.
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