WPC PureView fight: 41MP Nokia Lumia 1020 vs 20MP Nokia Lumia 1520

Here is another photo comparison between the 41MP Nokia Lumia 1020 and the 20MP Nokia Lumia 1520.

The shots from WPC in daylight look pretty similar, at least when looking at thumbnails of the full photo. You can still zoom in the 1520 but just not as much as the 1020.

 

The 1520 does have the added plus of Lumia Black and enhancements to camera processing.

http://www.wpcentral.com/cameras-nokia-lumia-1520-vs-lumia-1020

You’ll note the 1520 ‘fixes’ the yellow tones in the 1020, where sometimes you take a great picture and after processing “whooosh” there’s a yellow filter. Sometimes it works, making things look nice and saturated with extra vibrant colours, but other times, it looks slightly unpleasant (mostly when people get an extra tan).

You can see this difference even more in the night shots at least on the bench picture on the left. Though according to WPC, the tones were actually more correct on the 1020, with the 1520 opting to go for the cooler end of the white balance.

 

 

Video wise, the 1520’s 4 HAAC Rich recording mic gives deeper sound with more bass. The directional recording is seen in the 1520, and when the person recording speaks, it’s really muffled. Good thing there’s an option to switch to recording from all directions. There is of course a good reason for that, when recording video the subject audio is usually in front. It cuts out commentary from behind and the side (would have been useful yesterday for me when my housemate was adding unnecessary narration to a video). This should be noted as most people testing video samples are talking about the audio recording from their voice, and not the usual video recording when something is in front of you.

Picture wise, the 1520 looks much more saturated in colours. The OIS looks really smooth. There’s a bit of wobbling as it attempts to stabilise one frame with another, but the OIS when walking looks almost like it’s on a steadycam. To be fair the OIS on the 1020 is awesome too.

The conclusion on the 1520 puts some negatives on the missing wireless charging and smaller internal memory, though outside of the US, the international versions are said to have wireless charging built in as well as 32GB memory options.

On the camera alone the 1520 produces some fantastic results. The 6″ 1080p viewfinder is phenomenal though won’t be to everyone’s taste. I would have liked to have seen comparisons of people shots, in various lighting conditions, as that’s particularly where the 1020 excels (Xenon freezing).

Category: Lumia, Nokia