Finnish phone maker Nokia today released its flagship Windows Phone 8 handset Lumia 1020 which boasts of a 41 megapixel sensor than provides the device’s camera with enhanced zoom and sharper imaging capabilities.
The Lumia 1020 will start selling in the United States for $299.99 on a two-year contract. There is no word yet on which Canadian carriers will be offering the device.
The coupling of Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Phone 8 software with the 41MP over-sampling camera technology sets a “new benchmark” in smart phone engineering, according to Tony Cripps, principal device analyst at technology analyst firm Ovum.
RELATED CONTENT
Nokia ships its last Symbian handset
Nokia touts good sales of smart phones
“At a time when macro-level innovation has seemed to be lacking in smartphones – due to the homogeneity of smartphone operating systems and the drive to appeal to the mass market – Nokia’s Lumia 1020 demonstrates that there is still considerable scope to drive forward the user experience in core smartphone capabilities,” said Cripps. “Both imaging and audio are key areas of investment for Nokia and crucial to its long-term strategy of rebuilding market differentiation.”
Nokia also released a new imaging software development kit (SDK) that provides key image editing features of the Nokia Lumia 1020 to developers. The SDK is available today at developer.nokia.com with a number of developers including Vyclone, Yelp and CNN integrating these features into future releases.
While the Lumia 1020 showcases Nokia research and development capabilities, the company still has to overcome incumbent rivals, a modest marketing budget and the slow adoption rate for Windows Phone in order to reverse the Nokia’s financial fortunes, said Cripps.
“…Nokia, and Windows Phone more generally, still suffers from a lack of consumer awareness and marketing dollars compared with their key rivals, Apple and Samsung-plus-Android,” he said.
