Before I was an Android user, I used to be really into Windows Phone. Back then, Nokia was already doing some pretty great things with smartphone cameras, from the Symbian-powered Nokia N8 (which I owned) and 808 Pureview to the Nokia Lumia 1020 running Windows Phone. Back in 2012, a 41MP camera was pretty wild, and Nokia was using the sensor in a way not commonly seen on a smartphone, making it a pretty big deal.
While I’ve had several Lumia phones (I still have my Lumia 950), I never owned the 1020. So when my friend recently gave me his, I decided it was the perfect opportunity to take it for a spin to see just how well the camera has held up over the years. And since it’s been 12 years since it launched, I decided to compare the Lumia to my current favorite device in Android imaging, the OnePlus 12.
Comparing the Lumia 1020 and OnePlus 12
The Lumia 1020 only features one rear camera, with a total resolution of 41MP and a total usable resolution of 38MP. By comparison, the OnePlus 12 camera setup consists of three rear sensors, including a 50MP primary sensor, a 64MP telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom, and a 48MP ultrawide camera.
While the Lumia 1020 is limited by its single camera lens, it has a unique way of capturing images for the time, letting users simultaneously capture a 5MP image and a full-resolution 38MP image. Using pixel binning, the phone is able to achieve “lossless” zoom while retaining the 5MP resolution while still taking a second full-resolution image even when zoomed in.
The idea with the Lumia 1020 is that you can zoom in while taking the photo, or you can take the full-resolution image and “reframe” it later to get essentially the same quality. However, aside from only having one sensor, therefore lacking any optical zoom and the ability to take ultrawide shots, the Lumia 1020 is limited to roughly 3x zoom, which is still “lossless,” meaning you’ll get a 5MP image regardless.
Meanwhile, the telephoto lens on the OnePlus 12 not only provides optical zoom at 3x but can also provide up to 6x of in-sensor zoom while maintaining image quality.
That said, I decided to keep zoom levels at 3x to see how the Lumia 1020 fared against the dedicated telephoto lens of the OnePlus 12. I also captured both the zoomed 5MP image and full-resolution 38MP image together.
The results
One thing worth noting is that at first glance, there’s not much difference between the Lumia 1020’s 5MP image and 38MP image when taking unzoomed images or even when cropping in later at the same relative zoom distance on the full-resolution shot. The difference in quality would only show up if you zoomed into the 5MP image and 38MP image after the fact, with the latter retaining more quality at 100% zoom.
When comparing with the OnePlus 12, what’s consistent across each of the photos is that OnePlus handles various lighting conditions much better than the Lumia 1020. That goes for exposure, color saturation, and even noise, all of which hinder the Lumia’s images in one way or another. This is sort of to be expected given how old this phone is, although the Lumia still manages to produce respectable photos if there’s good lighting.
Just don’t try to take photos at night, as the Lumia camera will suffer, even with pixel binning and the built-in optical image stabilization.
While taking photos, I struggled a lot with the response time of the Lumia 1020. Opening the camera app takes about 3-4 seconds, even when using the dedicated camera button. Not only that, but actually capturing a photo can take a couple of seconds as the camera finds its focus. Still, I will sometimes find myself surprised with just how well the shutter speed is able to capture moving objects, despite how much work the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 is doing to take and process the image.
You can see below how the phone was able to nicely capture the birds flying around, with the wings kept fairly in focus. The scene itself was a bit chaotic, but both phones weren’t too phased by all the movement. Even some of today’s best Android phones would struggle with all the flapping wings (looking at you, Samsung).
How far we’ve come
What I realized while testing the Lumia 1020 was that while it was doing some impressive things in 2012, camera technology has come a long way in smartphones. Not only are phones now equipped with multiple lenses to achieve things like wider photos or better zoom, but the best Android camera phones (and even not-so-good ones) often employ some of the same techniques that the Lumia was using even back then, only better.
Phones like the Vivo X200 Pro have taken smartphone photography to some impressive heights, giving us near-DSLR quality and allowing anyone to take impressive photos with a tap of a button. Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra, with its massive 200MP camera and quad-camera setup, does a great job of giving users a very versatile and accessible camera system to rival its closest competitors like the iPhone.
The Lumia 1020 was quite a marvel for its time, and I would have loved to own one back when it first launched. But having one now makes me really appreciate just how far we’ve come with smartphone photography.
