1. Form factors
There's a huge amount packed into the case of the Lumia 1020, to the point that the extra millimetre or two required for wireless charging is going to be shifted to a secondary sleeve. You've also got a sleeve to act as a camera grip (with an extra battery pack as well as an improved shutter button). Nokia have focused firstly on the form of the handset, tailoring it for the majority of users. The smaller niche functions that look great on a PR bullet list, but get in the way of many in use, have been turned into peripherals (and I can't help but think of Compaq's iPaq jackets). Nokia have been ruthless in keeping the 1020 as thin as possible.
Personally I'm all for a BBWP (Big Beautiful Windows Phone) but slim is in, so it's good to see some fanaticism on the sizing. Attention to very small details is vital, and that's a company ethos at Nokia that should come into play in every piece of hardware design.
I'm also looking forward to the occasional picture of the Lumia 1020 next to the abomination of the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom as well [hey, I can do that - I'll have both to hand! - Ed]
2. The halo effect
No not that Halo.
It's a simple equation, you advertise the heck out of the Lumia 1020 and you say the word 'Lumia' a lot. Someone walks down the high street to buy a new phone, and they see the word 'Lumia' everywhere. The 1020 is the lead generator, the rest of the range makes the sale, with the same software, buttery smooth UI, and great Windows Phone experience. It worked for the Samsung Galaxy range, and it's a basic marketing strategy. But it's one that needs a consistency of experience across the full range of devices. The Lumia range has that.
3. Value for money
With a new device coming in at the top of the tree, every other handset shuffles down a little bit. Even with the 1020 having an expected higher SIM-free price than the rest of the Lumia range, the Lumia 925 and especially the Lumia 920 are going to be shuffled down the order. The recently available Lumia 925 is going to be okay for a few more months, but it's going to be the sidekick to the hero, and the price will have to drop to match. And expect the Lumia 920, still a fantastic camera phone with the image stabilisation, to pick up a hefty price cut and become the mid-range smartphone of choice.
4. Moore's Law in 32GB Action
Unless you're on Vodafone in the UK, the Lumia 925 is a handset with just 16GB of storage machine, and no options for adding microSD for more space. While the Lumia 1020 continues the strange choice of removing microSD support on the high-end Nokia devices, it does provide 32GB of storage as standard. As time passes, storage on devices will expand, mind you, for new models - the 7650 cameraphone trailed at the start of the press conference got by on just 4MB of storage [no, that's not a typo - Ed].
5. Everyone can take better pictures
Yes, the new Pro Camera app will allow a photographer access to all the settings you would normally find on the screen of your SLR camera, allowing for more 'in-camera' tweaks and edits as the picture is being taken, but the hidden benefit is going to be for the users who simply point and shoot, leaving everything on automatic and hoping for the best. The best is going to be a lot better. And again the trickle down effect will see much of the software techniques appear in handsets like the Lumia 620 through software updates - Pro Camera and stereo audio capture improvements have already been confirmed for the 920, 925, and 928.
6. The Lumia 1020 keeps the features spotlight on Windows Phone
More importantly for the Windows Phone platform, Windows Phone has a brand new top end handset. when the magazines, trade press, and online sites, all start to look at doing head to head comparisons with the 'new' handsets, there will be a Windows Phone handset available - the Lumia 1020. It's unlikely that magazines such as T3 or Stuff would continue to push the Lumia 920 or 925 into 2013 Q3, so the Lumia 1020 will ensure that Windows Phone continues to pick up regular billings for the next few months in feature articles.
7. People are talking about Nokia again as a leader
Although the Lumia 920 PureView camera was a stunning piece of tech, the announcement last October was dulled slightly by the issues around the marketing video, and reflections of SLR's in glass creating the simulated images. There's none of that this time around, and while the 41 megapixel Nokia 808 (running Symbian) is already out there, the idea of a 41 megapixel Windows Phone smartphone (running what is perceived to be a new OS, a benefit the 808 never had) has people talking and writing up the story. Nokia are leading the conversation fair and square.
PS. I'm still not sure how a camera that takes a 38 megapixel image and a 5 megapixel image adds up to 41 megapixels? [the raw sensor has 41 megapixels, but only 38 of these are used in a 4:3 photo, with a slightly different subset of the full sensor used in a 34 megapixel 16:9 image. And the 5MP (or 3.5MP) figure is for the oversampled 'social sharing' version of the image. - Steve (Ed)]
8. Price and availability during the press conference
A small touch, but being able to say the price of the Lumia 1020 and when it would be available is progress (when compared to previous launches). It keeps the momentum from the press conference and carries it through to the customer. Okay, it was only the US availability on AT&T, and it was just the initial subsidised cost of the handset (which makes it really hard to translate into a SIM-free price for the rest of the world), but it's progress.
9. Those trainers
It's clear where Nokia's strengths lie. It's in designing smartphone hardware and software; it's about creating the magical in as small a space as possible; it's about creating solutions that work in the real world; it's about creating a family of devices that help and support each other over months and years of continued sales.
It's not in making fashionable choices of footwear for their CEO.
They know what they're good at, and they should stick to that. Zappos have nothing to worry about.