Why I'm choosing the Lumia 1020 over the 930

Published by at

In what might well be shaping up to be Lumia 1020-week here on AAWP (several bits and pieces are planned), I thought you'd be interested in this link of interest, over to our friend Andy Hagon, an ex-pat living in New York. Here he's been using the much newer Lumia 930 but has ended up going back to his old faithful 1020. Ah, so it's not just me then. Phew!

From Andy's piece:

So… I’m selling the Lumia 930 after just 3 weeks of using it as my main device. Yes, the resale value is worth a good few hundred dollars which will certainly be useful with Christmas jingling around the corner, but to be absolutely honest, when I put both phones side-by-side, my gut feeling is to pick up the 1020 instead of the 930. With the Lumia 1020’s proper Xenon flash, the huge 41MP camera sensor, the top quality polycarbonate build, for me it’s an easy choice. The pros for the 930 are beginning to feel just a little bit lukewarm to me now: the screen isn’t that much better than the 1020’s and neither is the overall speed (yes the 930 is faster but not by enough to make me want to sell the 1020 instead). Also, there’s the 930’s larger form, which makes balancing the device in one hand just that ever so slightly more precarious on my little finger!

I just feel more of an attachment to the 1020 (sounds silly but there you go), and I love its versatility too: slipping it into the camera grip for those extra heavy photo days is something I’ve come to find really useful.

930 and 1020

His piece isn't that long overall, but it is heartfelt - and I'd back up his feelings 100%. 

There's more though, and in fact the 930 makes something of a comeback in another Andy Hagon piece here, pitting the cameras of the two devices against each other for indoor subjects. And the 930 manages to at least hold its own. From Andy's intro:

Ever since getting hold of a Nokia Lumia 930 I’ve been pretty impressed with the photos it has produced for me, but of course, as a Nokia Lumia 1020 owner, I’m always thinking, ‘Would that shot have been better on my 1020?’ Both devices carry the “PureView” label, albeit in different guises, with the 1020 having inherited the original and mammoth 41MP sensor from its cousin, the Symbian-powered Nokia 808 PureView, and the 930 going for a slightly slimmed-down version at 20MP. The 1020 has a huge 1/1.5″ sensor, and the 930 has a smaller 1/2.5″ sensor. How do they stack up? Would it even be a fair test with these camera module differences?

Well, it was time for me to put it to the test, albeit a very unscientific one. As it is a gloomy, rainy day here in New York, I thought just for now I’d do an indoor comparison, including xenon vs dual-led flash to see if there is any real difference – with non-moving subjects of course!

See Andy's feature for the photo samples and crops.

Of course, these indoor subjects weren't animate and moving, giving LED more ability than it would have in real life, but Andy's positive showing for the 930 was still interesting. Data points, eh?

I've been facing similar dilemmas here, choosing between the 1020, the 830 and 1520. Maybe that's the next thing for me to write, then!

Source / Credit: OneTechStop