First impression: Nokia Lumia 1020

Though Nokia was launching a phone, one could be forgiven for having thought it was the launch of a camera: Three celebrities - designer J J Valaya, filmmaker Imtiaz Ali and chef Vikas Khanna - 'held' an exhibition of photos they had clicked with the Nokia Lumia 1020, at an art gallery.

The 1020, therefore, has to live up to the perception of an imaging device. No wonder those at the demonstration booth took pains to demonstrate its camera features. The phone feels lighter than the 920 and the first thing one notices is the big lens and Xenon flash assembly at the back. The 4.5-inch screen dominates the front.

Pressing the camera button brings up the Nokia Pro Camera, the default camera app. A novice would do well not to play around with the controls and let everything remain on auto mode. However, for a seasoned shutterbug, there's no harm in playing around with the settings.

I must confess despite being a long-time photo enthusiast, I made a mess of the manual settings in the first minute or two. But after using it on auto mode within the art gallery a number of times, I felt more at home in using the swipeable dials. There were two features I took an instant liking to: First, the fact that one could zoom in after taking a picture. If one had zoomed in for a picture, one could also zoom out after the shot, to look at the entire frame; this somewhat takes the effort out of candid shots. The second feature was the camera's ability to save a full-resolution, as well as a low-resolution image simultaneously. That should help the 'upload-crazy' public.

Nokia claims the 1020 packs six lenses, besides optical image stabilisation (OIS). In the limited time we handled the device, we could detect an effective OIS, though one needs to take the 1020 out for a longer spin to try all the optical elements.

The device, of course, is also a phone. And, depending on one's preference, one can love or hate the operating system. The real clincher, however, would be the price. Will the 1020's imaging capabilities justify the price tag (whenever it's announced) for a Windows Phone 8 device?