It's the mother of all camera phones, but otherwise Nokia's Lumia 1020 isn't a significant step up from its Lumia 92x Windows Phone 8 predecessors. Nokia has always tended to make camera phones which happen to be smart, rather than smartphones which happen to take photos. Never was this more obvious than at the Nokia N8 launch back in 2010 when then Nokia Australia managing director Emile Baak talked about nothing but the impressive 12-megapixel camera, after which journos roasted him over the fact that the phone still ran Symbian.
Nokia's Lumia 1020 offers a mouth-watering number of pixels for a smartphone, but these days most gadget lovers have already aligned themselves with iOS, Android or Windows Phone. Only serious photographers would contemplate switching smartphone ecosystems just for the quality of the camera. If you're that serious about photography then you probably prefer to lug around a dedicated SLR. Or you might be crying out for the best of both worlds, in which case this is probably the smartphone you've been dreaming of.
Before you go out and buy, one of the newest critically acclaimed camera phones, having a bit of a second opinion can help make your decision. It may be one of the best camera phones out there but does it hold up to it's competitors such as an Android or a Windows Phone?