Nokia Lumia 1520 review part 4 (Of camera and videography)

Finally I have some time to play with the camera a bit more. Please note that this review didn't touch too much on scientific testing, instead, I will be more focus on the user experience and image quality of the camera.

I have touch on camera (still shots) in my first review. And will expand more on that.

Overall experience of the camera system in the Lumia 1520 is incredible. It is very easy to use and there are quite a number of variable that can be set manually, for example. White Balance, Shutter Speed, Flash, ISO value and Exposure value.

The image quality as mentioned before, is simply incredible. Now that I have more time with the phone, I am truly impress. Of course I do not expect it to have DSLR or micro4/3 camera IQ. But knowing that it is a camera phone with tiny sensor (1/2.5"), the quality surpass what I have in mind.

The detail and sharpness is also pretty amazing.

Other than the standard variables, we could use customized scene.

Choosing the lenses... option we will go into a new window,

Herein, we will be able to choose different scene and options to allowed us for more creative shooting.

Other than this, Nokia had included the SMART shooting capability to the camera. This is a really fun system, that allowed you to shoot first, then choose one of the four options (Best Shot, Action Shot, Motion focus or Remove Moving Objects) you wanted later on.

It do need a bit of practicing for some of the shots to be effective, but I find the usage pretty simple and effective.

The above shot was done using the Action shot option.

The above shot was done using the Motion Focus option.

There is a few applications that I find quite fun to use for creating funky projects.

Nokia Glam Me,

美图秀秀 (sorry guys, this is a Chinese applications, for those who understand Chinese, it is a great application, something that I would definitely recommend).

The above pictures are all edited using that Chinese applications. To me, it is easy to use and very effective (mainly because I understand, read and write Chinese pretty well).

There is another application that I have downloaded - the Nokia Panorama. Frankly speaking, this is not an application that I will use at all. In my opinion, I don't like it. Not too simple to use and most of my picture came up wrong. I would rather take a couple of shots and stitch them up myself using Photoshop.

Autofocus speed is fast, unlike what many reviewers had claimed otherwise. I have no problem getting my focus lock in less than a second even in bad lighting condition. Accuracy of the focus lock is good too, although I do get a couple of misfocused shots now and then, but the keep rate is very high.

Regarding videography, frankly speaking, I am not too good with videography, but had try taking a clip or two. It was easy to use, but I would not go so far as saying that it was the best videography tool out there. It served its purpose and I have no complain. The voice recording is good, loud and clear and quite accurate to my layman ears.

Conclusion,

I like the camera application of Nokia Lumia 1520. Excellent image quality, incredible details.

I have very little to complained about the Lumia 1520 in term of photography experience, except for two things.

1) There is no option for a add on grip (something like the one for Nokia Lumia 1020).
2) There is no way to control the aperture of the camera (something which I really like to do).

Other than that, everything is as I have expected and some even surpass my expectations (like low light handling, AF speed and overall image quality).

Finally,

1) If you are one who like photography, but find the Nokia Lumia 1020's battery and no memory expansion slot a limiting factor for you, then Lumia 1520 might be your choice camera phone.

2) If you like big screen phone (anything pass 5"), this is the phone for you.

3) If you don't mind or if you like windows os like me, this is a phone to consider.

However, if you are,

1) Looking for a camera phone that had the AF speed of a DSLR, this is definitely not your cup of tea.

2) If you want a phone with a proper grip, this is also not your phone.

3) If you want an android or ios phone, this is not your phone.

Nokia Lumia 1520 review part 3 (About Accessories and Battery Life)

A recap of previous review

Previously I have looked into some of the pre-installed features and application that I have found interesting and useful in the Nokia Lumia 1520 and also talk of some of the applications that I like which can easily be downloaded from the windows store. The only application missing, in my opinion, was the Blackboard, which I really need... but it is not a deal breaker for me, because I have the Asus Nexus (1st Generation) which had that application installed.

Battery Life

Now that I have the set with me for a couple of days, I have tested the battery life of the Lumia 1520 with some heavy usage (in my opinion). I normally charge my phone at night from 2300hrs (11 p.m) and unplug it the next day at around 0630hrs (6:30 a.m). Then I commute to my workplace, which is around 45min train ride. In this 45 minutes train ride, I read a couple of pages of novel from my Lumia 1520 (which is great because of the big LCD screen and excellent display), surf the net, download pictures from my facebook account, read some mails, chat with some early birds using whatsapp application, all the while listening to music running in the background with volume tuned to 20.

When I reach office, I checked, battery juice drop to around 91% (which is really good, my old phone can never have this efficient usage).

Then I go through my work day, taking a break occasionally with surfing of the net, and listening to music, also playing some games when I am having lunch. I also sent messages and photos to and from my PC using google mails.

All this didn't really affect the battery life of the Lumia 1520.

By the time I reached home at 1930hrs, my battery was still pretty solid. At home, with my phone connected to the Wifi, I began downloading quite abit of application and games, as well as searching for new novels to download and read. And play some games. Then for testing purposes, I played a 720p movie (1hr 37mins) at full volume (level 30).

The phone retired at 44% battery juice, all the while I didn't do any charging. At around 2300hrs to 2330hrs, I plug it in to charge, and began the same cycle again.

It was quite consistent. Maybe my phone is still new, I will do an update if I get anything strange. But with Nokia's usual quality. I am very confident that she is not going to act up that fast.

I believe that if I didn't do anything or do some very light stuff, my Lumia 1520 will get through the day and the better part of next day with no issues at all.

(By the way, I set my screen brightness to Low and touch sensitivity to normal, because the screen is bright enough and the screen is responsive enough for my usage).

Accessories

Well... there isn't much accessories for the Nokia Lumia 1520 yet. Even casing and protective sheet was rare in my country and I needed to search high and low for one. This is something that will definitely change in time, knowing that the Lumia 1520 is pretty new in my country.

One of the few accessories that I would recommend getting first is the nano SIM card adapter. Because the card used is of a unique size that only Nokia and Apple are using at the moment. So if you previously had other phones, you would need that adapter to adapt your card to the old phone and download all the contacts and stuff into the SIM card and transfered to the Lumia 1520.

Then came the casing. There are different types of casing in ebay.com. You can get one pretty cheap, that is... if you can afford to wait (because - at least in my country, the normal time of receiving the products you ordered normally take close to a month time).

You can choose to put or forget about a protective sheet on the LCD screen because it had a corned gorrilla glass 2 which is very scratch resistance and a protective sheet on the screen will somehow reduce a bit of the screen's responsiveness (there is... although most of the time, you wouldn't feel it or was too insignificant that most people will overlook it).

There are two accessories (three to be exact) that came with the Lumia 1520 - the data transfer cable, the adapter and the earphone.

The transfer cable and adapter is common (I mean the function) and up till now, these are still lying in my box because I seriously doesn't need them... I already owned too many adapters with detachable micro USB data transfer cable, so I didn't bother to try them on. I believe it will work just fine.

The earphone (my is white in colour) - the WH-208.

(photo courtesy of http://www.flipkart.com/nokia-wh-208-in-the-ear-headset/p/itmdk2htbhvagvmf)

The headset is beautiful in my opinion. It is one of the nicest looking headset I gave ever seen (even coming from a company that make similar products). The headset is a basic headset, with the ability to accept calls by pressing on a dedicated button. and that was about it.

The sound quality is clear and very good.

Another similar earphone that you can be interested in is the Creative MA200 earphone which was very cheap at the moment (S$29). In term of clarity, I would give the edge to Creative earphone (although only at a minimum and almost not noticeable), however, in term of loudness, I would award to the Nokia WH-208.

(Photo courtesy of http://sg.creative.com/p/headphones-headsets/ma200)

Of course there are the powerhouse, Creative Aurvana Live!2. This headset had an excellent noise cancellation (you can almost not hear any outside noises and clarity + loudness is incredible.)

(Photo courtesy of http://sg.creative.com/p/headphones-headsets/creative-aurvana-live2)

I find this headset extremely comfortable.

I will do more reviews on these headsets later on.

Another accessory that I bought soon after receiving the Lumia 1520 was the wireless charger, and it was the wireless charging pillow by Fatboy - I got the black one, there are a couple of different colors available though.

The set came with its main charging cushion, and the adapter.

You just need to put the handset on it, with casing and all. And it will start charging. A note to take was that there is around 5cm distance between the charger to the handset, so you can keep your phone in a casing when doing charging. It will definitely be better if the phone is naked.

The above mentioned are a few accessories that I would recommend having to give you the most pleasant experience with your phone.

Of course there are others like,

1) Bluetooth Keyboard
2) Speaker system
3) etc

In summary

Connecting accessories like earphones to the Lumia 1520 is easy and fuss free. The only issue I have is with the wireless charging which actually take a bit of time between putting the set on the cushion to it started charging and sometime the charging ends intermittently, for example, I used the wireless charger yesterday night, however it must have stopped charging for quite some time, because in the morning I noticed that the handset was only 81% charged.

I believe it was because of the casing I have on the phone. But that shouldn't be the case, because Nokia should understand that most people had put casing on their phone and if that became a problem, then Nokia should really do something about it.

Nokia Lumia 1520 review Part 2 (A touch on the Applications and some features)

A recap of the previous review

Previously I am more into the overall feeling of the Nokia Lumia 1520 and its camera function (for still shots) I did a couple of experimental shots and touch on the noise performance of the Lumia 1520. As seen in the previous review, the Lumia 1520 can take pretty amazing picture (more shots will be up when I manage to get them and when the weather is good enough). 

There are still a couple of other things in the camera that I will explore soon. One of the most interesting feature is the Smart Shooting whereby the camera shoot a couple of shots, and saved them as one single photo, you have the choice to select from different categories to finally present your final shots, I will talk about this more in the next review.

In this review I will touch mainly on the following,

1) Interesting pre-loaded Application and features that I find useful

2) Download able applications that I like

Pre-loaded Application and Features of Lumia 1520 that I find useful

Being a powerhouse in her own rights, the Lumia 1520 is features loaded and it came with some really useful applications that I liked. Of course I will not go about explaining all the features and applications, it will take more than a couple of hundreds of pages to finish speaking and I am not writing a dissertation. I will however touch a bit on some of the applications and features that I like.

Double Tap

This is a good and innovative idea. All you need is two light tap on the LCD screen when it went dark. It make operation fast and very effective. Of course you can still to press on the lock/unlock/power button to get out of the lock screen. However, lets face it, this button is pretty small and depending on the pouch or casing you keep your Lumia, it will make finding and reaching that button pretty hard.

Also depending on what time you are trying to unlock your phone... imagine waking up in the middle of the night then try to unlock your phone. Two light taps on the phone LCD screen would bring you to the tiles where I can activate many of my application (like the flashlight)... it would definitely be easier and faster than trying to locate the small button especially through the hard case of my phone.

Data Sense

The first was the Data Sense application. Like most Android phone, the Data Sense enable the user to limit the amount of internet usage (downloads) one can have. It is very expensive if we overshot the limit of our data plan (S$10 per GB), and so it would be good if we can limit that usage to add a control over ourselves (because we all know that sometime human being are not easy to control).

To prevent myself from going overboard when surfing and end out having to pay extra, I set my data usage to having a 3GB limit per month (the maximum amount I am allowed), and restrict my background data to on when I am near my limit and finally to restrict my background data when roaming. I will also reduce data use when browsing by sending URLs to the Data Sense service when I am oversea to further restrict and hopefully save some data limit.

Tiles

The first thing that you would notice when you enter the windows was the tiles layout. Some people really hated it. Some loved it. I am those persons that love this design. I can pin all the useful applications that I wanted to the tiles (and frankly speaking, most people doesn't use that much application most of the time and so doesn't really need to pin so many application there.)

Somehow with the windows os, I find it neater and more pleasant as compared to my old Android system. I am not dumping the Android though. It is basically personal preference and I like Windows OS.

Office Mobile

Okay. Not to mistaken this as a full fledged windows office that you find in your Window RT, Windows 7/8/XP, etc.

You do get to review your documents (excel, words and powerpoint) and edit the documents as seen fit. But up till now, I am still not able to find a way to create a totally new documents using the window office mobile. I will continue to look for it online and keep you updated. And if there actually is a way... but I cannot find it immediately without searching for solutions on line, I would deem it a failure, because I believe I would not be the only persons who couldn't find a way to do it.

Either way, the office mobile is a great thing to have and I really like this system. It came preloaded into the Lumia 1520 and with its big LCD screen, I find editing and viewing of the documents a breeze. The Android system don't come loaded with this system (or if there is one at all).

OneNote

Now... this is something that I used alot to take notes for various reasons. This is simple to use and really effective. I do wish that I can easily draw on it like I have on the sketch application in my old phone. But one thing about Lumia 1520 was that she don't support digitizer pen... and the touch pen that Lumia 1520 did support are frankly craps.

Neat Game Arrangement

Okay, I don't know about many people, but I do downloaded quite a bit of games in my phone system. I like to have a game or two when I am on board an aircraft. In my old phone, my games are all over the place. And making my entire front screen very messy. Now with the tile layout and lumping my games and arranging it neatly in that folder.

NFC (Near Field Communication)

Now this is a blast to use. Extremely cool feature. This is not a new technology though and frankly it is around for a long time now. Many android devices already featured this system and I am longing to have one.

It enable you to connect to NFC enabled products and link your device to that product (like your bluetooth) with just a tap of your phone. It is useful in my line of work and also for my own entertainment purposes whereby I can link my phone to a speaker and play my musics (in the phone) using the speaker's much better drivers and acoustic system.

I can even make a hands free call or utilize this system to link to some 'intelligent speaker system' like Creative Technology's SBX 20, SBX 10, AXX 200 and with this I am able to have a very clear and sharp teleconferencing device.

Music/ Video Players

Worked excellently, good and easy to use.

 The layout is easy to follow and use. It is self explanatory, sound quality is great, and video plays smoothly with no lagging at all.

Files Transfer

This is something I really like. It make things really easy to use.

Blocking off of Background task

I read that the Lumia 1520 is the first system in Nokia to offer the capability to block off background task (I am not sure about this, would check to see if it is true). And it is a great application. Sometime I don't need a background task and it can easily be blocked off.

(Photo courtesy of http://www.wpcentral.com/conserve-windows-phone-battery-life-managing-background-apps)

And this would certainly conserve some of the battery juice in the already massive battery life of the Lumia 1520.

Others

The other standard features that I find useful and would be using them was the Wifi system, bluetooth, airplane mode, etc.

All these are standard features that could be found in most if not all smartphones in the world, and so I will not go into them. The thing I am trying to bring out is that I am able to assess these systems easily and quickly with minimum fuss.

I can also use the Lumia to be a portable mobile wifi hotspot to be shared between five devices so I can have wifi accessibility anywhere in the country, although I would seriously not advise that, you might go pass your monthly limit easily and for me... I will only use this as the last resort.

Download able application that I like and find useful

When I got this phone, one of the biggest thing that I looked into, was its capability and what it can do to assist me in my line of work. Being in the consumer electronic market, involving the manufacturing and production of consumer electronic products, I needed my phone to be able to expand beyond what was already pre-loaded. The windows phone allowed me to do that easily. Although many had claimed that the applications that are available for the Windows Store are not as much as compared to the Android and Apple devices. But I find it adequate for my uses.

The applications can only be downloaded through windows store, but don't worry, it is easy to assess and very user friendly. Assessing to the store give you the following - Singtel (or other telco), Nokia Collection, apps and games. All these are category are different location within the store that offer applications and games for you to choose and download. You can go straight into the store whereby they show you columns of different applications under different category like Photography, Games, etc. If you have a vague idea of what you want you can search the store easily.

Note that not all the applications are free though and some of it needed you to buy.

One of the first applications I downloaded are the updates available for my camera functions... which also gave it the ability to shoot in digital RAW format (I have already mentioned that in my previous review so I will not go into this aspect).

Other applications that I downloaded was as follows,

Brightest Flashlight (Tiny Smile)

I admit that this is not the only application that provide me with the flashlight capability. But it is a small application that is good enough for my use.

The interface is simple (as shown), it showed you the percentage of your battery left and basically give you everything a torch light should give. I have no complain with this small program at all. And what is more important is that it is free.

Whatsapp

This is a popular program. A must have for free messaging and chatting... as long as you can assess internet, or have wifi, you can chat with a friend or a group of friends anywhere in the world free of charge.

Wechat

This is something like the whatsapp. I would like to call it China's whatsapp... most of my friends, vendors and partners had wechat and we talk to each other through it quite a lot, especially when I am in China.

Lenses

Okay... there is this function for you to add new creative features to your camera. The pro-camera program that are pre-installed are great for still shots, but didn't include much other add-on capability. You can download other capability like,

a) Panorama - stitching of a couple of photo together to allow you to capture a wider scene then your camera could normally shoot.

b) Re-focus - let you choose the focus point in your picture after you have taken the shot.

c) Fisheye - shooting artistically distorted fisheye shots.

d) etc - there are heaps of others... but many needed you to buy.

Barcode Lens

I admit that this application might not be for anyone, I needed it for my line of work. It is basically a barcode scanner which can scan normal barcode and QR code. I have tested it for a while and it worked beautifully. Haven't got a chance to try it on QR code yet. Will update once I managed to do it.

Games

Yes. I keep going on and on that I needed this phone mainly for work... but who says you can't have fun with it once in a while.

I have downloaded quite a number of games from the store (all of them free), although what I found strange was that, some of the games that are free for Android and/or Apple are not free for Windows... things like Angry Birds. You need to pay for it.

There are actually less game for the Windows as compared to both the Android and Apple, but I am not a game person, I need a few easy to play games and that was it. So yeah.

Which Application I wished Windows have

I have recently taken up a course in UniSim and I really need the Blackboard app (http://www.blackboard.com/). However, the windows phone do not come with it and there is no such application found in the stores. As of such I couldn't do a number of things when I do not have my PC with me.

I really wish that the company that come out with the Blackboard also supported the Windows. I am seeing a great and big market for these windows devices so it should be incredible to have them.

Summary

All in all, the Lumia 1520 did live up my expectation for a Phablet in term of features and applications (pre-loaded and installable). I especially like the file transfer capability of this phone and also its ability to block off some of the background tasks and thus helping to conserve battery juice.

Although there are not as much application available as compared to the Android and Apple devices, I find the essential applications (for me) are all there except for the Blackboard which I needed for my university course. But that is certainly not a deal breaker for me.