Urm... Should I? Would You?

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RumoredNow

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[NOTE]Buying/selling/trading outside of Marketplace is a big "no no" so I am asking for opinions only. This is not an offer. Please don't make an offer. I just want serious minded advice from this trusted community of awesome users.[/NOTE]

So I'm at the point where I think I'm ready to retire my tried and true, been through a lot together and still love The Beast Lumia 1520.3. She's in great shape as I have cared for her very well...

My initial thought was that I would WDRT the faithful gal back to 8.1 + Denim, forgo a SIM, pop in an SD card and set 'er up to use solely as a camera. Strip out all the non-imaging apps I can and load the Beast Phone up with apps that only center around Pictures, Videos and Image Editing...

However, my friend Indistinguishable and I were having a chat and he suggested I might be better off procuring the much touted Lumia 1020 for this project. I like that idea as well.

And that brings us to the "Should I? / Would You?" part of the thread.

Should I / Would You:
  • Trade the 1520.3 for a similarly excellent condition 1020?
  • Buy a 1020 in great shape to kit out and sell the 1520 to cover the costs?
  • Be greedy, get a 1020 and also keep the 1520? (Mind you I wouldn't need either as a phone, I'm sitting on 4 phones right now and I always feel bad when I have too many phones to realistically use - I hate to see them looking at me all sad and neglected like.)
Additional Considerations:
  • Being in the US could I reasonably hope to find the rare Telefonica L1020 with 64GB internal storage?
  • Battery life with all day camera use on a 1020: is the 2000 mAh battery enough?
  • Processing power: can the 1020 match a 1520 on Denim for shot speed? Can I just bang away at the capture button?
  • 1020 on Denim: performance?
  • Lumia Camera features: would they have parity between the two?
  • 1020 and the Camera Grip... Fair trade for a 1520.3? Cash as a sweetener? Which side takes the $?

Nokia Lumia 1520 vs. Nokia Lumia 1020 - GSMArena.com

Any thoughtful input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
 

Werentuckl

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Well. My first advice would invariably be that no. You do not need to sell the 1520.3 for the 1020. Nor should you, or trade for it either. Shot for shot, your future 1020 is going to be slower my friend. That is the simple economics of a dual core S4 and a snapdragon 800. And likewise for the battery. This, in comparison to the Snapdragon 800 with a 3400 mAH battery pushing 'only' 20 megapixels on its smaller sensor. A 2000 mAH battery on an S4 pro pushing a large 42 megapixel sensor. Especially considering the post processing involved on it per shot. Also with its age now, you are more liable to need to replace that battery first of all before you even pick the phone up for any measurable amount of photography desire/satiation. A camera grip, yes, is most likely to mitigate that need. But for any use sans the grip, a battery replacement is likely in order. And finally, the likelihood of finding that Telefonica variant aside, the 32GB of storage, being not expandable, your 42 megapixel DNG's are going to fill up fast. And trust me, I know from experience shooting RAWs only, that storage will not last you even a moderately long session.

The 1020 is a stellar phone, and an even more stellar Camera, especially a dedicated one. But it is far from a speed demon, shooting those pictures. Infact, people have often complained of it being notoriously slow, especially towards the end of its life with the last few updates ruining camera speed performance. So yes, while I would jump at the chance of a 1020 in hand, especially with that killer camera grip. I would not give up your unicorn, especially in that well cared for, beautiful yellow, condition. The last firmware updates were yet to mitigate the yellow tint in the photographs taken by that massive sensor.

Go for it, buy up that second rare phone and complete your holy troika/duopoly of having owned and keeping all the best Nokia WP devices ever put out. You know you want to my friend. And by all means. Be greedy. You've earned it. And its the only way. Ever. Especially now inyour circumstance friend. :) ^_^

-- W
 

Werentuckl

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Furthermore. Or moreover, if you do a quick browse through the great ever resourceful EBay, you will find that the ebay is not very kind to the Lumia 1520s, or the 1020s for that matter. So selling out on something you've kept and loved for so long, at such a poor bargain, would not make sense to me. It does, however, make sense to snap up a 32GB variant on the cheap and be out the window in under a 100, or close to it anyways. :) ^_^ Plus a few more and a good hunt for the grip, or someone selling a package deal for both. Go for it my friend! :) ^_^

-- W
 

Guytronic

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Should I / Would You:

Trade the 1520.3 for a similarly excellent condition 1020?
Buy a 1020 in great shape to kit out and sell the 1520 to cover the costs?
Be greedy, get a 1020 and also keep the 1520? (Mind you I wouldn't need either as a phone, I'm sitting on 4 phones right now and I always feel bad when I have too many phones to realistically use - I hate to see them looking at me all sad and neglected like.)


Additional Considerations:

Being in the US could I reasonably hope to find the rare Telefonica L1020 with 64GB internal storage?
Battery life with all day camera use on a 1020: is the 2000 mAh battery enough?
Processing power: can the 1020 match a 1520 on Denim for shot speed? Can I just bang away at the capture button?
1020 on Denim: performance?
Lumia Camera features: would they have parity between the two?
1020 and the Camera Grip... Fair trade for a 1520.3? Cash as a sweetener? Which side takes the $?

Know what you mean about too many phones.
It becomes a chore because you want to use them all :)

The L1020 can be a stubborn old bird.
It is a fun device to have especially with the grip.
I always enjoyed my 1020 on the tripod mostly.

Having a 1020 will most likely cause the like for the 1520 to fade camera wise.
The 1020 is in no way fast shot to shot.
I kind of liken it to a large format portrait film camera.
The best shots are always gained with care and prep of course.

I'd recommend the 1020 for photography fun.

Sorry about no direct answers to questions sir.
Getting tougher for me to gather my thoughts these days :(
 

Scienceguy Labs

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Trade the phone? Sounds reasonable, but are 1020s going evenly for 1520s? If you find someone willing to trade, why not? There a catch.... I'll explain below.

Sell the 1520 and use the profits? Another reasonable solution. Personally, this is the route I'd go, but there's a catch.... I'll explain below.

Keep the 1520 and add the 1020 to your collection? Oh, the problem of having too many devices. If you can afford this, I'd do it.

The catch....as a WP addict and device addict in general, I have become very attached to a few phones that I've owned. The 1520 won me over from the start. It had me at hello, if you will. Lol
I sold my original black 1520 after owning for a year. Within a couple of months, I bought a white one....then a yellow. Sold both. Bought another yellow one...then a green. Sold them. Then bought another black and white one. Man, I have a problem. Ha ha
I have a feeling that if you sell your 1520, you'll miss having that beast around. You'll probably end up buying another, so keep it and save yourself the trouble of selling, then reminiscing, and then buying another one. Ha ha :D
 

libra89

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The catch....as a WP addict and device addict in general, I have become very attached to a few phones that I've owned. The 1520 won me over from the start. It had me at hello, if you will. Lol
I sold my original black 1520 after owning for a year. Within a couple of months, I bought a white one....then a yellow. Sold both. Bought another yellow one...then a green. Sold them. Then bought another black and white one. Man, I have a problem. Ha ha
I have a feeling that if you sell your 1520, you'll miss having that beast around. You'll probably end up buying another, so keep it and save yourself the trouble of selling, then reminiscing, and then buying another one. Ha ha :D

The cycle is dangerous but so true.

I have had 3 different models of phones at least 2 times. I'll rather not elaborate but my point is that I agree. I'm trying to stop myself from doing that over and over again.

Since you said you have phones to play with, why not do the WDRT route, since imo, Lumia Camera is just awesome. If you find yourself missing that power, you can always upgrade it back to Windows 10 Mobile. I would do that, just for that extra camera boost.
 

Guytronic

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I get tired of digital photography.

Thinking back about how much I liked my early life with cameras...film was always the ultimate challenge.
Taking pics using digital tech has made me a lazy photographer I'm thinking.

I've been contemplating stepping back into film to maybe reinitialize an old spark.
Film is a hassle, yet it forced me to think about stuff before pressing the shutter button.

One great pic out of a roll with film was always worth it.


Apologies for going off topic...
 
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Werentuckl

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You're not that old GuyTronic. I have faith in your thoughts keeping friend. :'(

And also, yes, I completely understand. I am also a film fan for just that precise reason. :) Also, I completely and full second, third, and fourth Science here on this one my friend.

-- W
 

a5cent

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Shot for shot, your future 1020 is going to be slower my friend. That is the simple economics of a dual core S4 and a snapdragon 800.

The L1020 is definitely much slower. That's the important point that you're making and you are right about that. However, attributing this to the performance difference between the S4 and the S800 is incorrect. The majority of the performance difference is solely the result of the L1020 delivering images that contain four times as many pixels and therefore requiring four times the computational power to process. The SoC has almost nothing to do with the difference. Just FYI.
 

Scienceguy Labs

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I get tired of digital photography.

Thinking back about how much I liked my early life with cameras...film was always the ultimate challenge.
Taking pics using digital tech has made me a lazy photographer I'm thinking.

I've been contemplating stepping back into film to maybe reinitialize an old spark.
Film is a hassle, yet it forced me to think about stuff before pressing the shutter button.

One great pic out of a roll with film was always worth it.


Apologies for going off topic...
Continuing a little off topic convo...
A couple of years ago, I built a pinhole camera using a kit that I bought at Barnes and Noble. The picture quality was nowhere near that of the 1520, but it took the coolest pictures using film once I figured out exactly how to use it correctly. If you're looking for a fun challenge, here's the link:

https://forums.windowscentral.com/e...camera-john-evans%2F1016212157&token=M_m457uR

Sorry for going off topic. :)
 

RumoredNow

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Reverting the 1520 right now. :cool:


Lots of great points being made for me to consider...

I don't think anybody is off topic. My wife asked me why I don't just get a camera. :winktongue:

I also used to love the challenge of shooting on film and even the anticipation of waiting to see what would come out afterward. I also did my own developing. Mind you this was in school so I didn't have to supply the space and the equipment. It's not really a practical idea at this time for me to develop film myself and I think the machines that process now may take some of the soul out of using film. I'm not sure any of the places available to the average shooter do any tweaks on a frame by frame basis. I have a feeling it is "one size fits all" processing now.

My wife has a very nice DSLR and I could certainly pick that up, or purchase my own... But even she has gone to a point and shoot. There is a lot of stuff to carry around on vacation if you go the DSLR or SLR route. I can't argue against quality and flexibility being much deeper with a "real camera." I also can't argue against the portability and ease of a high quality phone camera.

I'm thinking about the 1020 for a few reasons:
  • Larger sensor, obviously, and more generous resolutions for better crop in... Although the pixel size on the sensor is the same.
  • f/2.2 vs f/2.4 should give me better low light results
  • Xenon flash is very tasty (I used it briefly on a 928 and was impressed)
  • Even moar portable and tripod ready than a 1520

...and the 1520 is back on 8.1 + Denim.
 

aximtreo

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This is the most fun post in a long time for me. Having worked in a camera store in my youth, I remember the fun of having various camera bodies and various lens for doing different things. I once owned a Haselblad (sic) that used sheet film. Had a light meter to measure the exact exposure. Such fun.

Had a Minnox camera so I could play spy and shoot 16mm film of nefarious documents. Gosh, so much fun and so many memories.

One last bit of humor. Our camera department was locate on the mid level of a 3 level building. You gained access by coming up a flight of stairs straight into the camera department. You could look down the steps and see who came and went in the lower level.

One night about 1 hour before closing, a very serious woman came in the front door of the store. She made her way toward the camera dept. and started to climb the steps to drop off some film. For those that remember 35mm film cans, this is what she held in her hand. About half way up the stairs, she dropped the film and it bounced down the steps to the lower level. I'm watching as she muttered something and went down the stairs, grabbed film can and started to leave. I called out to ask if she wanted to leave the film for developing. She sternly said, it's no longer good. It was knocked out of focus when I dropped it. She left and I laughed til I cried. Say goodnight Gracie.
 

Tullphan

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I'd keep your Beast & find the 1020 you want & buy it outright.
You'll miss your Beast if you sell it...I know I miss mine!
 

abhishek singh21

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i would go with lumia 1020, as you need it solely for photography. I believe it can handle that stress. Can somebody tell me what slowness is referred to here? You will get the resuming.... screen if you switch back and forth from an app even on windows phone 8.1. I mean a few seconds of that wont hurt.
 

Guytronic

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Can somebody tell me what slowness is referred to here?

When pressing the shutter button it takes about 2 seconds before the previous shot is processed fully.
Most times this causes a delay when wanting to take another shot especially at the 34 MP or RAW\DNG file settings.

It's possible to lower the resolution, but that's no fun :)

BTW:
In my opinion the 1020 is one of the best optically stabilized video cameras ever made when used with a glider or Steadicam...
 
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