Gave up on the Lumia 1020 smartphone

Regular readers will know that I bought a Nokia Lumia 1020 about two months ago. I liked everything about this phone except the battery life.

The 1020’s PureView 41/38MP SmartCam camera, for a smartphone camera, was truly amazing. The anti-shake system used by Nokia in this phone is extremely good. The clarity of the pictures was comparable to my Canon G15 compact camera that has a sensor over five times the physical size.

I so wanted to keep using this phone. I did everything I could to extend the battery life, including putting the phone in ‘flight mode’ overnight. This basically disables the radios in the smartphone—including the 3G/4G mobile radio so you won’t get and can’t make any phone calls.

Even so I was lucky to get about 14 hours battery life and this is without doing anything with the phone.

When I finally got my pre-order ‘free’ bonus hand grip snap-on which adds a 1,200mAh battery to the existing 2,000mAh battery in the phone, I still did not get a full day of usage from the 1020. And anyway, who would want to leave the hand grip attached? It makes what is already a large phone way too bulky to carry around as a smartphone. Anyway the main purpose of the hand grip is not to extend battery life but to upgrade the camera usage experience. It provides a tripod screw mount on the base and a two-stage shutter release button on the top (which can be seen in the following picture).

So on the 2nd of December I reverted to my Nokia Lumia 720, which manages to get three days of battery life with the greatest of ease. In periods of very low usage the battery in the 720 can make it out to five days and this is with leaving it turned on all the time—no flight mode, no turning off at night.

The following picture shows the 1020 (yellow) alongside my old faithful 720 (white).

Anyone want to buy a very slightly used Nokia Lumia 1020 that cost me AUD$833, complete with a bonus hand grip?

No more pre-order rash purchasing for me. I have learnt my lesson.