The Microsoft Store is showing this contract-free AT&T Nokia Lumia 1020 for $499. Compare to AT&T with a $609 no-contract cost. The phone is lauded by most for its 41 megapixel camera and 4.5″ PureMotion display. Windows Phone is a mobile operating system in progress, but this is a great deal if your main concern is beautiful photos.
Nokia Lumia 1020 Specifications
The Nokia Lumia 1020 sports Windows Phone 8 (upgradeable to Windows Phone 8.1 per the Microsoft site) as well as a 4.5″ ClearBlack PureMotion HD+ (1280 x 768) display with 334 ppi.
This phone is carrier locked to AT&T and your mileage will vary on how willing AT&T will be with unlocking it. You’ll probably have an easier time if you are an AT&T subscriber, know somebody who is, or don’t mind calling AT&T a few hundred times in a row.
The camera is what sells the deal. 41-megapixel Pureview, Carl Zeiss Tessar lens, optical image stabilization, xenon flash, high-resolution 3x zoom, 1080p video (full HD, 1920 x 1080).
This is one of the best no-contract deals for a Nokia Lumia 1020 that we’ve seen in, well, forever.
Interestingly, I recently picked up the Nokia 2520 at a MS store for $399 – it’s $499 on their website, (no contract and $569 on the AT&T site! I likes the Surface and Surface Pro but both are too bulky to be useful as tablets (Surface Pro makes a decent “portable desktop” replacement tho. Nokia 2520 operates well as a tablet (using the modern definition of “tablet”) and the display, as far as text readability is concerned is better than the Surface models. And it’s easy to hold and use as a tablet – unlike the Surface/Surface 2, Surface Pro.