Nokia Lumia 1020 Windows Phone Units Must Overcome 10 Big Hurdles

by Don Reisinger

Nokia will have a difficult time proving to customers that they should pay $300 for the Lumia 1020. The price is bad enough, but that fact that it comes with a two-year contract makes it even worse. Considering the iPhone 5 starts at just $199, Nokia must be crazy to think customers will pay $100 more for a device that, quite frankly, isn’t an iPhone.

One of the most important smartphone features nowadays is a slim design. All of the market’s most popular products come with a body style that makes it easy to fit into a pocket. However, because of the PureView camera, the Lumia 1020 comes with some extra bulk on the back that makes fitting it into a pocket a bit more of an ordeal. It’s unfortunate.

It’s impossible to escape the fact that the Lumia 1020 is running a mobile operating system in Windows Phone that the vast majority of customers today just don’t want. Yes, Windows Phone is making some gains in some parts of the world, but most consumers in North America are still ignoring it. Until that changes, Nokia will have some trouble.

Nokia was once a well-respected brand in the mobile market. But with Apple, Samsung and Google targeting evermore customers, Nokia’s brand has lost its appeal. Now, Nokia products are considered also-rans that most customers ignore. That will not help the Lumia 1020, regardless of how nice of a product it might be.

Like it or not, the iPhone’s design is the benchmark by which all other smartphones are judged. And on that front, the Lumia 1020 just doesn’t hold up. Is the Lumia 1020 an attractive device? Sure. But can it beat the iPhone? Not a chance.

Although the Lumia 1020’s display is larger than that of the iPhone 5, it’s still small compared with other products. In fact, the 4.5-inch screen is a half inch smaller than the 5-inch display of the Samsung Galaxy S 4. Screen size matters. And unfortunately for Nokia, it isn’t at the head of the pack.

One of the biggest issues facing Windows Phone right now is that it doesn’t have enough available applications. The platform has all of the big apps, like Angry Birds and Office, but it doesn’t have the sheer number of programs available on other platforms.

Nokia is trying to do something that no other vendor in the marketplace has: sell a smartphone solely on the value of its camera. So the question becomes: Can a camera alone be enough to sell a smartphone? Nokia thinks so. But chances are, it’ll be wrong.

Serious photographers—the ones Nokia is directly targeting—could make or break the Lumia 1020. If those folks really want a high-end camera in their smartphone, they’ll like what they find in the Lumia 1020. But do serious photographers really want to use a smartphone’s camera to snap photos? After all, aren’t most of those people already walking around town with a high-end digital-SLR? Nokia needs to figure that problem out.

If Nokia launched the Lumia 1020 after Mobile World Congress in February, the chances of it succeeding would have been much greater than it making its sales pitch over the summer. The Lumia 1020 is launching around the same time as the upcoming iPhone 5S and so will compete on store shelves this holiday shopping season with that smartphone. That’s bad news for Nokia.