Introduction

The Lumia 1520, along with the midrange Lumia 1320, are the first Nokia-made phablets and the first for Windows Phone 8 altogether. The 1320 has last year's hardware though, unlike the Lumia 1520, which is virtually on par with the best Android flagships.

Nokia Lumia 1520 at a glance

• Dimensions: 162.8 x 85.4 x 8.7 mm, 209g
• Display: 6" ClearBlack IPS display of 1080p resolution, Gorilla Glass 2, 367ppi
• Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 800; quad-core Krait 400 at 2.2GHz, Adreno 330 GPU, 2GB RAM
• OS: Windows Phone 8 GDR3 with Nokia Black
• Camera: 20 MP, Carl Zeiss optics, optical image stabilization, autofocus, LED flash, PureView technology
• Video camera: 1080p @ 30fps video capture with main camera
• Storage: 32GB built-in, microSD card slot with support of up to 64GB, 7GB SkyDrive cloud storage
• Connectivity: NFC, A-GPS+GLONASS, WLAN (2.4/5Ghz) a/b/g/n/ac, microUSB 2.0, BT 4.0 LE
• Battery: 3,400mAh with built-in wireless charging (Qi compatible)
• Misc: Nokia Camera app, FM Radio, built-in accelerometer, multi-touch input, proximity sensor

Windows Phone's market share is rising - it's a distant third at the moment - but it's the low-end devices like the Lumia 520 making up the bulk of that growth. Meanwhile flagships have failed to make much of a splash and even the Lumia 1020 isn't exactly flying off the shelves. Can the 1520 be the first flagship WP8 device to claim a piece of market share matching its size?
It certainly has all the right ingredients. Windows Phone is known for simplicity and efficiency - it runs smoothly on much less powerful hardware and doesn't bury you under a mountain of gimmicky features like some Android smartphones do. The Lumia 1520 does pack the latest Windows Phone 8 updates - GDR3 and Nokia Black, so there are further improvements over previous WP devices we've handled.
The screen is pleasantly crisp - only made possible by the jump to 1080p resolution - and features Nokia's ClearBlack tech, which provides some of the best viewing under direct sunlight. The Nokia PureView camera is equally responsible for some of the best cameraphone experience ever.
In terms of imaging, this is midway between the Lumia 1020 and the 920. The sensor is bigger than most, but not so big that it takes a hump to accommodate, while it still packs enough resolution for Nokia's supersampling magic. There's optical image stabilization too, which is a confident display of superiority over the non-stabilized cameras on competing phablets. There's no xenon flash on the Lumia 1520, but that would have required room for another bulky component.

360-degree spin

The Nokia Lumia 1520 is inevitably a large device, the 6" screen alone is huge for a pocketable device. That said, it's actually reasonably sized for what it is - it measures 162.8 x 85.4 x 8.7mm and weighs 209g. Put that next to the HTC One Max with a 5.9" screen, which stands at 164.5 x 82.5 x 10.3mm and weighs 217g, despite the 0.1" smaller screen.

Design and handling

The Lumia design has been pretty much set in stone though there are some variations. The Nokia Lumia 1520 is actually very similar to the Lumia 925. The difference to the Lumia 1020, for instance, is that the top and bottom edges are rounded rather than flat. Other than that, the rectangular look and beveled sides are unmistakable trait of the Lumia line since its inception.

Familiar Lumia design
Phablets are pushing the limits of what can be considered pocketable and comfortable for one-handed use. That said, the Lumia 1520 is not the biggest - as we said the HTC One Max is a tad taller and heavier, while the Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 is tangibly bigger.

Size comparison: Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Nokia Lumia 1520, HTC One Max
Those have some software features to help with one-handed use tough, which mostly amount to squishing keyboards (i.e. the on-screen QWERTY and the dialer) in the corner so you can reach buttons with your thumb. Windows Phone lacks such options and the Lumia 1520's large screen will have some people limited to two-thumb typing.

The Lumia 1520 feels big in the hand
The phablet maintains the capacitive Back, Home and Search buttons just like other phablets (One Max, Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Mega 6.3). Above the screen is a 1.2MP/720p front-facing camera along with an array of sensors. The front of the phablet is almost entirely covered with Gorilla Glass 2, which coats the screen, the capacitive keys and front camera.

Capacitive keys below the screen • front-facing camera and sensors above the screen
The basic layout of the other hardware controls is unchanged - all buttons are on the right side, starting with the volume rocker on top, then the power key and finally the two stage shutter key. Those keys have been moved down so they are easy to reach with your thumb (though volume up is a bit of a stretch).

Hardware keys on the right side
The left side of the Lumia 1520 holds the nanoSIM card and the microSD card slots. Those have to be opened with a dedicated tool, which might be a hindrance if you swap memory cards often. Still, we're always glad to see expandable storage, especially on devices with high resolution screens, high megapixels and monster chipsets.

nanoSIM and microSD card slots on the left
The bottom of the phablet features a regular microUSB 2.0 port, while the 3.5mm audio jack is smack in the middle of the top side.

3.5mm audio jack • microUSB 2.0 port
It's the back of the Nokia Lumia 1520 that's quite interesting. The 20MP PureView camera with ZEISS lens and optical image stabilization protrudes slightly from the back, but less so than the Lumia 1020's camera. Keep in mind that the 1520 is 1.7mm thinner than the 1020 too, using a smaller sensor has really helped Nokia keep that unsightly hump in check.

The back of the Nokia Lumia 1520 • PureView camera with ZEISS lens and dual-LED flash
Aside from the sensor size - 1/2.5" vs. 1/1.5" - there has been another concession made, there is no xenon flash but a dual-LED light instead. Still, the sensor is relatively big (around 45% bigger than the common 1/3" sensors), which combined with OIS should still make for some great low-light shots.
The Nokia Lumia 1520 phablet has a whopping four microphones, a pair on the front and another two on the back. On the front, there's one below the screen and one near the earpiece. On the back, there's one above the LED and one inside the loudspeaker grille. The mics in each pair are sufficiently wide apart, so you can expect great stereo sound capture from both the back and the front camera. The mics also include Nokia's proprietary HDR tech and Bass filter option.
The battery in the Lumia 1520 is sealed, but it has the reasonably big capacity of 3,400mAh. The phablet comes with built-in wireless charging, something that was dropped from the 1020. We'll leave the proper battery test for the complete review, but official numbers promise a month of standby, over a full day of calls or just over 5 days of music playback.

User interface is mostly the same

The Nokia Lumia 1520 comes with Windows Phone 8 GDR3 (the Lumia Black edition) out of the box. GDR3 and Black are software updates that add a handful of new features, but most importantly bring support for 1080p screens and the Snapdragon 800 chipset, without which the 1520 would've been impossible.
That said, the user interface is virtually unchanged on the new Windows Phone version. Yes, you can fit more Live Tiles per row on the homescreen (6 from the smallest ones, up from 4), but that turned out to be a function of the screen size rather than a Lumia Black specific feature. There are a couple of other changes, we'll get to those in a minute.
Here is a quick video to get you started
A push on the unlock button or a double tap on the screen reveals the lockscreen, which displays the current time and date and shows calendar events, emails and missed calls. Pushing the volume rocker in either direction will bring the sound switch and music controls on top of the screen.
Swiping the lockscreen up unlocks the device or you can just press and hold the camera shutter key to unlock the phone and jump straight into the camera app.

The lock screen • Music controls on the lockscreen
There's a reasonable level of flexibility and functionality to the lockscreen - the Live Apps service allows apps to display notifications and images. You can set one app to display big notifications ("detailed status") and up to five more apps to show a less detailed quick status.
The lockscreen wallpaper can also be controlled by apps - you can let the music player replace the lockscreen image with the album art of the currently playing track, or let one of the installed apps choose the image (e.g. Bing's beautiful background images or photos from your Facebook account).
The Modern UI is a vertical grid of Live Tiles, which can be reordered any way you like. Almost anything can be pinned to the homescreen - apps, contacts, web pages and more. Unfortunately, the app launcher is still just an alphabetical list of all apps, no folders, no icon grid. We don't think it works too well on a 6" screen.

The home screen and main menu
Windows Phone 8 lets you resize the live tiles. Upon a tap and hold, you'll get an extra resize button, next to the unpin one. You can opt between quarter, normal and double size. If you select the smallest one though, the tile will be just a static icon (as is in the regular menu).

Resizing a tile
Most Live tiles display relevant info such as the current date, pending calendar events, missed calls, unread emails and more (third party apps do it too). The Marketplace tile displays the number of updates available, while the Pictures tile is essentially a slideshow of your photos. It's nice to have all that info always available at-a-glance. You can look at them as homescreen widgets of sorts.
WP8 can do multitasking, though not with the level of user control that Android allows. Apps not in the foreground are suspended, but the OS has ways to take over and carry out the task for them (e.g. continue playing music). If an app needs to run in the background (sat-nav clients, messengers, etc.) it can.

The multi-tasking interface
The new feature in GDR3 is that you can "close" apps by hitting the X button. It's not as comfortable as swiping apps away, but at least now you have control over the recent apps list.
Opening the settings menu displays two sets of options: like on the start screen, you can swipe between System and Applications. System covers all the settings you can think of like sounds, color theme, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Accounts, etc. The Application settings let you configure each app you have on the device.
We would've liked to see some kind of quick toggles in Windows Phone 8 to spare you the need to go all the way to the settings menu to enable Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and the likes. There's a new Screen rotation lock feature, but it requires you to exit the app, find it in the settings, enable it and then get back to the app. The same goes for all the other settings, it's just too many steps for such a common task.

Windows Phone 8 settings menu
Another feature we feel is missing is a place where you can see all of your notifications from various apps. Live Tiles manage to show notifications from each app to some extent, but they don't really have enough room for things like e-mail subject and such, while Android and iOS notification areas do. Microsoft has confirmed working on just such a feature and that we should see it in a future update.
Android, for example, has a widget that shows you a list of emails complete with the subject and a line of the message body. You can scroll through that list and hit a specific message to read it. There are more examples of how widgets are more interactive than Live Tiles and while the difference is relatively minor on the small 4" screen of the Lumia 520, the setup feels limiting on the large, high-res screen of the Lumia 1520. Let's not even mention the split-screen multitasking and mini apps that are popular on 5+ inch devices and are certainly not present here.
The Lumia 1520 comes with the Data Sense app, which shows you the amount of data you've used. Both cellular and Wi-Fi traffic is accounted for. There are different data limit types: one-time, monthly and unlimited. The first two accept custom bandwidth limit values, while the latter is applicable if you have an unlimited data plan, but would still like to track your usage. With GDR3 there's an option to prevent data usage when roaming.
Data Sense can also restrict the background data usage for all apps, provided you're near a preset data limit. This will prevent some apps from functioning properly, though.

Data Sense is useful if you're on a limited data plan
Naturally, Nokia Lumia 1520 comes with a special feature for kids conveniently dubbed Kids corner (HTC liked it well enough to put a similar feature on the One series). You can select the apps and the types of media content that goes in and password-protect it, so you can safely share your smartphone with your kids without worrying that they will mess up your settings or access inappropriate content. When activated, the Kids corner is accessible by swiping left off the lockscreen. If you've secured it, your kids won't be able to return to your standard lock and home screen without the password.

The Kid's corner
Driving Mode can be enabled automatically when the phablet connects to a specific Bluetooth device (i.e. your car's stereo). This mode mutes all notifications except calls and texts, but you can mute those too. If you do, you can set an automatic reply text.

Driving mode
Microsoft is trying to appeal to business users too - a company can create its own Hub where employees can find news, calendars and other info relevant to their work. Companies can also create their own apps that only employees can install.

Camera

The Nokia Lumia 1520 has a brand new version of Nokia's PureView camera line. It uses a 1/2.5" sensor with 20MP resolution. To put that in context, the sensor has 15% smaller surface area than the 20MP 1/2.3" sensor in the Xperia Z1.
It is certainly smaller than the Lumia 1020 sensor too and the ZEISS lens has a narrower f/2.4 aperture (compared to f/2.2 on the 1020). There's no xenon flash either, all of which should affect the low-light performance.
Still, the good news is that Nokia managed to keep the optical image stabilization and the dual-LED flash is stronger than the common single-LED units, so the Lumia 1520 should still be competitive against other devices in the dark. Those are questions, which are best left for the review, however.
Nokia has created a special app for its flagship Lumias dubbed Nokia Pro Camera. Being one of the phone's key software features, it's there to compliment the PureView camera with a simple user interface that allows users to fine tune the camera settings. It may sound intimidating, but Nokia has done a great job of making the app simple to use for both novices and professionals alike.
Starting the Nokia Pro Camera reveals a familiar interface, first introduced with the Smart Camera app. The important distinction is the transparent box in the top center with six camera settings. From left to right they are flash, white balance, focus, ISO, shutter speed and exposure compensation.


Nokia Pro Camera app user interface
Tapping on each of them opens a ring-based interface on the right side of the screen. You can access all of them simultaneously by sliding the on-screen shutter button to the left. This will stack sliders for all six settings next to one another allowing you to easily fiddle with them at the same time. The settings you modify are kept at the values you chose, with the others adjusted accordingly by the software. We really like this interface - it's intuitive and powerful at the same time.
One major complaint about the Lumia 1020's camera is how slow it is to save photos. We're happy to report the Lumia 1520 camera is a significant improvement in this respect - it's clearly faster.
As we mentioned earlier, the Pro Camera lens has another cool trick up its sleeve. It snaps two photos at once - one in full resolution (16MP or 19MP depending on the chosen aspect ratio) and another one in 5MP, which benefits from the pixel oversampling technology, while at the same time being far easier to share.
You can zoom in up to around 2x in the 5MP shots, the exact number changes based on the resolution and therefore the aspect ratio.
Pro Camera also comes with a brand new option - shooting in RAW. It's DNG - digital negative - format developed by Adobe, which has wide support in photo editing software. While casual consumers will probably stick to JPEG, photo enthusiasts can work wonders with a RAW file - since there's no software processing or JPEG compression applied, editing RAW files gives you more headroom for editing than a JPEG image.
Keep in mind that those files are around 20MB big, while a full-resolution JPEG is around 4MB, the 5MP JPEGs are a mere 1MB. RAW files cannot be viewed by most apps either (e.g. web browsers) without processing, which is another thing to keep in mind if you want to share photos.
The latest version of the app also has the Nokia Smart Camera suite, so you don't have to switch from one app to the other to get the cool effects.

Nokia Smart camera features
The Nokia Pro Camera app isn't limited to shooting still images, it can capture video too, and does quite well. Tapping the video icon at the bottom gets you to the video part of the app. There you have access to just the relevant settings: flash, white balance and focus. The focus can be set to either manual, auto or infinity.
Video recording also makes use of OIS and oversampling. Zoom is enabled even during video capture and it can go up to 3x in 1080p mode and up 4x in 720p mode. The 1080p videos are recorded at 30fps, but you can pick 24fps and 25fps too. The Nokia Lumia 1520 has a total of four mics (two at the front, two on the back) with the company's proprietary Rich Audio Recording for distortion-free sound recording in loud environments. These can be used for another intriguing feature as well - it's dubbed Directional stereo. When you enable it, the sound in front of the camera is recorded clearer than the rest, potentially dealing with unwanted noises in your video and enhancing a subject's voice.


Shooting video is straightforward
We'll leave the detailed image quality analysis for the review, but for now you can check out these official camera samples plus one we snapped ourselves (the last one).


Nokia Lumia 1520 camera samples
Nokia has a number of cool camera lenses, which we've covered before and are exclusive to the Lumia line, but the most interesting one is the new Refocus lens. It snaps several photos at different focus points and allows you to interactively change the focus of the image after the fact or bring the whole image in focus. Best of all, these images are easy to share (including Facebook support), unlike some other proprietary camera apps that lock you into the maker's ecosystem.