Nokia announced its flagship imaging smartphone, Lumia 1020, at its 41 Million Reasons event, in New York. With it, Nokia reinvented the "imaging phone" class of devices for today's smartphone ecosystem. Unlike the PureView 808 that trumped even full-fledged point-and-shooters, yet lagged behind with dated Symbian software; the new Lumia 1020 is designed for the day, running Windows Phone 8. The 41-megapixel sensor is carried over, but with with more compact active optics, and an infinitely better primary camera application, called Pro Camera.

　　The device starts off with a design that isn't unfamiliar to people following Nokia's Lumia family of Windows phones. On its back side, a large black circular platform holds the camera's lens, an LED flash for video recording, and a prominent xenon flash for stills. You can make it use both flashes, or even LED flash for stills. On the front, a piano-black bulge frames the device' 4.5-inch screen, with 1280 x 768 pixels resolution, and three capacitive action keys.

　　Its user-interface is stock Windows Phone 8, but with a couple of Nokia's apps that make up this device' feature-set. To begin with, there's Pro Camera, its primary camera app, which lets you select portions of the image from the viewfinder to focus on it, and make key capture adjustments by swiping around a number of concentric arcs. There are arcs for flash (toggle/auto/intensity), capture method, focus, sensitivity (ISO), shutter speed, white-balance, and exposure. Aside from its staggering resolution, the camera features OIS image-stabilization, and a combination of LED and xenon flashes (LED for videos, xenon for stills). Stills are captured at 7712 x 5360, while videos are captured at 1920 x 1080, at 30 fps. The front-facing camera can capture video at 1280 x 720 pixels.

　　The next big feature introduced with the Lumia 1020, is Nokia HERE, a suite of location services, including HERE Maps, which are GPS-assisted maps that can be locally cached; HERE Drive+, which is a turn-by-turn navigation app, and HERE Transit, which lets you plan your trip around the city across multiple mods of public transportation (guiding you to take the right vehicle at the right time, to get where you're headed, quickest).

　　Aside from the two, the Lumia 1020 is a typical premium Windows Phone 8 device. It runs a Qualcomm Snapdragon Pro dual-core SoC, 2 GB of RAM, 32 GB of storage, and 7 GB of complimentary SkyDrive storage.

　　Along with the phone, Nokia unveiled a couple of handy accessories. The first one is a cover that gives the phone a Qi induction coil, and with it, wireless charging, using an induction base. The second one is a camera grip, which gives the phone the ergonomics of a proper compact camera, and a tripod mount. Both are each sold separately for $79.

　　Now for the pricing and availability. Nokia expects its retail partners to have Lumia 1020 stocked by July 26. In the US, AT&T will pilot a contract scheme for $299.99.