I have fond memories of my Nokia Lumia 1020. It had a camera that was in a class of its own. And it has held on to this crown despite being obsolete in smartphone terms. 

By today’s standards the Nokia Lumia 1020 is a compromise. It’s runs Windows Phone which despite being one of my favourite operating system lacks the same level of apps in terms of content and quality versus android and iOS, and is extremely slow from shot to shot. 

So what phone has de-throned the Nokia Lumia 1020. 

Well it’s the LG V10. 

I can hear loyal Nokia fans screaming in disbelief. Well facts are facts. Steve Litchfield and I went out armed with our respective phones, Steve with his Lumia 1020 and 950 and myself with my iPhone 6S Plus and LG V10. 

Steve went to his favourite church to demonstrate the quality of the 1020 low light shots. The subject matter was a sign/plaque high up on the church wall. So Steve went first and took a great shot of the sign in low light and showed me the level of detail. It was impressive. So I took a shot on the iPhone 6S Plus which was ok and good enough but not as the same level of the 1020. So next I used the LG V10. Well the LG V10 produced a shot significantly better than the 1020. And this was all auto. Surely a one off, so another shot was taken. Same stunning shot and way better than the 1020. 

And the story continued with a few other low light shots. However, I do expect the new flagships from LG and Samsung to improve further in the camera department.

One small point, both of Steve’s Lumias (1020,950) both crashed in a space of 30 minutes several times. 

PS Steve had a Mozo leather back on his Lumia 950 which looked much better than the default plastic back. But sadly the standard 950 even with a leather back felt cheap and nasty. Shame. 

Below is shot from LG V10. It was actually fairly dark inside the church so the V10 did a stellar job. The plaque writing when zoomed in is really visible. 

Update – Steve has emailed me his 1020 shot which was taken using xenon flash. Note that’PureView zoom’ was done at capture time, for best quality. Not ‘afterwards’. In my opinion it is still a good shot as I said above but not as good as the LG V10. But do you agree?