Nokia Lumia Icon vs Lumia 1520 vs Sony Xperia Z1 specs comparison

Nokia Lumia Icon is finally upon us as a Verizon exclusive, and with it the prayers of Lumia 1520's awesome specs but in a more manageable body, have seemingly been answered. Or have they?

With a 5.39 x 2.79 x 0.39" body, against the 6.41 x 3.36 x 0.34" on the 1520, Nokia Icon is certainly much more compact than the 6" phablet, but how about if we pit it against another 5-incher, like the Xperia Z1, which also sports a high-res camera. Well, the things here look pretty good for the Lumia as well, since the Sony handset measures 5.69 x 2.91 x 0.33" - taller and wider than the Icon. Of course, it is also thinner, waterproof, and with a more premium chassis materials, despite having almost the same weight as the Lumia's 5.86 oz.

On the display side of things the Icon sports 441ppi pixel density, as much as the Z1, but its ClearBlack AMOLED screen with high brightness mode and excellent viewing angles is much superior to the poor viewing angles on Sony's phone, and it can also be operated with gloves on, just like the panel on the 1520. As for the processing power and memory - all three phones are loaded with fast Snapdragon 800 chipsets and 2 GB of RAM. Sony's phone offers 16 GB of internal storage, compared to 32 GB on the Lumias. It also adds a microSD slot for expansion, but so does the 1520, leaving the Icon with the embedded amount of memory only, though 32 GB is usually enough for most purposes.

The cameras is where it's at with those handsets, as all sport 20 MP units, but the PureView ones in the Lumias sport Zeiss lens and optical image stabilization, making low-light photography superior to what the Z1 can produce. In addition, Nokia's handsets sport the record four HAAC microphones each, grabbing a great distortion-free stereo sound to go with your videos, even at loud metal concerts. Too bad that the Icon is a Verizon exclusive for now, but we hope to see its equivalent make a global march, too.