Lumia 1030 to Put the iPhone 6 Plus’ Camera to Shame?

Newly leaked pictures of what some are calling the Lumia 1030 could indicate that Microsoft has plans to take on the rear-facing camera of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus with a huge PureView image sensor and more.

Pictures of what’s believed to be the Lumia 1030 surfaced this past weekend at Baidu, a Chinese social networking site that has yielded early images of Nokia-made devices in the past. In the pictures we see what essentially looks like the Lumia 1020 that Nokia released on its own roughly a year ago. The Lumia 1020 was the camera-centric smartphone that Nokia released with its complete package of PureView imaging technology. It was at one time, a decent contender for best smartphone camera available.

What’s allegedly the Lumia 1030 in these pictures is almost a dead-ringer for the Lumia 1020. On the back of the device is a giant round lens that holds the actual camera and flash. The body of the Lumia 1030 appears to be made out of metal, but includes a lightly colored, possibly polycarbonate plastic area for antennas and wireless receivers. The top edge, which holds a headphone jack is also polycarbonate. The right edge holds the power button, camera button and two volume buttons. On bottom is a microUSB port. There’s a pretty nice sized display that doesn’t include physical buttons.

Allegedly, the Lumia 1030 has 2GB of RAM and includes Windows Phone 8.1. Pictures of the rear of the device reveal that it’s a prototype, something that Microsoft was essentially testing out for further development and has plans to release, or a device that’s since been shelved.

The Lumia 1020 was Nokia’s first serious run at using imaging technology to capture users. The Lumia 1020 had optical image stabilization so that it could capture great video even when held by the shakiest of hands. Additionally, the Lumia 1020 was among the first Nokia Windows Phones to use Xenon flash for better flash photography. If all that wasn’t enough, Nokia stuffed a 41 megapixel camera in the Lumia 1020. Forget great pictures the first time, the Lumia 1020 was and still is capable of taking a picture and letting users crop that picture around a completely different subject. In the United States the Lumia 1020 was Microsoft’s Holiday Windows Phone 8 flagship on AT&T. It never made it to any other carriers.

Read: Nokia Lumia 1020 Review – The Camera Phone King

With the iPhone 6 Plus, Apple is trying to put the focus on imaging technology in the same way that Nokia did. The iPhone 6 Plus has an 8 megapixel camera and technology that allows it to focus on subjects a lot faster. The iPhone 6 Plus is the only iPhone to have optical image stabilization like the Lumia 1020 too.

As of now, the Lumia 1020 isn’t a credible threat to the iPhone 6. For starters, it’s pretty old at this point. Nokia revealed the Lumia 1020 last summer. Even at that point it was already out-matched by faster processors in Android device. Microsoft upgrade the Lumia 1020 to Windows Phone 8.1 earlier this year and the device shows its age with the update. An upgraded Lumia 1030 could give the iPhone 6 Plus some decent competition where picture-taking is concerned.

Unfortunately, we can’t be sure that the alleged Lumia 1030 shown in these pictures will ever make it to store shelves. Reports earlier this year indicated that Microsoft was working on a device with 3D Touch technology called Lumia McLaren. Eventually, that device was cancelled. There’s no way to know for sure whether the Lumia 1030 in these photos is that cancelled Lumia McLaren device. If it is, then this device is old news and likely never going up for sale.