Lagging behind Android in hardware specs for what seemed like ages, WP8 managed to catch up in one fell swoop. With the Lumia 1520 at the spearhead, Nokia evened the playing field with a massive 1080p screen and a Snapdragon 800 chipset, then tilted it in its favor with a 20MP OIS-enabled PureView camera.

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.