Nokia launches the Lumia 820, the 920’s little brother with 8 megapixel camera, 4.3″ screen

Nokia has unveiled the Lumia 820, a Windows 8 smartphone with a 4.3-inch display during its ‘Switch to Lumia’ launch event in New York.

The new device houses a slot for microSD cards, alongside a standard 8GB of internal storage and a 1.5GHz dual-core S4 processor. For photographers, the Lumia 820 also has an 8 megapixel camera on the back, enhanced with Carl Zeiss optics, as well as full HD (1080p) video capture at 30 frames per second. Not bad.

Visually the Lumia 820 uses a new, interchangeable shell design, allowing consumers to switch between a striking array of colours at any time. Confirmed colors so far are red, yellow, grey, cyan, purple, white and black – plenty of options for anyone who easily gets tired of their smartphone’s appearance.

The Lumia 820 has been built on Windows Phone 8 – the new mobile operating system from Microsoft – featuring customisable live tiles and syncing between other Windows 8-based hardware.

Nokia is marketing the new handset as a mid to high-end device just behind its bigger brother, the Nokia Lumia 920, which was also unveiled today. The most noticeable difference between the two smartphones is the absence of Nokia’s PureView HD technology, which Executive Vice President Jo Harlow said will be the “most immersive viewing experience on any smartphone”. Shame.

Under the hood it also has a 1650 mAh battery, compared to the Lumia 920’s 2000 mAh version. A subtle difference, but one that might be more noticeable once we go hands on and see it in everyday use.

What the Lumia 820 does have, however, is the same wireless charging capabilities as the Lumia 920, along with near field communication (NFC) and a host of software updates including Nokia City Lens, an augmented reality tool designed to give users more information about the shops, restaurants and landmarks around them.

The launch event had no details on the pricing or availability of the Nokia Lumia 820 however. Seems like the Finnish mobile giant is saving that particular announcement for another time.

The launch event did, however, also reveal a few new features about the Windows 8 operating system itself, including the ability to take screenshots by pressing the home button and power buttons simultaneously.

You can catch up with everything that happened during the Nokia launch event using TNW’s liveblog.