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You can sum up Nokia's just-unveiled Lumia 1020 in three words: 41, megapixel, camera.

Teased and leaked to death up to the very last minute before the big reveal, the Lumia 1020's 41-megapixel shooter is what makes Nokia's next marquee Windows phone, and what gives hardware jockeys a reason to salivate.

The Windows Phone 8 device will sell in the U.S. exclusively at AT&T for a hefty $299.99 with two-year contract. Preorders begin July 16, with the Lumia 1020 becoming available online and in stores July 26. (The Lumia 1020 will also sell globally.)

It's all about the camera
Make no mistake about it: the Lumia 1020's stunningly enormous image resolution is this smartphone's single killer feature and sole reason for being. Yep, the 1020 puts the mega back in megapixels.

Here, Nokia pairs an ultralarge camera sensor with the company's PureView image-processing software, finally bringing us the smartphone we hoped the Lumia 920 and its many variants would be.

Camera geeks looking for the nitty-gritty will find six-lens Carl Zeiss optics (as in the recently unveiled Lumia 925), which also takes on wide angles.

It has high-resolution 3x zoom, autofocus (you can manually focus, too), and a dual-flash system. A smaller LED flash complements the larger Xenon flash -- a design we saw in Verizon's Lumia 928 -- and the entire shooter captures 1080p HD video at a rate of 30 frames per second.