Nokia 808 PureView Contains A 41-megapixel Camera

Nokia is the top one in the mobile phone market, it has launched a lot of quite good mobile phones before. The Nokia 808 PureView camera phone is a newest product, it contains a 41-megapixel camera, complete with Carl Zeiss lens and in light of that fact, a lot of people have reviewed it as a camera instead of a phone.

Nokia 808 PureView was announced at Mobile World Congress 2012 and as the first camera focussed phone from the Finnish outfit since 2010. Two years ago, Nokia launched the N8, equipped with a 12.1-megapxiel camera, which was a bit of a revelation at the time. Cameras of that calibre just weren’t seen in mobile phones, but a lot has changed since then.

Much has happened since the N8, including Nokia's decision to drop Symbian as the OS for its high-end handsets. This was in order to adopt Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 OS on its flagship range of devices, such as the Lumia 800 and 900. Only the Nokia 808 PureView still runs Symbian, with the same Belle version of the OS that we first saw on the Nokia 500 from last year.

Symbian was the only platform for the 41-megapixel camera phone, the use of Symbian isn't the only reason that we've reviewed the 808 PureView as a camera, though. We felt that consumers who wanted a cutting edge Nokia smartphone would be looking at a lumia device, whereas someone looking for a high-end camera that could also make phone calls, might consider the PureView. The 808 is, essentially, a high-end, compact camera, and Nokia has invested a significant amount of time and effort to make it excel in this regard.

The Symbian platform itself is a rather basic OS when compared to the likes of Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, while lacking the quantity and quality of availavle applications. Nokia adopting Windows Phone 7 and now Windows Phone 8, guarantees a better level of applications and it is apps that sell an OS these days, more so perhaps, than the phone's hardware.

Another reason to view the 808 PureView as a camera, is that it doesn't look like it will be a popular phone at retail. It appears that mobile phone networks aren’t keen to adopt the phone, with a number of UK networks that do carry Nokia handsets revealing that they will not be stocking the 808 PureView. This confines the 808 PureView handset to SIM free, unlocked purchases, with a priced of around £500.

High-end Nokia 808 PureView Smartphone Is A Breakthrough

At the Nokia press conference held earlier this morning at the Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona, Nokia introduced a new series of phones, including the high-end Nokia 808 PureView smartphone. This is the first smartphone to feature Nokia PureView imaging technologies, that provides a breakthrough in photography. The Nokia 808 PureView incorporates high-end digital camera features never seen before in a smartphone. The 41 megapixel image sensor and Carl Zeiss lens captures photos with an impressive detail and turns them into vivid and bright 5 megapixel photos and Full HD videos. In short, the camera condenses 7 pixels into one perfect pixel for incredible detail rich photos.

Nokia 808 PureView: Build

The Nokia 808 PureView sports a rubberised finish and is available in a choice of colours, making it look more like a rugged handset, rather than a range-topper.

The rubber finish adds a nice bit of grip, and while the phones fits reasonably comfortably in the hand, it's quite chunky, particularly at the thickest point, where the camera lens protrudes slightly. It's certainly not a slimline phone, so if you're looking for a svelte model, then this probably isn't the phone for you.

Nokia 808 PureView: Camera

The big draw here is the 41MP camera. This sort of megapixel count hasn't been seen on a phone before, and is usually limited to medium format pro cameras. The Carl Zeiss lens is teamed with Nokia's pixel over-sampling technology, which has been designed to produce sharp pictures, even in low light conditions, along with the ability to save the images in compact file sizes for easy sharing.

A high megapixel count doesn't necessarily equal good picture quality, so it remains to be seen whether this will be a huge improvement on the N8, but we certainly look forward to testing it our for ourselves.

Nokia 808 PureView: Features

As well as the camera, the Nokia 808 PureView also offers Dolby headphone technology, along with Nokia Rich Recording Mic tech for catpuring sound with as little inteference as possible. We weren't able to test either of these features on the busy, loud Nokia stand at MWC but we'll certainly be putting the phone through its paces when we can get our hands on a full review, sample.

Nokia 808 PureView: Screen

The Nokia 808 PureView sports a 4-inch screen. As the phone is being sold on its impressive camera, you might've expected to see a slightly larger screen on which to compose your shots, as well as a resolution higher than the 360x640 that's on offer. Having said that, images are clear and hues are bright and punchy so we can't complain too much.

Nokia 808 PureView: Performance

The single-core 1.3GHz processor is decidely mid-range, but the UI appeared to operate relatively swiftly, although we found that the camera took a couple of seconds to boot up -not a great start for a handset that's being sold on the basis of a strong camera performance.

Nokia 808 PureView: Verdict

Packing a preposterously high megapixel count of 41 on its camera, the Nokia 808 PureView is certainly an interesting phone to lead the Symbian range.

The impressive camera tech means that the phone isn't the slimmest around, with a chassis that looks more like a rugged, waterproof phone but we certainly look forward to testing out this handset in more detail...