The Nokia 808 PureView is not just another camera phone, it's an extraordinary smartphone that can take images and videos better than most standard cameras. There has been talks that smartphones are replacing people's primary camera so Nokia listened and stocked a superlens on the PureView. In a way, this concept may be a little over-the-top. IMO, users who replaces their primary camera with their smartphone, probably could care less for a 41 MP camera phone. Conversely, a person who needs a super mega-pixel camera would not choose a phone to be their primary camera. But none-the-less, the 808 is here and I'm glad we have the option to choose a phone with super-imaging abilities.
The dimensions of the Nokia 808 are 123.9 x 60.2 x 13.9 mm and the device weighs 169 grams. For a 4 inch phone, it's pretty heavy and thick. But keep in mind, you may never have to carry a camera with you ever again if you have the 808 in you pocket. The 4 inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen produces 360 x 640 pixel resolution. I give the multi-touch display an A-. It seems manufacturers keep adding bigger displays with super high resolutions to wow consumers but sometimes less is more when it comes to compact screens.
The Nokia 808 is powered by a 1.3 GHz ARM 11 processor running Nokia Belle OS. A very nice processor with Nokia's own operating system. This camera phone may not get Windows 8 OS as many of the future Nokia handsets due to the small 512 MB of RAM. There is a standard 16 GB of storage (expandable to 32 GB via microSD) and 1 GB of ROM.
Other features of the Nokia 808 PureView include: microUSB v2.0, accelerometer, proximity sensor, compass, HTML5 browser with Adobe Flash Lite, stereo FM radio with RDS, A-GPS, HDMI port, video/photo editor, document viewer, Voice command/dial, predictive text input, loudspeaker, and 3.5mm headphone jack.
We have not forgot the star of the show. The 41 mega-pixel camera is capable of capturing images at 7152 x 5368 pixels. The Carl Zeiss optics have auto focus and Xenon flash. It features a 1/1.2'' sensor size with ND filter up to 3x loseless digital zoom. The camera is capable of face recognition and geo-tagging. The big camera can capture video at HD 1080p with loseless digital zoom and LED light. The front VGA camera is available for video calls and self portraits.
Overall, the Nokia 808 Pureview is a nice handset with photography being the main draw. To standout in the competitive smartphone market, manufacturers must be creative in design of functionality. That's what Nokia did with the PureView. Only time will tell how practical this integration of a premium camera into a smartphone will be. With all the buzz going around this phone at the 2012 Mobile World Congress I think the 808 Pureview is here to stay. Let's hope Nokia price this device reasonably.
Nokia 808 Release Date: March 2012
Nokia 808 Price: TBA
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