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April 12, 2012

Hands On: Nokia 808 PureView


Our first impressions of the 41 MP camera phone.


Hands On: Nokia 808 PureView
Nokia took the MWC 2012 by storm with its 41 megapixel camera phone, the 808 PureView. After about a month, it is now set to hit the Indian market. Before the launch though, the company invited a few reviewers to experience its latest gadget.

The 808 PureView is powered by a 1.3 GHz CPU, and has 512 MB of RAM. The handset's 4" AMOLED screen has pixel dimensions of 640x360. Additionally, the display features Nokia's ClearBack polarization treatment as seen on its cousin from Windows Phone family, the Lumia 800.

Other bells and whistles include 16 GB of internal memory, expandable microSD card slot, HDMI out with Dolby Digital Plus support, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, USB OTG (On-the-Go), 3.5 mm jack that doubles up as a TV-out port, GPS, FM-transmitter, FM radio, GPS, and an NFC chip. The phone is based on Nokia Belle Feature Pack 1, which is similar to what we've seen on the Nokia 701. In short, it's fast and aesthetically pleasing.

Hands On: Nokia 808 PureView

On the hardware front, the device goes completely against the trend of thin handsets. Because of its lumpy sensor coupled with a Xenon flash, the PureView 808 is quite thick, but still feels comfortable to hold. The build is solid, as you'd expect from Nokia. The phone is available in black, white, and red for now, with a possibility of additional hues coming out later.

We were allowed to take the 808 PureView out for a camera test. However, during the entire outing, Nokia's PR people were constantly keeping an eye on us. They didn't want any of us to review the prototypes after all.
Hands On: Nokia 808 PureView
Although the phone sports a 41 MP sensor, the maximum setting for shots in the 4:3 aspect ratio is limited at 38 MP. Similarly, with the 16:9 ratio, photos can be shot at 34 MP. The resulting images contain unbelievable amount of details. With a seriously big sensor, coupled with some pixel oversampling wizardry, you can zoom up to 3x without losing any quality. This is something you don't really expect out of a pocket gadget.

Coming to the video recording, the phone can record 1080p videos effortlessly. This is crazy, since I've seen a few dual-core Android devices producing choppy clips at full HD settings. According to the manufacturer, this is possible thanks to the companion core of the processor. I'm guessing it's more like a GPU that is specialized to handle the camera algorithms. At 1080p, the 808 PureView supports 4x lossless zoom, 6x in 720p, and 12x in 360p.

Needless to say, there are plenty of technical things worth talking about the camera. However, I'll leave that out for the full-fleged review. The handset is expected to release in a month or two, and will probably priced at around EUR 450 (approx Rs 30,000).
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