In 2010 Nokia shook up the high-end smartphone imaging game by including an impressive 12 megapixel camera on its N8 smartphone. Now the Finnish company is looking for a repeat performance with its Nokia 808 PureView (123.9 x 60.2 x 13.9 mm, 169 g), the first smartphone to sport the company’s new PureView imaging technologies; a high-resolution 41 megapixel sensor; and new pixel oversampling technology.  

According to the Espoo-based company, PureView will enable new high-end imaging experiences within future Nokia products, since it combines high resolution sensors, Carl Zeiss optics as well as Nokia developed algorithms.

What does all this camera tech mean to the smartphone user?

According to Nokia, the phone’s pixel oversampling technology allows one to zoom without loss of clarity at standard resolutions (two, three, five and eight megapixels). This is because the 808 captures seven pixels of information, condensing it into one pixel for the sharpest images imaginable.

At the highest resolutions (up to a maximum of 38 megapixels) this technology provides users of the 808 with the ability to capture an image, and then afterwards zoom in, reframe the photo, crop and resize it, and still retain a high level of detail.

 

 

And more

The Nokia 808 PureView also delivers full HD (1080p) video recording at 30 fps (frames per second), as well as a 4X lossless zoom, due to its huge sensor and performance-driven image processing technology. At lower video recording resolutions, the capabilities of the zoom increases to 6X at HD-Ready (720p) and up to 12X lossless zoom during nHD (360 x 640) video recording. Images and video are displayed via the smartphone’s 4" nHD (360 x 640 pixels) AMOLED ClearBlack display, that is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass.

Users will be able to record high-quality audio to go along with the video, since the 808 is also the first Nokia smartphone to feature the company’s Rich Recording technology. This enables audio recording at CD-like levels of quality, which was previously only possible when you connected your smartphone to an external microphone.

According to the official Nokia Conversations blog, the 808 PureView is the world’s first video recording device that enables recording at audio levels beyond the capability of human hearing, without any distortion.

Beyond the camera

Powering the Nokia 808 PureView is a 1.3 GHz ARM 11 CPU, whilst Nokia Belle (with Feature Pack 1) accounts for the operating system. Also onboard is Stereo FM radio, integrated GPS with a-GPS assistance and 16 GB internal user memory that is expandable to 48 GB via the use of a microSD memory card slot.  

Like they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and we would like to get our hands on the 808 before we believe any claims of the phone’s superior imaging abilities. How the Nokia 808 will stack up against the excellent iPhone 4S (our current smartphone camera of choice) also remains to be seen. Check out the video below for more on the 808.

No pricing or release details are available yet.

 

 

In other mobile related news, HTC unveiled its Tegra 3-powered One X smartphone, as well as the One V and One S Android 4.0-operating smartphones.