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Topic: Smartphones

Why Nokia really made the 41-megapixel PureView

Summary: The Nokia 808 PureView has the largest sensor in a smartphone available on the market today, but without operator support Nokia is unlikely to sell many. So why the uber-cameraphone even exist?

Ben Woods

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Nokia last week released a new smartphone equipped with an eye-watering 41-megapixel camera. But with the company struggling to sell any of its Windows smartphones and no UK retailers stocking the massively megapixelled 808 PureView, why does the device even exist?

With its 1.3GHz single-core processor, the latest version of the Nokia Symbian (Belle) operating system and, of course, camera credentials, the 808 PureView can shame any other smartphone on the market.

However, I suspect that Nokia isn't banking on selling too many of these devices - the four biggest operators in the UK have decided not to carry the device, while Three is still making up its mind.

A spokesman for Three said "there is interest around this phone, but at the moment Three has nothing to announce" - hardly reassuring words for Nokia.

Think about that for a second. Consumers are interested, meaning the network should be interested. On top of that, none of Three's competitors are selling the PureView, potentially giving it a point of differentiation in a crowded market - but even that isn't enough to get a commitment from Three to sell the PureView.

Of course Nokia knows a slightly chunky handset, running an operating system it has all but abandoned, isn't likely to sell in droves (unless you pick one up as a future museum piece), especially when it's saddled with a £500 price tag and no network support for subsidising sales.

So why make the PureView at all?

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Topics: Smartphones, Nokia

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With several years' experience covering everything in the world of telecoms and mobility, Ben's your man if it involves a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or any other piece of tech small enough to carry around with you.

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37 comments
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  • When you don't have much, you flaunt what you got ...

    Nokia for a long while only had the Nokia N8. They spent HOURS and HOURS on the Nokia Conversations flogging the fact that the N8 had a great camera. That's all they had to talk about. I think this new camera is great, for the 3% of the population that wants that good of a camera in a smartphone. Stephen Elop doesn't really understand what he did to Nokia. He may never realize it. For now, Nokia will continue to wait for Windows Phone 8 and not really innovate a lot that the majority of consumers want.
    jkohut
    Reply 1 Vote

    • A lot more than 3% want a good camera in my opinion...

      EVERYONE likes taking good pictures, but not everyone likes to lug around an additional camera. I would argue that 90% of the population wants a good camera on their phone. Certainly, everyone I know that has a smartphone uses the camera, and usually complains of the lack of quality.
      kstap
      Reply 7 Votes

      • "3% of the population that wants that good of a camera"

        Most are happy with a 5MP or 8MP camera. That was my point, especially if other things are less appealing (i.e. OS, number of available applications, form factor, etc...). The 3% was a guess, but we will see how well this phone sells and see how wrong or right I am.
        jkohut
        Reply 1 Vote

    • 41 megapixels is meaningless

      feature porn. The limiting factor on a phone camera these days is the lens.
      baggins_z
      Reply Vote

      • Ignorance is not an asset

        "41 megapixels is meaningless"

        This just shows a complete lack of understanding as to how the pureview works. Do your homework.

        Hopefully the pureview will mark a transition away from windows phone and back to Meego or symbian.
        Sean Mcmahon
        Reply 4 Votes

        • *NOTHING* will bring Symbian back.

          Symbian is dead and it's not coming back. It was outmoded several years ago and it's even more outmoded today. It was difficult to develop to and Nokia has dumped essentially all of the Symbian developers in the trashcan. The PureView exists on Symbian primarily because that was what Nokia's camera engineers had to work with as a development platform.

          MeeGo is probably just as dead, although the former Meltemi engineers are trying to get themselves hired-out en mass; if that were to happen, you might still see Maemo/MeeGo/Meltemi make it to market.
          Atlant
          Reply 1 Vote

          • Symbian died because Stephen Elop killed it...

            it is still capable. It is currently doing just about anything that Android or iOS can do. It was a bit difficult to develop for, but probably not a lot more so. It should have at least been held onto until Meego and/or Windows Phone were allowed to mature. Nokia is suffering for that decision as we speak.
            jkohut
            Reply Vote

          • That much is true.

            > It should have at least been held onto until Meego
            > and/or Windows Phone were allowed to mature.
            > Nokia is suffering for that decision as we speak.

            Both of those statements are *VERY* true; Elop was a fool to torch Nokia's two existing platforms in favor of a still-uncertain future.
            Atlant
            Reply Vote

          • @Atlant

            You've clearly never examined Symbian in detail: It has increasingly lagged the rest of the mobile OS' & platforms over the last few years. By today's standards, Symbian's developer toolset was awful, its marketplace & store facilities were non-existent and it had NO mindshare and no possibility of increasing mindshare in users or app developers.

            In short, Symbian was a dead parrot that had shuffled off its mortal coil and gone to meet its maker.

            Meego? It was stillborn.
            bitcrazed
            Reply Vote

          • Doing everything Android or iOS can do?

            You mean "except sell", right?

            And with regard to Symbian being difficult to develop for, the moment you took your average C/C++ desktop programmer and started explaining to them about the need to use Symbian's Clean-Up Stacks, String Descriptors, no exceptions, and all the other ways, big and little, that Symbian didn't quite do either C++ or POSIX, their eyes glazed over and you lost that developer.
            Atlant
            Reply Vote

          • @jkohut

            "Capable" doesn't cut it these days.

            iOS is Apple-only. Android is a race to the bottom. Windows Phone is the only mobile platform around that ISN'T trying to copy/mimic iOS. In doing so, Microsoft is providing OEM's an alternative and very compelling platform upon which to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

            Nokia must be delighted to have avoided Samsung's recent penalties.
            bitcrazed
            Reply Vote

  • Maybe because they can?

    I agree. Doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. It's not subsidized and it doesn't come in one of the three leading mobile operating systems. I could see this with WP7 but Belle? My guess is they still want to show the world that Nokia is still capable of pulling off something awesome. Honestly, I would get one just for the camera if it came with Android and was subsidized. I'd pick it over another phone.

    Maybe a bunch will go on sale in the USA on eBay in a year or so for a hundred bucks or so? I'd be interested then....
    dvanderwerken
    Reply 1 Vote

  • when

    did they struggle to sell their windows phone devices? Figures please.
    danjames2012
    Reply 2 Votes

    • When ou have to "give it" away for free

      That is a sign you're struggling. When your company is bleeding cash, to a point there's speculation that you might not exist in six months, you're struggling.
      Jumpin Jack Flash
      Reply 1 Vote

  • Shipping is a feature

    Instead of developing a great feature and sitting on it until the Windows Phone 8 devices come along, Nokia could build it as a prototype on Symbian, get the attention now, improve it for Windows Phone and get two bites at the cherry. With the markets acting like headless chickens, looking good seems to matter as much as selling units...
    mary.branscombe
    Reply 2 Votes

  • This phone is DOA

    Think about this...

    From the late 1990s there has been a boom in digital photography... Most who want a good camera already have one.

    Now, people want a smartphone and again, more than half already have those...

    Of the current smartphones, the Galaxy Note, HTC Rezound, Galaxy S3, HtC One x, iPhone 4, and iPhone 4s are all good enough with their cameras...

    So my question to Nokia would be, "Why should I give up a good all around smartphone for an average phone with Pixel Binning Technology and none of the benefits of a real camera?"
    slickjim
    Reply 1 Vote

    • Couldn't stop laughing.

      OK, so you wrote that 2 months ago .... bet you're feeling a little silly now that Nokia have realised it as an 8meg feature in a Windows Phone.

      Looks like the smart people had it pegged as a marketing ploy all along.
      Pastabake
      Reply Vote

  • pointless

    When you see an article with a title that starts with 'Why', you expect to find some kind of an answer in the text that follows.

    This article does not answer its own question - why does it exist?
    ForeverSPb
    Reply 8 Votes

    • Exactly

      I expected him to have at least some attempt at answering his question. Instead, he enumerated what we mostly already knew, and posed the question you would have expected an answer for from his headline.
      WebSiteManager
      Reply 2 Votes

    • True: pointless article

      My thoughts exactly. Most of everyone already knows what he said and are wondering the "Why" ourselves.

      What kind of loser writes a "Why" titled article and ends it with the same question?
      TruthSeekr99
      Reply Vote
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