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Gadgets >> Mobiles & Accessories >> Expert Review
Nokia 808 PureView
29700 -
33000
The Good: The camera on the phone is by far the best camera any phone has ever seen. With 41 mega pixels this camera is almost comparable to mid range digital camera. The phone is also backed with a fast processor thus making it a pleasure to use.
The Bad: Well the phone has a downside to it as well. The operating system is a letdown, it runs on Symbian OS and the low resolution screen is also a disappointment as it does not match up to the camera.
The Bottom Line: The camera, the camera, the camera! Well yes that is the bottom line of this phone.
Design: The only word that comes to your mind when you handle a Nokia PureView 808 is sturdy, solid and well built. Well this is no surprise as Nokia is known to always build sturdy handsets. Most of the gadgets today look to be sleek and slim especially phones, but at a time when that is the criteria for the design, Nokia chooses to be different. The handset is bulky mainly because of the protruding Carl Zeiss camera lens and the Xenon flash. The screen has a Gorilla Glass Display which makes this phone long lasting.
The phone has slightly curvy edges that add to the niceness of the design. PureView isn’t the kind of phone that will fit comfortably in your pocket because of its bulky size. But the narrow width and girth of the phone makes it easy to carry and use the phone with one hand.
Processor and Operating System
The Nokia PureView 808 is powered by a 1.3 GHz processor with a 512 MB RAM. Though the 1.2GHz processor provides the phone with speed it does no match up to its competitors like the Samsung Galaxy S3 and LG 4X HD as both of them offer faster and more efficient processors
When it comes to the operating system, Nokia has left all wondering. The Pureview 808 runs on Symbian operating system. But off late Nokia has completely abandoned this operating system for Windows Phone. We really wonder why the same wasn’t done for PureView. What we are skeptical about is since this operating system is hardly used by many, development and upgrading of the OS will not happen which means that development in games and apps will not happen like the Android and iOS.
Features and Performance:
Camera: Well, the camera! The special feature of this smartphone that makes it stand out among its competitors is its camera. The phone has a 41 mega pixel camera which takes pictures of up to 5,368 X 7,728 pixels. No you aren’t reading wrong nor are you reading the specifications of a mid range digital camera.
The camera has a Xenon flash. Not many smartphones have this flash. The camera also has a red-eye reduction and touch-to-focus options. The touch-to-focus feature allows you to touch the screen to identify the area of primary focus in picture.
The camera is equipped with pixel oversampling technology which reduces the image from the original resolution to a lower one. This helps in cramming in a lot more pixels than otherwise normal and thus adding more detail to the picture as well. This option produces some amazing clicks which will leave you surprised as well.
The camera in this smartphone allows you to customize and set the settings according to your likings. The camera starts up quickly and you can set things automatically so you don’t have to worry while taking pictures. While taking pictures you also have the option of playing with these options; the ISO level, exposure, saturation, contrast and sharpness.
The phone gives you pictures with realistic colours, there is absence of noise in the pictures, and you can use many features and details even while you are using the zoom. The camera can produce good pictures even if the lighting is not right.
The camera also records HD video at 11280 X 720 pixels.
Screen: Nokia PureView 808 does have a disappointing screen and resolution in comparison to the kind of other super features like the 41 megapixels camera. The phone has a 4-inch capacitive touch screen which comes with a low resolution of 640 X 360 pixels. When we compare it to other phones like HTC One X or Sony Xperia S, which have 1,280 X 720 pixels PureView’s resolution is a letdown.
But all isn’t lost. The screen does have a few plus points like the fact that it has a Gorilla Glass that protects it from scratches and the various other damages. The Screen also has Nokia’s ClearBlack technology which makes viewing the screen clearer and you can also read the texts on your screen in bright sunlight also. Though the negative fallout of the screen is that while using it, it retains the smudge and fingerprints so you will have to keep cleaning the screen.
Apps: The phone has some add on features like Nokia Maps and Nokia Music streaming service. The Nokia’s app store contains a lot of apps, but for obvious reasons the number of apps are less than those in the Google or Apple store.
Storage and Connectivity: The phone has an internal memory of 16 GB storage, and a 512 MB RAM. The phone has a slot for the microSD card with which the memory is expandable up to 32 GB. So you can keep clicking pictures.
If we had to look at this on more positive note the slower processor and lower resolution screen prove to less load on the standard 1,400 mAh battery. The phone will last you a day with moderate usage. But a word of advice, you should carry you charger along if you plan to spend the whole day clicking pictures.
Price and Availability: It is priced at Rs.33,899 making it a high-end smartphone. But if you feel that the price is slightly on the higher side, there are many online sites that Yebhi.com, Flipkart.com and Buytheprice.com which are offering the phone at Rs.30,000.
Wrap-Up: Well apart from the camera not a lot can be said about the phone. At times it feels like Nokia installed a high end camera to cover up other flaws like an outdated operating system, low screen resolution and an average processor. If you want to treat the phone as just a camera then it might be worth investing in.
The Bad: Well the phone has a downside to it as well. The operating system is a letdown, it runs on Symbian OS and the low resolution screen is also a disappointment as it does not match up to the camera.
The Bottom Line: The camera, the camera, the camera! Well yes that is the bottom line of this phone.
Design: The only word that comes to your mind when you handle a Nokia PureView 808 is sturdy, solid and well built. Well this is no surprise as Nokia is known to always build sturdy handsets. Most of the gadgets today look to be sleek and slim especially phones, but at a time when that is the criteria for the design, Nokia chooses to be different. The handset is bulky mainly because of the protruding Carl Zeiss camera lens and the Xenon flash. The screen has a Gorilla Glass Display which makes this phone long lasting.
The phone has slightly curvy edges that add to the niceness of the design. PureView isn’t the kind of phone that will fit comfortably in your pocket because of its bulky size. But the narrow width and girth of the phone makes it easy to carry and use the phone with one hand.
Processor and Operating System
The Nokia PureView 808 is powered by a 1.3 GHz processor with a 512 MB RAM. Though the 1.2GHz processor provides the phone with speed it does no match up to its competitors like the Samsung Galaxy S3 and LG 4X HD as both of them offer faster and more efficient processors
When it comes to the operating system, Nokia has left all wondering. The Pureview 808 runs on Symbian operating system. But off late Nokia has completely abandoned this operating system for Windows Phone. We really wonder why the same wasn’t done for PureView. What we are skeptical about is since this operating system is hardly used by many, development and upgrading of the OS will not happen which means that development in games and apps will not happen like the Android and iOS.
Features and Performance:
Camera: Well, the camera! The special feature of this smartphone that makes it stand out among its competitors is its camera. The phone has a 41 mega pixel camera which takes pictures of up to 5,368 X 7,728 pixels. No you aren’t reading wrong nor are you reading the specifications of a mid range digital camera.
The camera has a Xenon flash. Not many smartphones have this flash. The camera also has a red-eye reduction and touch-to-focus options. The touch-to-focus feature allows you to touch the screen to identify the area of primary focus in picture.
The camera is equipped with pixel oversampling technology which reduces the image from the original resolution to a lower one. This helps in cramming in a lot more pixels than otherwise normal and thus adding more detail to the picture as well. This option produces some amazing clicks which will leave you surprised as well.
The camera in this smartphone allows you to customize and set the settings according to your likings. The camera starts up quickly and you can set things automatically so you don’t have to worry while taking pictures. While taking pictures you also have the option of playing with these options; the ISO level, exposure, saturation, contrast and sharpness.
The phone gives you pictures with realistic colours, there is absence of noise in the pictures, and you can use many features and details even while you are using the zoom. The camera can produce good pictures even if the lighting is not right.
The camera also records HD video at 11280 X 720 pixels.
Screen: Nokia PureView 808 does have a disappointing screen and resolution in comparison to the kind of other super features like the 41 megapixels camera. The phone has a 4-inch capacitive touch screen which comes with a low resolution of 640 X 360 pixels. When we compare it to other phones like HTC One X or Sony Xperia S, which have 1,280 X 720 pixels PureView’s resolution is a letdown.
But all isn’t lost. The screen does have a few plus points like the fact that it has a Gorilla Glass that protects it from scratches and the various other damages. The Screen also has Nokia’s ClearBlack technology which makes viewing the screen clearer and you can also read the texts on your screen in bright sunlight also. Though the negative fallout of the screen is that while using it, it retains the smudge and fingerprints so you will have to keep cleaning the screen.
Apps: The phone has some add on features like Nokia Maps and Nokia Music streaming service. The Nokia’s app store contains a lot of apps, but for obvious reasons the number of apps are less than those in the Google or Apple store.
Storage and Connectivity: The phone has an internal memory of 16 GB storage, and a 512 MB RAM. The phone has a slot for the microSD card with which the memory is expandable up to 32 GB. So you can keep clicking pictures.
If we had to look at this on more positive note the slower processor and lower resolution screen prove to less load on the standard 1,400 mAh battery. The phone will last you a day with moderate usage. But a word of advice, you should carry you charger along if you plan to spend the whole day clicking pictures.
Price and Availability: It is priced at Rs.33,899 making it a high-end smartphone. But if you feel that the price is slightly on the higher side, there are many online sites that Yebhi.com, Flipkart.com and Buytheprice.com which are offering the phone at Rs.30,000.
Wrap-Up: Well apart from the camera not a lot can be said about the phone. At times it feels like Nokia installed a high end camera to cover up other flaws like an outdated operating system, low screen resolution and an average processor. If you want to treat the phone as just a camera then it might be worth investing in.
31,599
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By VVVVVVVVVV is wrong
28 January 2013
its ok
Pros:
not alot
Cons:
not alot
not that good
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
By Anoop Kammaran
10 January 2013
Best Phone with Camera ever.
Pros:
Best camera on a mobile phone ever.
Best sound system on a mobile phone ever.
Best sound system on a mobile phone ever.
Cons:
The size of the device.
Required Micro-SIM with PUK2 feature. So, you might want to get your SIM replaced when you buy this phone.
Required Micro-SIM with PUK2 feature. So, you might want to get your SIM replaced when you buy this phone.
First of all, the pricing mentioned in the above article is wrong. The phone only costs around 25000 these days.
First of all, I don't quite agree with many of the people talking about Symbian OS as a bad feature of the phone. Other than the fact that it doesn't have the hype which Android and iOS is having, the OS is fine and its speciality is that it can run smoothly on low hardware specifications. Thats something which neither Android nor iOS can do. I mean if you really need the high performance of multi-core processors, you have to admit that its not a phone that you are after, but rather a mobile/compact workstation with the ability to make calls. This one has got a 1.3GHz processor and I find it sufficiently fast in the sense that I haven't yet experienced any kind of delays/lags in this phone. The Asphalt 4 game is preinstalled and its performance is as good as my android phone with dual core and tegra 2. So, if Symbian can give me that performance of dual core with dual core GPU on a single core processor, that is something Nokia can be quite proud about. For those who didn't understand any of this, the result of being able to have performance on low hardware spec is that your battery lasts longer.
Anyways, regarding the 41MP camera. This is not as good as your would expect. I mean the images are great only if you have the proper lighting. With low light, even when using the phone's xenon flash, I don't seem to get a clear image at all. So, it looks to me like the camera only gives you the quality(thats pretty much as good as a high end DSLR, but with much more details from the scene) when you have the right lighting(outdoors and studio). Also, the camera cannot save the image in full 41MP(its a circular sensor and based on aspect ratio, it gives you a rectangle from the sensed info). Instead it gives you a choice between 34(16:9) and 38(4:3) in the full resolution mode. Regarding the Pureview, I was quite skeptical because being a student on Digital Image Processing, the idea of sampling at 41MP and saving to 2/5/8MP seems stupid because by doing that you end up throwing away a lot of pixels and by throwing away those pixels you end up loosing many of the fine details of the scene which you are trying to capture. This is exactly whats happening with Pureview technology. But for non-professionals, this is okay because they don't quite bother with the fine details. When you capture the same scene in full resolution and the pureview mode, and try viewing the images in its actual size in your monitor, you should be able to compare and see the amount of information that you are loosing. As far as I can see, the only advantage of the Pureview technology is the ability to do lossless digital zoom, even though its very restricted(untill the pixel density becomes same as that of the sensor(in other words its like taking a large image and then cutting out just a part of it, which gives you the illusion of a zoom; there is no actual zooming involved at all), beyond which you'l get noise because of duplication of pixels as part of the scaling operation. Inspite of all that, I should congratulate Nokia for making the 41MP sensor available for this price.
Regarding Music playback, I am happy about this feature because I have seen many phones and nothing sounds as good as this one. Probably the only phone that comes close to this is the old Nokia 5800 Music Xpress, which is why I wish Nokia had advertised this by calling it Music Xpress 2 or something like that. The built-in speaker sounds absolutely amazing and gives you the same quality sound as the 5800. However, for the best sound, do connect a headphone or an external speaker and thats when you will appreciate the sound chip in the phone, which is quite frankly the best I have seen on a phone.
Pros:
1) Great for Music
2) Its a Nokia phone. So, thats pretty much self explanatory.
3) Great pricing considering the 41MP camera.
Cons:
1) The only disadvantage of the Symbian OS is the lack of that many apps as android or iOS. One disadvantage in particular for me that that google stopped its support for the Symbian Google Maps app, when they released android. But Nokia maps is a good alternative to google.
2) The phone is quite bulky in the sense that its pretty much as big as the iPhone 5, but wider because of the camera.
Conclusion:
1) If you are looking for a camera that takes great photos no matter what, then you should be getting a camera rather than this phone. Even though this has the 41MP sensor, all the problems in an average camera in a phone still exists, like no room for actual zoom, lighting issues, etc. So, DON'T buy this phone if camera is your priority, unless you have ways to ensure adequate lighting of the scene(good for studio use).
2) If you are looking for a phone which has a good camera and has a good sound system, I would highly recommend this phone.
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