The Nokia 808 PureView smartphone is coming to the United States. It’s famous for having a 41MP camera sensor that snaps amazingly high quality photos and is sure to make photographers drool.
Later this week, buyers will be able to pre-order the device on Amazon. It won’t be tied with any carrier or contracts so you’ll have to purchase it at full-retail price. Nokia is pricing the PureView at $699, which won’t be an easy sell. It’s loaded with the Symbian OS and you’ll have to make sure you have a compatible AT&T SIM Card. It works with T-Mobile’s network, too, but only at sluggish 2G speeds.
The camera technology in the 808 PureView, which people have been so excited about, is a 41MP lens that doesn’t actually take photos of that size. Instead, it captures the photo at 41MP but then shrinks it down to about 5MP. During the reduction, it combines all the extra pixels and gets rid of noise or distortion. It’s no gimmick either — CNET’s photo showdown confirmed that the photos it’s capable of taking are extraordinary.
For anyone other than passionate photographers who can’t wait any longer to get their hands on this technology, you might be better off waiting. Not only will you have to shell out seven Benjamins for this phone, but it also runs on the practically paleozoic Symbian operating system instead of newer Nokia devices preloaded with Windows Phone 7. Nokia did tweet that the PureView technology would eventually make its way onto Lumia handsets, so again, if you can hold off, it’s most likely in your best interest to do so.
If you’re still interested, you can sign up on Nokia’s website to get notified when the Nokia 808 PureView officially goes on sale in the United States.