The Nokia 808 PureView Symbian-toting smartphone is certainly unique, packing a jaw-dropping 41MP camera, along with full HD 1080p recording capability. We went hands-on...

The Nokia 808 PureView certainly raises eyebrows when it was announced at MWC 2012, mainly thanks to its gargantuan 41MP (yes, 41MP) camera, making it a potential sucessor to the Nokia N8. While the recent NokiaLumia 800 and Nokia Lumia 710 feature Windows Phone 7, the new 808 PureView sits at the top of the Nokia Symbian range.

Nokia 808 PureView: Build

The Nokia 808 PureView sports a rubberised finish and is available in a choice of colours, making it look more like a rugged handset, rather than a range-topper.

The rubber finish adds a nice bit of grip, and while the phones fits reasonably comfortably in the hand, it's quite chunky, particularly at the thickest point, where the camera lens protrudes slightly. It's certainly not a slimline phone, so if you're looking for a svelte model, then this probably isn't the phone for you.

Nokia 808 PureView: Camera

The big draw here is the 41MP camera. This sort of megapixel count hasn't been seen on a phone before, and is usually limited to medium format pro cameras. The Carl Zeiss lens is teamed with Nokia's pixel over-sampling technology, which has been designed to produce sharp pictures, even in low light conditions, along with the ability to save the images in compact file sizes for easy sharing.

A high megapixel count doesn't necessarily equal good picture quality, so it remains to be seen whether this will be a huge improvement on the N8, but we certainly look forward to testing it our for ourselves.

Nokia 808 PureView: Features

As well as the camera, the Nokia 808 PureView also offers Dolby headphone technology, along with Nokia Rich Recording Mic tech for catpuring sound with as little inteference as possible. We weren't able to test either of these features on the busy, loud Nokia stand at MWC but we'll certainly be putting the phone through its paces when we can get our hands on a full review, sample.
Nokia 808 PureView: Screen

The Nokia 808 PureView sports a 4-inch screen. As the phone is being sold on its impressive camera, you might've expected to see a slightly larger screen on which to compose your shots, as well as a resolution higher than the 360x640 that's on offer. Having said that, images are clear and hues are bright and punchy so we can't complain too much.

Nokia 808 PureView: Performance

The single-core 1.3GHz processor is decidely mid-range, but the UI appeared to operate relatively swiftly, although we found that the camera took a couple of seconds to boot up -not a great start for a handset that's being sold on the basis of a strong camera performance.

Nokia 808 PureView: Verdict

Packing a preposterously high megapixel count of 41 on its camera, the Nokia 808 PureView is certainly an interesting phone to lead the Symbian range.

The impressive camera tech means that the phone isn't the slimmest around, with a chassis that looks more like a rugged, waterproof phone but we certainly look forward to testing out this handset in more detail...

Nokia 808 PureView availability: 23 April (TBC)

Nokia 808 PureView price: £464.98

Source: t3.com