Nokia 808 PureView review: Photo Finnish
Introduction
The Nokia 808 PureView is the best cameraphone ever made. End of story. Now, how do you proceed from there? And why is this particular phone so hard to write about? How about because a picture is worth a thousand words and we just had a truckload of them in the mother of all shootouts? Or is it because 41 megapixels is more than five, eight, twelve, or the sum thereof, and there's no two ways about it?
Close, but no cigar. What could've easily been an ode to Finnish awesomeness may be no more than a flash in the dark for struggling Nokia and the still-standing-against-all-odds Symbian. That's what makes it hard and we've been there with the Nokia N9.
Nokia 808 PureView official photos
At different points in its history, Nokia has had the best-selling phone, the best business phone, the best gaming phone, the best cameraphone and the best smartphone. At one particular time, they even had all of the above in one go. Honest to god, if there ever was anything like the best are-you-kidding-me phone and the best gimme-a-break phone, they would've been runners-up at least. Yeah, they were that good.
And yes, the Nokia 808 PureView camera is that good. They wanted something to maybe, just maybe, match the most basic of compact digicams. And they did so well that it scared the living daylights (and the low light) out of a Micro Four Thirds camera.
There goes the Nokia 808 PureView.
Key features
- 38 megapixel autofocus camera with xenon flash and 1080p@30fps video recording
- Two capture modes: 38MP/34MP full-res and 3MP/5MP/8MP PureView
- Camera features: giant 1/1.2" camera sensor, mechanical shutter, ND filter, geotagging, face detection, up to 4x lossless digital zoom
- Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
- Penta-band 3G with 14.4 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA support
- 4" 16M-color AMOLED capacitive touchscreen of 640 x 360 pixel resolution
- Nokia Belle OS with Feature Pack 1
- Single-core 1.3 GHz ARM 11 CPU and 512 MB RAM
- Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n with DLNA and UPnP
- microHDMI port for HD TV-out functionality
- GPS receiver with A-GPS support and free voice-guided navigation
- Digital compass
- 16GB on-board storage, expandable up to 32GB through the microSD card slot
- Active noise cancellation with a dedicated mic
- DivX and XviD video support
- Built-in accelerometer and proximity sensor
- Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
- Stereo FM Radio with RDS, FM transmitter
- microUSB port with USB On-the-go support
- Stereo Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP
- NFC support
- Smart and voice dialing
- Scratch resistant Gorilla glass display
Main disadvantages
- Symbian ecosystem lags behind Android and iOS
- nHD resolution wears thin on the 4" screen
- The phone is quite bulky and heavy
- Relatively limited 3rd party software availability
- microSIM support
The nokia 808 PureView has no business with cameraphones as we know them. It can look down at any of the smartphone flagships of the competition and make fun of their so-called advanced camera tricks. But guess what - it doesn't. It's so much better than that.
And of course the flipside is that the smartphone is not of the same order as the cameraphone. The Symbian-powered Nokia 808 PureView knows darn well it cannot match the quad-cores, HD screens and the app stores of the competition.
So, what's it then? Sort of the fat kid, and not too bright? It may as well be - but hang on. You may have a use for a sharpshooter in your team. Stuff movies are made of. Grabs you by the heart.
The Nokia 808 PureView has a whole review ahead and we don't think it's going to try and impress anyone, or make them change their mind. But you'd do well to pay attention. This is a phone that knows what it's doing and does it well.
Retail package
The Nokia 808 PureView comes with all the essential accessories in the box. Ours came with a rather big charger to be used with a data and charging USB cable. We would've liked the stylish round chargers of the N9 and the Lumia line, but it's not a big deal.
The stereo headset has a Call key built-in and comes with a choice of three different sets of earbuds of different sizes. An NFC sticker and a leather wrist strap with suede padding complete the contents of the box.
Nokia 808 PureView 360-degree spin
Here's the Nokia 808 PureView in all its glory. It's not exactly fresh out of the gym, and the massive camera bump makes it look like it's been in an accident. Multiple accidents? It's certainly not a bad-looking fella, though.
Design and build quality
Nokia are sticking to the classic white and black, and red for special occasions, we presume. No fancy paintjobs like pink and lime. Also gone is the full-metal body of the N8.
The all plastic build is not necessarily a bad thing, considering that at 169g the 808 PureView competes in the super heavyweight division. Plastic was definitely the way to go here.
The Nokia 808 PureView has a surprisingly coarse finish that almost feels like machined metal, only not as cold. It is nice to the touch and has great grip, which is a must for such a hefty, and top-heavy, piece of gear. We don't miss the aluminum unibody of the N8 because, believe it or not, the 808 PureView easily puts any metal-clad phone to shame. The feel is solid, bordering on lethal. The Nokia 808 PureView desperately lacks sophistication but it doesn't feel like it'll break in your hands.
It's not hard to guess that this kind of camera will require plenty of extra space. At 123.9 x 60.2 x 13.9 mm, the 808 PureView is just a millimeter thicker than the Nokia N8, but that's not taking into account the large hump at the back. At its thickest part, where the camera is, the 808 PureView is 18mm deep.
Despite the size and weight, the device doesn't feel weird in the hand. It didn't take long to learn how to balance the top-heavy phone in portrait. That's where the grippy finish of the rear was most welcome. One scenario where it's not the most comfortable of handsets is typing in landscape mode. And even that's not too bad.
Above the display we find the secondary camera for video calls, alongside the proximity and ambient light sensors, and a centrally placed earpiece.
Keeping up with the times, the 808 PureView packs a 4" AMOLED display, with a layer of Gorilla Glass for extra protection. It's a nice choice for screen meant for viewing photos.
So, assuming at some point you will stop ogling the monstrous camera at the back, the front is where your attention will be. Unfortunately, Nokia could've done better than nHD resolution.
360 x 640 pixel screens weren't exactly top of the line two years ago, and they most certainly aren't today. The display has grown up to 4 inches, taking the pixel density down to 184 ppi. With some rival smartphones able to offer nearly twice this number, the 808 PureView has no excuses.
But not everything is ruined. AMOLED offers great sunlight legibility and perfect indoor performance. Not least, the aspect ratio is spot on 16:9. Deep blacks and saturated colors are the technology's trademark features. Although it's not as impressive as Samsung's SuperAMOLED Plus, it's more than competitive elsewhere.
Nokia Belle gets a pack of features
Nokia's smartphone OS, previously known as Symbian, has faded into the background of the smartphone scene, which is a shame since it finally caught up to the competition in terms of features with Belle and now we have Feature Pack 1 to polish it.



Widgets come in up to five sizes. In addition, you can also put shortcuts and contacts on the homescreen.
FP1 brings with it a number of new widgets. For example, you now get 3G, Offline, Bluetooth and Mobile Data on/off toggles in addition to the Wi-Fi on/off toggle you got with Belle. There's also a Mobile data tracker that is great for those on limited plans.
There's also a couple of new clock widgets, a additional calendar widget, two music player widgets, Facebook and Twitter widgets, a DLNA server widget, Microsoft Apps widget, and a couple of weather widgets among others.
A tap and hold on a widget or shortcut activates edit mode, but only for that widget/shortcut. You can't touch the others - there's no mode where you can edit everything at once (which seems a bit inconvenient). You can move, delete or (where available) access the settings of the selected one.
The pull-down status bar at the top of the screen is where notifications and status info wait for your attention, but you also get toggles for mobile data, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Silent mode.
This pull-down status bar is available on any screen so you can also quickly change a setting and look up new events.
The bottom of the homescreen has three virtual buttons - menu, dialer and homescreen settings.
Moving on, the main menu is now completely flat, at least by default - you could still manually create folders, if you like. You can't put folders within folders though (not that you'd want to do that anyway).
To help you navigate the crowded app drawer, there's a search feature, plus you can sort icons both alphabetically and manually. You can't drop a shortcut in a folder while arranging them though. To do that, you have to press and hold on a shortcut, choose Move to folder and then select the desired folder. There are also Add to homescreen and delete options here.
The way you move things around in Symbian isn't as streamlined and intuitive as it is in competing OSes and Feature Pack 1 has done nothing to change that. Also, the only way to add a folder to the homescreen is to first create it in the app drawer, which is less than ideal.
The task manager in Nokia Belle FP1 has changed though. It's still called out by pressing and holding the Menu key, but it now shows screenshots of the actual apps rather than their icons. You can barely fit two apps when the UI is in vertical orientation and four in landscape. The red X's lets you close apps that are no longer needed.
The lightweight Symbian has always been a snappy OS even on limited (by today's standards) resources. The bump to 1.3GHz (older Belle phones ran at 1GHz tops) enables buttery smooth animations and transitions.
With the Nokia 808 PureView you really don't notice you're running on a single-core processor. The app store battle is lost for the platform and in today's market, the apps are the main driving force behind smartphone sales.
We may be sad to see Symbian headed the way of the dodo bird, but the 808 PureView could be the grand sendoff an OS with such rich history deserves.
Image gallery and file management
The image gallery app in Nokia 808 PureView may look the same as before, but it has actually lost some functionality. Photos are displayed in a grid (3 columns) and you can scroll up and down (with kinetic scrolling, of course).
You can no longer select multiple photos or share them straight from the grid view. The gallery no longer offers the option to organize images into albums and even the View details option is gone.
You can delete, crop, send or share photos with a handy Facebook shortcut available at the bottom of the screen. You can share a photo on Flickr too, but you have to go through the Share menu.
Browsing the images is usually amazingly smooth - you can zoom and pan around 38MP images and the 808 PureView won't break a sweat. Even flicking through hundreds of images in the grid view is fast and effortless. There are only rare occasions when large photos take a while to zoom, but it's nothing major and the overall performance is great.
Now that Albums are gone, the only way to organize images is tags. Tags are visible between photos in the grid view and you can insert a new tag with a press and hold. Tags with the date are inserted automatically. Unfortunately, there's no easy way to jump straight to a tag.
The Gallery offers simple editing options - adjusting image properties (including an auto-levels feature), cropping, rotating, flipping and resigning, along with adding effects, clipart and frames.
The ColorizIt app is also available, which creates a specific effect - a black and white photo with parts of it in color. The Silent Film Director app let's you create old-school looking clips (like a 20's film with the characteristic silent movie soundtrack).
NOKIA 808 PUREVIEW IMAGES
ColorizIt in action • Silent Film Director
ColorizIt in action • Silent Film Director
The Files app aboard the Nokia 808 is a capable and can basically do anything you want with your files - moving, copying, renaming, sorting, searching or sending - you name it.
The ZIP manager also comes in handy when you get an archived file in the mail or need to send several files easily.
Music player with Dolby
The music player features a Cover Flow-like interface in several places. You start off by picking an album off a list (or put the phone in landscape mode to browse the albums by their covers in 3D), after that you pick the song you want from the next list, with 3D album covers hovering just above if you change your mind and want another album.
Other than Album, you can also browse songs by Genres or Playlists.
The now playing interface shows the album art on top (which you can swipe left or right to move between songs), below is the seek bar that lets you scrub through a song, under that are the playback controls.
You have equalizer presets but no manual settings, along with Loudness and Balance settings. Feature Pack 1 brings Dolby Headphone sound enhancement, which has only two states - on and off.
The Nokia 808 PureView features an FM radio transmitter, which allows you to broadcast to any FM radio receiver nearby (typically, your car's audio). You can set the frequency too, to avoid interferences on the current channel.
FM radio comes with RDS
The FM radio on Nokia 808 PureView comes with a neat and simple interface. You can skip preset and new stations alike with swipe gestures or you can use the virtual buttons. The radio has RDS support and automatic rescanning.
What it doesn't have is a built-in antenna, so you'll need to plug in headphones for the radio to work. That would have been a nice perk, but not having it isn't a huge loss.
Great audio quality
The Nokia 808 PureView audio output is quite great, the handset doing quite well in both of our testing scenarios.
When attached to an active external equalizer, the 808 PureView got impressive scores all over the place. Its volume level was decently high too, so there's nothing to frown at.
The stereo crosstalk reading got the usual hit when when headphones came into play, but apart from that and the increased intermodulation distortion, everytihng remained great. A very solid overall performance indeed.
And here comes the table so you can see for yourself.
Test | Frequency response | Noise level | Dynamic range | THD | IMD + Noise | Stereo crosstalk |
Nokia 808 PureView | +0.09, -0.53 | -89.7 | 89.7 | 0.0054 | 0.017 | -89.0 |
Nokia 808 PureView (headphones attached) | +0.09, -0.53 | -92.5 | 93.0 | 0.013 | 0.345 | -54.7 |
Nokia N8 | +0.07 -0.33 | -89.9 | 90.0 | 0.0059 | 0.015 | -90.9 |
Nokia N8 (headphones attached) | +0.50 -0.18 | -89.9 | 89.9 | 0.016 | 0.300 | -55.6 |
Nokia Lumia 710 | +1.94, -2.90 | -80.9 | 80.8 | 0.061 | 1.603 | -85.7 |
Nokia Lumia 710 (headphones attached) | +2.04, -2.69 | -83.3 | 83.0 | 0.061 | 1.574 | -54.5 |
Nokia Lumia 800 | +0.13, -0.12 | -87.3 | 87.6 | 0.011 | 0.241 | -87.8 |
Nokia Lumia 800 (headphones attached) | +1.03, -5.90 | -87.1 | 87.9 | 0.028 | 0.567 | -41.8 |

Nokia 808 PureView frequency response
You can learn more about the whole testing process here.
Capable video player with no settings
The Nokia 808 PureView handled practically every video file we tried - DivX, XviD, AVI, MKV, MP4 - there's nothing the phone is afraid of. Even 1080p videos played smoothly. Videos with AC3 or DTS sound worked too, even if they trip up most other smartphones.
The media player works in fullscreen landscape mode. The beautiful screen with native 16:9 aspect is also more than welcome for truly enjoying your videos - even in broad daylight.
But the nHD resolution doesn't do most videos justice, you'll need a microHDMI cable and an HDTV. The video player will automatically detect subtitles and load them up too.
There are no options or settings available for the subtitles. Sure, they just work fine most of the time, but if you need to change the encoding, adjust their size or anything else, you're out of luck.
Low-light performance
We found the Nokia 808 PureView low-light performance worthy of a review of its own. You can read the really detailed analysis there, but here's the short version.
In dim lighting the Nokia 808 PureView really makes its large sensor count and blows competition out of the water. In its full-res 38MP mode it does allow the noise to raise its ugly head, but still captures amazingly detailed photos. What's even better, the noise is of the far more acceptable luminance type and not the colored chormatic noise typical for most smartphones.
Switch to the lower-res 8MP mode and you get virtually noise-free images up to ISO 400 and usable ones even at ISO800.
We started with testing the xenon flash mounted on the 808 PureView, which Nokia claims is twice more powerful than the one on the N8. We were hardly surprised that it allowed us to capture some pretty impressive photos in both 38MP and 8MP modes.
The 808 PureView continued its great streak even after we disabled the flash. The smartphone managed to once again put the Galaxy S III to shame, and even managed to hold its ground against the Olympus E-PL2 Micro Four Thirds camera and the Canon 550D DSLR.
A warning is due here, though. When things get extremely dark, the Nokia 808 PureView sometimes selects a shutter speed of 1/16 or even lower, which means that images are likely to come out blurry due to both camera shake and motion blur. If the PureView opted for a higher ISO setting instead, you would have ended up with slightly noisier but sharper images and we think that would be the better decision.
Naturally you can enter creative mode and set the ISO manually, thus allowing the Nokia 808 to select a higher shutter speed, but since the currently selected speed isn't indicated anywhere on the viewfinder, there's no way of telling when you need to do that.
That aside, the Nokia 808 PureView low-light performance isn't as good as its specs suggest - it's way better than that and it certainly exceeded our expectations. And it's not just stills either - the 1080p footage captured in low-light environments comes out really great too. Just check out the following comparison to see what we are talking about.
Video camera interface and features
The video camera interface looks a lot like the still camera. You still get Automatic, Scenes and Creative modes and their settings are similar to those of their still imaging counterparts.
You do get two extra settings - you can toggle the Video light and the Continuous Autofocus (CAF). If CAF starts hunting for autofocus too often, you can disable it. This will enable Hyperfocal mode, which should keep most things in focus (unless they are less than a meter from the camera).
With creative mode, you can pick from several resolutions and framerates. The resolution settings are 1080p, 720p and 360p. For framerates you get the most popular options - 30fps, 25fps, 24fps and 15fps. This lets you play cinematographer with 1080p@24fps or put the 808 PureView through the indignity of shooting a 360p@15fps video for an MMS message.
The really good news is that zooming works in video mode too, even during recording. In the highest resolution mode you get up to 4x lossless digital zoom and that number even goes up as the resolution goes down - 6x for 720p and a whopping 12x for 360p.
Nokia has taken great care to produce the best video quality possible. 1080p videos are shot at 25Mbps encoded with H.264 high-profile and the audio recording has received a lot of attention too.
Nokia's Rich Recording technology allows the 808 PureView to record both very low frequencies and very loud sounds (up to 140-145dB) without distortion - they claim it produces "almost CD quality" audio.
Video quality and comparison
The still photography skills of the Nokia 808 PureView get the most attention with the astronomically high resolution. The 1080p videos that the phone shoots might not beat the competition by numbers alone, but that huge sensor sure is a great thing to have.
In fact the user interface video on page 3 of this very article was shot on a Nokia 808 PureView. You can find more details on this experiment of ours over here.
Videos are stored in MP4 files. The 1080p@30fps came out with a bitrate of 20-21Mbps, but a more dynamic scene should see an increase in that number. The sound is recorded in stereo with 129 Kbps bitrate and a sampling rate of 48 kHz.
The videos themselves are excellent: smooth, free of noise and with great level of detail. Color rendering is identical to the one in still images, which is to say accurate, but a bit undersaturated.
We found that the continuous autofocus would trigger a bit too often - it's quick and unobtrusive, but you still might want to disable it. Luckily, you can do that straight from the viewfinder even in the middle of recording a video.
720p @ 30fps videos are shot with 10-11Mbps framerate and look pretty amazing themselves. Not to mention that they allow for even more zooming action.
You can also download this 1080p@30fps (0:06s, 13.4MB) video sample and this 720p@30fps (0:07s, 9MB) sample.
Moving on to our Video quality comparison, the Nokia 808 PureView videos came out with rather cool colors under the artificial light in our studio.
The texture of the material that we use for the fake sky in the background is visible, which is good (too aggressive noise reduction and compression get the better of it in most phones), but surprisingly it's not quite the best. The grass and the faux wooden pieces of the Ferris wheel look great though.
Under poor lighting, the large sensor helps the Nokia 808 PureView but there is evident loss of quality. The texture of the 'sky' is still visible in places and there's practically no noise here. However, the faux wooden pieces are smeared away and the grass doesn't look too good.
The synthetic resolution chart shows the Nokia 808 PureView measures up to the best in class, but there's no big advantage here like in still photography.
And here's how the 808 PureView compares to the Canon 5D Mk II DSLR and the Sony DSC-H5X point-and-shoot, both of which are highly rated for their video recording capabilities (in their respective classes, of course).
The Nokia 808 PureView is easily one of the best phones for recording video in terms of quality. It didn't blow the competition out of the water, though. Still, it has more to offer aspiring film makers - the fine control over resolution, framerate, focus and image setting is unmatched by any other phone.
The killer feature of the Nokia 808 PureView is the lossless digital zoom - up to almost 4x if you shoot at 1080p. We should clarify "lossless" - you don't lose quality when zooming in (as with other digital zoom methods), but you gradually lose the advantage that oversampling gives you.
So, at maximum zoom you don't get the tack sharp, detail rich imagery you usually get, but the results are still pretty good and vastly superior to any digital zoom. And keep in mind that 3x-4x zoom is typical for point-and-shoots, so the 808 PureView has them matched here. Drop down to 720p and you get 6x, which gets you into a higher price category of point-and-shoots, while maintaining the excellent quality. And you really gotta acknowledge the fact that at fully extended optical zoom these digicams see a sharpness penalty too. Not to mention their aperture becomes noticeably smaller thus letting less light in.
We shot the resolution chart at no zoom and at full zoom, here's a crop that shows the difference in performance:

Final words
The Nokia 808 PureView is getting a lot of attention - if nothing else, the Finns have sparked people's curiosity to unprecedented levels. This review is just the latest in a series of articles we've posted to try and cover every aspect of the most impressive cameraphone we've ever seen.
The camera is of course the single most prominent feature of the 808 - both in terms of physical appearance and level of interest. It beats every other phone camera at still photography and the flexibility offered by the camcorder is unmatched. And don't forget the zoom - the loss-less digital zoom alone is enough of a reason to make this cameraphone a great buy.
In good light you can stand next to someone with a DSLR and keep your chin up. And with its xenon flash, the PureView comes out smiling even in most low-light scenarios.
The Symbian experience is light years ahead of what it was on the 5800 XpressMusic. The OS has caught with to the competition with numerous UI and usability updates, and it's lightweight enough so even the 1.3GHz single-core processor of old architecture delivers a fast, fluid experience.
There are a couple of things to consider though. Symbian is good now, but users have already moved on and the developers followed (not that devs ever got too enthusiastic about the touch-enabled Symbian). Apps are the single most important feature of a smartphone ecosystem today and Symbian is lagging behind in that department with no chances to catch up.
The other issue is physical dimensions - the 808 PureView is very thick and quite heavy, probably more than what many people are willing to accept.
Still, back in the day, the Nokia N8 sold 4 million units in under a year, so it's not impossible for the 808 PureView to become one of the company's bestsellers, even with all those Lumias around.
The Nokia 808 PureView is a unique device, one that has virtually no alternative. What we can do instead is list the phones people will probably end up buying after admiring the 808's camera, but deciding against it for reasons like comfort and practicality.
Millions of people already own an Apple iPhone 4S or a Samsung Galaxy S III and their cameras are good enough for the casual consumer. Plus, those people will be unlikely to leave their comfy app ecosystems, where they've probably already spent a good amount of money.
The Sony Xperia S tries to bring back the old glory of the 12MP shooters. Though the jump from 8MP to 12MP seems tiny after seeing the PureView 38MP photos, it's still 50% more pixels. The Xperia ion is also an option with the same camera, but bigger screen.
If you're in a part of the world where it's available, you might want to look at the HTC Titan II. It has double the megapixels with a 16MP camera, but Windows Phone 7.5 is in the same boat as Nokia Belle. Not to mention that the image quality isn't as good as the high resolution might make you believe.
As a phone, the Nokia 808 PureView could be the swan song of a platform worth many glorious chapters in smartphone history. There may be still a few more Symbians to come, but who will remember them over this unique gadget?
As a sign of things to come, the 808 PureView signals something brighter. PureView, combined with the purchase of Scalado's impressive camera technologies, point to a Nokia that will continue to dominate the phone photography field.
Couple that with Nokia's knack for sturdy, well-designed hardware and the exciting Windows Phone 8, and the company suddenly looks a lot more likely to claw its way out of the slump.
The Nokia 808 PureView will have a prominent place in the Nokia Hall of Fame. We're likely to see a ton of short films and music videos shot with the 808 (like we did with the N8), which will keep the phone in the public eye.
So hats off to the Finns - there are no two ways about it. With the Microsoft deal a gamble that's yet to pay off, with plenty of people unable to get over the way MeeGo was treated, with a market obsessed with software and apps, you'd think they'd have other things on their mind than developing what's probably the most revolutionary technology this industry has seen for quite some time. Madness? This is Nokia.
for more detailsNOKIA 808 PUREVIEW NOKIA ORIGINAL SITE
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