Nokia has unveiled the 808 PureView smartphone featuring a 41-megapixel camera at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The handset runs Nokia’s dated Symbian working system, an element that could in the long run lead to US vendors passing on the chance to provide the PureView within the states.

Popular photography notes that the PureView has been within the works for more than 5 years which could provide an explanation for why it’s running Symbian OS as an alternative of windows telephone. The WSJ claims that a spokesperson said the era can be coming to different gadgets but a timetable wasn’t given.

Aging operating system aside, it’s the camera that is certain to garner the most attention for the PureView. At 41MP, the pixel count is even higher than Nikon’s $3,000 D800 DSLR professional camera that captures 36.3 million pixels. But if you know anything at all about cameras or photography, a high megapixel count doesn’t always equate to better quality photos.

First and best, the output record gained’t be 41MP, however simply 5MP at default settings. whilst the picture sensor does technically rely on neatly over 30 million pixels to file knowledge, it makes use of what Nokia calls ‘pixel oversampling’ era that combines eight pixels into one with a view to produce a purifier symbol with less noise.

Nokia is also touting up to 3x “optical zoom” (4x in video) without image loss thanks to the massive megapixels. Instead of actually zooming in, however, the camera simply selects an area of the sensor to record data from rather than collecting everything taken in. The company has limited the zoom range to prevent upscaling so you can’t zoom in further than the input resolution.

Other features include a Carl Zeiss lens with a F/2.4 aperture and unlike most camera phones, it comes with a real flash.

Nokia has published a pattern photograph gallery online however as all the time, these should be served with a grain of salt. both means, don’t let the marketing-friendly 41MP trap you in too onerous; this is no replacement for even a low-end DSLR or Micro 4-Thirds camera.

Other features include a 4-inch AMOLED display running at 640 x 360 with Corning Gorilla Glass and 16GB of internal memory with support for up to 48GB using an external microSD card. Other key hardware wasn’t cited in the specifications list on Nokia’s site.