Depending on which part of the timeline you are looking
at, Nokia has ruled the mobile phone market and it has also been the
underdog. So, there’s reason to believe that by now they know what works
and what doesn’t with different consumer categories. With their latest
flagship product, the Nokia 808 PureView, too, they seem to have a very
specific, very high-end offering for their potential customer.
Justifying the super-camera smartphone tag is a 41-megapixel sensor and
sharing the USP-status of the phones is integrated Dolby Digital
technology. Does Nokia have a winner where it intended one?
Build quality
The
handset overall feels like you are holding a solid block during usage.
But we really wish the smartphone looked more premium, say with anodised
aluminium elements like in the Nokia N8.
The HDMI
port, microUSB and the 3.5 mm headphone jack are located at the top of
the handset. The slider Lock/Unlock button doubles up as a flashlight
after a long slide-and-hold. Note that it’s not a quick-access button to
switch the Flash on or off when you operate the camera, the dedicated
key to which lies right next to the slider.
Company
officials claim the design at the back was aimed to be reminiscent of a
smiley – with the camera lens block resembling eyes and a thin
protruding plastic element at the bottom tracing the slight curve of a
smile. We don’t think the resemblance is so obvious.
Most
of the bulk on the smartphone is attributed to fitting the cube-shaped
41-megapixel sensor in. A little more than one centimetre is the most
compact the design guys could get while still managing to fit the sensor
in. It’s a little worrying to see that the most important part of the
phone – the lens – remains uncovered but it’s also slightly depressed as
compared to the rest of the back panel. This will hopefully save it
from scratches.
The Corning Gorilla glass display
lends a good share of sturdiness to the display as well. The 4-inch
display is an AMOLED one and looks brilliant despite the low screen
resolution. Nokia’s proprietary ClearBlack technology bumps up the
brightness and helps retain readability under bright sunlight.
Camera
It’d
be a real surprise if Nokia had invested five years of effort into
making a super-camera smartphone that didn’t deliver stunning results.
So, it shouldn’t probably come as a surprise when we say that the
results from the 41-meg snapper were every bit as good as we’d expected
them to be.
Landscapes as well as buildings shot
during the day were impressively sharp and there were no compromises in
colour. Nokia claims that the super-camera smartphone delivers 3x
lossless zoom for still images. We tested this with a couple of outdoor
shots and even when we zoomed in to the maximum the images were still
reasonably sharp. The Macro Mode didn’t let us get too close to the
object we were shooting but at a distance of about 6-7 cms or so we
could focus well on the object.
Even zooming in with
the camera app is distinctly different. You just slide your finger up
along the frame to zoom in to the element you want to focus on. This is
also useful during video recording where gestures like pinch to zoom or
even conventional zoom aren’t the most optimal ways to compose a frame
while you are shooting it. The 808 PureView can shoot 1080p videos at
30fps.
Dolby Details
Although
it’s not the first time that a Nokia handset features Dolby Mobile
technology, the two companies have exclusively partnered to bring in
surround sound experience to the mobile platform. On the speakerphone
itself, the sound streamed is crystal clear and loud enough to entertain
a bunch of friends sitting together. When you plug in however, not only
does Dolby work to cancel ambient noise but also imitates a surround
sound experience that you would otherwise only find in a home theatre
setup. Nokia claims that even if you do not use the headset given in the
box the inherent technology ensures that the sound quality remains the
same. Even during the voice calls that we made, we could notice each
time the noise cancellation came into play. Nokia also claims that the
808 PureView comes with the best microphone integrated into any handset
in its segment.
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