Damn looks like my N8 might not be my final Nokia device after all.

Camera hands-on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfglEvyLyRk

Looking forward to the rest of the specs.

I'm very definitely intrigued by this - will wait to see genuine untouched images.

Interesting that it can't actually take 41mp stills - its a 41mp sensor, but can take 38mp at 4:3 and 31mp at 16:9. Some clever stuff at play there.

Xenon Flash thats twice as strong as that in the N8 (does that mean its got twice the range?) means that night time stills are possibly going to be more impressive than the N8 - which is already quite good.

Belle works really well on the N8, despite its relatively meagre hardware. Double the CPU speed and RAM, it'll be a very, very slick experience.

My next phone? Possibly.

Definitely impressed by this. It'll allow people to get digitally zoomed photos (as opposed to optical zoom) that aren't horribly pixelated.

I've now got a few allegedly untouched images.

Ouch. They're good - detail of a level totally unexpected from a mobile.

Saw one earlier on a website (if you clicked through you got a larger version. When you zoomed, it was still crystal clear. No pixelisation at all! On my old N82 it was obvious after only 1 zoom!

Any public links to sample photos available and 1080p video available?

Just read up on the spec, it's basically an N8 on steroids with 1.3Ghz CPU and 512mb of RAM, as already said Belle runs great on the N8 already so should be slick on this.

The sensor is circular, and has 41mp worth of pixels. Which is great if you photos that are circular. When you choose 4:3, or 16:9, the arc of pixels at the top and bottom, and sides, are not used. Hence the smaller resolution for those.

Why the hell does a phone need a camera with that high a resolution...
Just, no

surely this is a high res digital camera with a phone rather than vice-versa.

you could argue why a camera of any sorts needs that resolution but thats a different argument.

I guess its all about digital zooming ......

The rationale I've seen from Nokia is that the one thing you can't do well in a phone is to have an optical (hardware zoom) without making the phone fat and bulky. At present digital zooming just results in awful pixellated photos, so they have been trying to solve this issue (according to them it's been in R&D for 5 years!)

By having a very large number of pixels in your image, it allows you to zoom into a smaller section of that image and still retain enough quality for the zoomed image to be used.

Maybe read the reasons in the dozens of articles produced

The whitepaper also makes for interesting reading: http://europe.nokia.com/PRODUCT_META...Whitepaper.pdf

Also it seems WP currently can't handle the hardware hence running on Belle.

This, and the hypersampling that allows for really great pictures at 5MP and 8MP by using multiple photosites to create a single pixel - the 5MP images seem to be really noise-free.

Fad.. no way a tiny sensor can reproduce a that, no way a tiny lens even being CZ can try to resolve that and no way can it be processing that size of file raw at any speed. Using the large number of pixels to reduce noise but output the detail of a 41Mp picture it can't.

It will however have better quality than the average 8mp camera phone which people will think is because it's 41mp and believe the hype, helped greatly by the true xeon flash.

it's also ugly & it's symbian... only a fool would buy it.

Also it doesn't matter how high your resolution is optical zoom always beats digital zoom,especially when your using crappy minuscule lenses like this.

-A photographer

Did you even read any article properly or just saw the headline and had a knee-jerk reaction?

1) The sensor and lens are actually significantly larger than your average smartphone sensor.

2) The camera's main purpose is to take 5MP or 8MP photos but "hypersampling" all 41MP of the sensor to reduce noise to basically nil. Nokia lets the phone take stills of upto 38MP but acknowledges those will be noisy and are just for messing around with.

3) Nokia acknolwedge optical zoom is awesome but there's physically no way to fit it into a a device with phone size dimensions. On traditional sensors digital zoom is useless due to the small MP of the sensors. On this you get a useful digital zoom because it isn't using fewer pixels to do it, just changing the ones used so you get lossless digital zoom. A 1080p30 video can have 4x lossless digital zoom and this is silent too as no moving parts unlike in optical zoom.

4) Go look at the actual untouched pictures put out. They look amazing, the actual detail you can see is awesome and the videos look great too including low-light performance.

Here is a look at it by the BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17178014

Yes i read the PR statements out there.. it doesn't matter it's still a tiny tiny lens that would have difficulty truly resolving anything more than 12mp. It's being used for noise reduction and a slight increase in dynamic range.

It's still a cheap sensor, thats very small, using very little power, with very little processing power to process it. It will be an improvement but it's being used to hood wink the general public that more MP is better which is totally false and when any other competitors come out with say a genuine 16mp camera that is better, with better optics folk will dismiss it as rubbish. It's a PR stunt and a very good one at that.

The three very sunny 7728 × 4354 pics i've seen are slightly detailed more detailed than the iPhone 4S using the same conditions.. these are the best conditions for any camera which i do not care about. The macro shot has more Bohek than iPhone.. suggesting a larger sensor (which we know it has) but it's hardly noise free. Don't let the vibrant images make you think it's an amazing camera.

I'll wait till i see the low light pictures in full res thanks. i want Nokia to succeed but unless they launch a Android or Win version. It's dead in the water for this country.

Here's an image:
http://press.nokia.com/products/medi...-808-pureview/

Here's a 1080p30 video taken in low light:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nqOIiGU5xM&

There are still plenty of Symbian die-hards out there, especially in places like India and places which aren't as internet-centric as we are here. There's plenty symbian can do that windows phone can't. The main thing though is that OEMs can't take full control of the camera and the interface until WP8 where OEMs can make "lens apps" - I bet that request was driven by Nokia.

Expect PureView technology to come to windows phone eventually.

The sunset image will still be on a low iso as the sun is quite bright even though it is low. So not really a low light image as such...

I'll agree that the video looks good.

That alone makes it a better phone to have than one using any other OS.

looks awesome. i've been waiting for nokia to release another phone with a decent camera

it's clear that you formed that opinion without reading any of the information.

read the white paper.
http://europe.nokia.com/PRODUCT_META...Whitepaper.pdf

it's clear it's been well thought out. comparing it to conventional photography is not straight forward. the problem is different as is the solution.

you are not really comparing it with DSLR, though for example the 1/1.2" sensor is impressive. it's obviously compared to compact cameras, and is a solution for the form-factor of a phone.

Jesus. Two words.

Sym & bian.

Never ever ever again. Why not release the bloody thing with WP7. At leaset that OS has a future.

they are using symbian as a test bed. it will come to WP

have you used symbian Belle.?

Because WP7 isn't capable of using this yet - the software compatibility hasn't been written.

Look there are 2 important points in this:

1. Phone cameras have traditionally been a bit rubbish because they can't zoom digitally very well. Even the better Nokia cameras haven't handled this well, and that's why Nokia have spent the last 5 YEARS in R&D with this project, trying to find a solution. That's also the reason why it's Symbian based because that was the OS they had 5 years ago when they started working on it.

2. If this works as advertised, then it will drastically raise the bar for cameras in other phones, which is great news for every one of us, regardless of our phone platform preference.