Gizmodo: Nokia 808 PureView “That camera is damn good – made compact cameras and maybe even bridge cameras obsolete”
Guess who else loves the PureView? Gizmodo! They’re not at all keen on the fact that it’s Symbian, but they do love the PureView camera.
- That camera is damn good -
- a camera with a phone attached
- Nokia’s camera app is pretty solid, with more options than you can shake a stick at.
- you can zoom right in for details you can’t even see with the naked eye.
- Zooming in reveals text on faraway buildings; the stalks of dandelions or even the woven detail of fabrics – it can be almost microscopic at times.
- Nokia’s lossless digital zoom, which works as advertised
- which is so much more intuitive (single finger zoom)
- The camera really is as impressive as Nokia’s claimed
- produces incredibly crisp and true-to-life 5MP shots, with digital zoom that rivals optical zooms
- full sensor size, you get incredibly-detailed images that are surprisingly crisp and rich all the way down to actual pixel size.
- Nokia’s really set the next benchmark for camera phone imaging
- made compact cameras and maybe even bridge cameras obsolete.
They note some trouble getting focus in Macro
Obviously, before anyone tries to suggest it, no these guys aren’t paid for such opinions. Clearly, they (SlashGear, Engadget and now Gizmodo) know a good thing when they see one and they’ve been praising Nokia for a while now.
Source: gizmodo
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these trolls really wrote this ? 808: amazing everyday.
ha ha +100
Good stuff, hmm given the Camera/Video U.I ,Gallery, doesn’t that mean that they inherently like some aspects of Symbian Belle?
More importantly, I wonder if this means the Pureview 808 is just around the corner? which would prevent me from buying a 701 to tie me over (despite having an N8)
gunmetalskyline wrote: “Good stuff, hmm given the Camera/Video U.I ,Gallery, doesn’t that mean that they inherently like some aspects of Symbian Belle?”
Answer: No. The Pureview tech is the star of this device, not Belle; and given the ‘previews’ of this device, they seem to be, and probably will only, recommend this device for the group of people who really, really, really want the camera tech.
Symbian Belle, FP1, or whatever, will not be praised.
which is sad, because it’s great OS.
Agree.
Gizmondo really got it!
The 808 is a great camera. Oh, and you can use that 3/4″ slim camera as a phone if you don’t happen to have a conventional mobile phone around. It’s 38 Mpix camera makes incredibly sharp images but if you want to, you can get rid of the details and most of the resolution by using the PureView technology. But the remaining pixels sure are nice! While only a fraction of the pixels of the original, but those sure are nice pixels!
Don’t get me wrong. It’s a great camera for 38 Mpix and beats the very low end compact cameras with a small zoom next to obsolete. Too bad that compact cameras nowdays tend to have 5x or even 10x zooms. While using the 808′s 3x zoom the PureView is disabled so the difference in image quality is not that great when compared to compacts.
The zoom on most compacts is basically rubbish, with horrendously compromised optics. In general, you get what you pay for. Unless you spend hundreds on a decent zoom, they really aren’t that good.
I compared my N8s shots to those from my sisters Nikon compact, and the Nikon was dire. Sure, it had zoom but at what cost? Massively reduced aperture, lousy low light performance. What was surprising was the obvious JPEG artifacts on the Nikon. It was surprisingly bad, but it was available in a variety of colours which seems to help peoples buying choice.
The 808 appears to have a massive advantage in image quality over everything bar bridge cameras, and even there I can’t see them having much (if any) advantage.
Sure, if you get a 50$ compact you get a lousy zoom. However if you spend half of the price of the 808 for a compact, you get actually some pretty decent 10x – 15x zoom the 808 has a hard time matching. If you get a compact for a similar price, the 808 just can’t match the zoom capabilities of the compacts.
And yeah, the 808 loses the PureView effect when zooming into the max.
With the 38 Mpix there is no zoom nor PureView effect. It’s always a compromise.
you do know there will be MANY third party apps that will unlock the zoom to unimaginable lengths.
And why zoom when you can take a picture of the whole view. If needed you can always crop out whatever you don’t want.
Buy a £250 compact and the optics are still not that good.
I bought a $500 28-300 for my DSLR. It has better optical quality than probably every single compact on the market, but its still not that great.
The problem is the move towards these “mega” zooms – 3 or 5x optical is acceptable in a small body, but these 10x-15x are close on useless at the long end, and optical quality *is* compromised throughout the range as a result.
I’d be surprised if any compact could rival the quality of the 808s images – the N8 already equals/betters most dedicated compacts, the 808 moves the game along by a massive amount.
Definitely a game changer.
Yeah, that compact camera just gets more details when zoomed to the max. With the 808 you get the 5 Mpix image with a 3x zoom and while using that, there is no supersampling of pixels and the PureView effect is gone.
It’s a sad fact that 808′s cropping zoom just can’t match a real optical one.
It’s not meant to be – neither are low-light P&S cameras (S100 etc.) meant to compete with compact superzooms at the long end of the latters’ zoom.
However, when zoomed out, the delivers much-much better detailed image than ANY superzoom. Just like with the above-mentioned low-light P&S cameras – their low-light performance is orders of magnitude better (because of their largeish sensor and bright (f/1.8…2) lens than ANY superzoom.
Again, neither the 808 nor low-light P&S cameras are meant for serious zooming. If you want a travel superzoom, shop for one.
So you are trying to say that 808 using the full zoom with a tiny area of the sensor active for the actual picture, produces better quality compared to some compact using a bigger active sensor and a real optical zoom?
There is no way for that tiny part of the 808′s sensor to produce great zoomed images when the PureView effect can’t be used. At that point it’s just a cropped 38 Mpix image.
Yeah, I’m talking about zooming.
Compacts doesn’t have bigger sensor. Optics is also rubbish.
This is about zooming.
You’re correct. Compacts won’t have big sensors. However the active part of the sensor is bigger in a compact compared to the 808 when the 808 uses it’s full zoom.
You see, when using the 3x zoom with 5 Mpix the 808 can use roughly 15% of the surface of it’s sensor. When that happens, 808 won’t get any benefit from supersampling pixels since there isn’t any pixels left for the PureView effect.
At the same time compact with a real optical zoom is still using it’s full sensor. Sure, it get’s less light but there isn’t any cropping and full sensor can be used.
The 808 is not meant for zooming. Neither are other enthusiast small, fixed-lens, high-end P&S cameras (Canon S100, Lumix LX5, Fuji X10).
If you need zoom, get either a (compact) superzoom (useless indoors) or a large(r)-sensor DSLR (or mirrorless) with an accordingly HUGE lens. I, personally, prefer and use 26-28 mm equiv. FoV for most of my shots.
As mentioned already, the aperture gets rather small when you zoom a bit. Not really a problem outside but sucks inside.
Also, there is a reason why the best DSLR lenses have very modest zooming. The image quality suffers a lot with 5x, 10x, 15x or whatever. The most common seems to be around 3x (24-70 mm, 70-200 mm…). And I don’t know any zoom lenses with the f/2.4 aperture.
There are even brighter ones – but they are very rare and only for non-APS-C (let alone fullframe!) sensors. For example, for the 4/3 sensor, there’s the Olympus Zuiko 14-35mm f/2 ($2299.95) and the Olympus Zuiko 35-100mm f/2 ($2199.95)
“However if you spend half of the price of the 808 for a compact, you get actually some pretty decent 10x – 15x zoom the 808 has a hard time matching.”
Zoom-wise (but, when zoomed out, NOT quality- and detail-wise!), probably no match for a 20+x pocket superzoom like the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS20, the Canon PowerShot SX260 HS or the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX20V. However, these (in their category) high-end cameras cost almost as much as the 808 and barely only the half of its price…
Symbian Belle is a joke, this phone will surely be a big flop with low sales and many android phones will get such camera capability within a year, just have a look at the way HTC is improving its camera every year.
hahaha, that’s why they’re still struggling to catch N8 from 2010. Keep dreaming.
HTC’s cameras are always improving every year because it’s very easy to improve incrementally when your camera began life as a potato.
Admittedly now they’re very good, but still no where near even the 2010 Nokia N8.
rofl @ potato!
Not even sure I’d say they’re very good at the moment – more like slightly above average. Quite a leap from the previous spud like products.
Sales will be low because Nokia in all its wisdom has not pursued Carrier Stock.. Thus far, it is only available outright, sim free.
That doesnt make it a big Flop though.. The purview technology is ground breaking. The 808 is still a very good phone and there is nothing wrong with Belle FP2.
Symbian Belle is most certainly not a joke. It’s a full featured OS with support for a wide variety of hardware. The reason why you might think that way is that Symbian was designed by technology enthusiasts and it’s targeted for the advanced users. While you could say that the user experience just might be somehow wobbling in certain parts of the UI, it’s main design principle is to provide you all the flexibility even with the cost of confusing the average user. It is the second best thing for what it was designed for.
Great that these typically Nokia haters are praising the 808′s camera, but it has a lot more to offer. How about some tests and love for the Rich Audio Recording?
I too want to hear about the rich audio recording. Will it make filming events really enjoyable?
Yes. It’s Rich Stereo Recording. You can close your eyes and hear the sounds as if you were there again.
Great, I can record our toddler having a tantrum. The upper limit was 140 db, right? That should just about do it. Now I will never lose those precious moments again
I got to spent a very short time with the 808 at a nokia store, and yes, in automatic mode, taking pictures of close up objects doesn’t work that well ( focusing issue ). But if you turn it into macro mode, it does very well. Thats also what gizmodo are talking about.
I was supposed to get my pureview 3 days ago
Now its delayed till the 28th…
Please do post a video resolution test video with the ISO 12233 resolution chart! (See the beginning of http://www.iphonelife.com/blog/87/did-you-know-effective-resolution-iphone-4-video-better-tipas-best-2011-generic-ps-camera for links.)
my 701 running belle fp1 doesn’t lag, swiping through homescreens is the easiest thing my phone does, it’s very snappy…. So I think, they’re just trolling by saying it lags & it’s a dumbphone… I have an LG Optimus Black, which is one of the best mid-range droids, this phone lags, freezes & transitions are not even smooth, it skips frames & so on & i haven’t recieved any minor or major update in months, it’s almost a year, my droid is almost a dumbphone as we speak, i just use it as a media player… I can’t really speak for an 808, but from MWC videos it seemed pretty snappy, i’ll wait for a proper review from Phonearena or maybe Engadget. These Gizmodo guys are either trolls or they haven’t really used a Symbian phone.
+1
the 701 speed is very impressive.
everything is ok in the article but saying symbian is “dumbphone” is biased
Yeah, I’m also wondering what iOS and Android can do out of box that Symbian Belle can’t do.
It’s not about what it can do. If the device is clumsy and harder to use, it won’t matter if it’s able to match the features.
Too bad. Symbian could have been more.
ios is 10 better and so smooth than belle, bit wp7.5 more than twice better than belle so thats ehy nokia left symbian and chose wp7, and android is not any near the ios or wp7 but its better than symbian
10 times better
wtf, have you measured your temperature today? How do you feel? I’m a little bit worried about you.
Based on some asshole’s definition of what a Smartphone is, Symbian gets stuffed into a “smarterphone” or a smart feature phone category….
Only concrete difference I experience is that Carriers bend you over the table for Smartphone data plans, where as an unbranded Symbian phone can fly under the radar and rock $15 unlimited data at the same speeds. I
Indeed. You can do a lot with a Symbian phone without a data plan. Maps work, you can transfer pretty much any audio or video you like and store it indefinitely, FM radio works, file sharing can be done without using a ‘cloud’ service… So carriers hate it, because a Symbain user has little need for an expensive contract with data.
It’s too smart for their tastes.
As for comments above about other OSs being easier to use, I find configuring options a lot easier and faster on my N8 than I do on my iPad. Although pre-Belle I may not have been able to say that.
frakin trolls. how can they call it a dumbphone for running symbian? this fuckers need a lesson in smartphone history. is the site american? cause that would explain it
Yes they are American. And I agree that part is unnecessary, but considering how Gizmodo dissed the N8… This article is great praise for the 808!
Symbian is a smartphone because you have to be smart to use it. It’s just too hard to use for less than average people. There is actually nothing smart in making things in the hard way. That’s why they Symbian is disliked.
What does smartphone history has to do with this?
Probably Nokia should do some revamp on the Nokia Social too… If it can deliver something like the event view on N9 even as a separate app, it would be nice.
We know that fMobi or facinate is doing a nice job, but most phone users are not going to see them when they try or consider buying a Belle phone. Honestly, the Nokia Social in Belle is really a deal breaker.
It should not involved too much work to rebuild it in QML, comparing to an OS update, but it worths when it helps change the faith of an smartphone OS.
And this is exactly how I expect to use my 808 when I get it, to replace my aging point and shoot. Incidentally that is how I often used the N8, but it didn’t quite render the P&S obsolete, only sometimes.
For a main phone I expect to use a Lumia. Nokia sales should market the 808 to camera stores!
And kudos to the oft-abrasive Gizmodo on getting this one right and TRUE!
You got it!
That’s the best usage for the 808. It’s a great compact camera for taking pictures without zoom or with a mild zooming or cropping. For weddings and other occasions where you can’t get to the front row, it’s better to get a decent compact because they offer so much better zoom.
I think many people will get the 808 and in addition to that, some nice and small phone without the Symbian OS. Maybe some reasonably small Android device with a better display.
Indeed. And with the P&S covered with 808, perhaps the “real” camera could be a small zoom camera or a small mirrorless DSLR (or even a full DSLR)… for those occasions that you need the oomph. 808 might do for those times that you really need to have a very small camera with you. N8 was almost there, but not quite. We shall see if the 808 can do it.
“For weddings and other occasions where you can’t get to the front row, it’s better to get a decent compact because they offer so much better zoom.”
But not under low-light (typically a wedding ceremony). Then your (compact) superzooms start to suck very hard.
In a low light situation with a long distance, the 808 can’t use the PureView effect for supersampling pixels. That adds noise and and the small actually used sensor size starts to drag the quality down.
Just crop a low light 38 Mpix image and you’ll see what happens. The 808 suddenly becomes a regular camera with no PureView effect and a small active sensor size.
Did I question that? I surely won’t use the zoom at all on my 808. The thing produces well-defined images at 28 mm – this is why I’m purchasing it.
BTW, you can’t use a superzoom indoors either when zoomed in – you can only use bigger “guns” on real DSLR’s. Show me a superzoom with a, when zoomed in, bright lens + adequate high ISO combo. You won’t show me any. Not even the best of them, the very expensive and heavy Fuji X-S1 have a bright lens (it ends at f/5.6).
The point is that the 808′s zoom is mostly marketing hype.
Actually reasonably cheap compact with a 3x zoom may outperform the 808 with the 10-12 Mpix those compacts are offering. That’s because in that situation the 808 can use only 15% of the surface of it’s sensor. Because while in zooming the PureView effect is disabled, the 808 may perform not so well.
So the 808 takes great pictures but it’s just no match for a real optical zoom if someone needs that.
“Actually reasonably cheap compact with a 3x zoom may outperform the 808 with the 10-12 Mpix those compacts are offering.”
Outdoors with plenty of light maybe, but indoors, without proper light? Probably the best compacts only with the brightest (fastest) lens even when zoomed in. There are very few of them; an example is the Olympus XZ-1.
You seem to be sure that the 808 can take images with sharp pixels without using the PureView pixel supersampling while working in low light conditions?
Remember, while zooming the 808′s sensor is really small. Those compacts just have so much larger sensors in that situation.
Again, I haven’t said anything like that. I was just referring to that you simply can’t get a satisfying picture with any small-sensor point-and-shoot costing, according to you, “half the price of the 808″. A decent, low-light P&S starts at $350-400 (if you’re lucky enough). THOSE may already deliver usable, comparable low-light IQ when zoomed in. The rest, including every single current (compacts) superzooms? All useless in low light.
Actually I said that if you spend half of the price of the 808 for a compact, you get actually some pretty decent 10x – 15x zoom the 808 has a hard time matching. If you get a compact for a similar price, the 808 just can’t match the zoom capabilities of the compacts.
I really can get some zoomed images with that half price compact that the 808 has hard time matching. I never said the compact will win in every situation.
However, using the same money for a compact gives you better zooming capabilities.
Remember, I didn’t tell you that compact’s outperform the 808. I’m just saying that 808 canät make compacts obsolete since there are lots of situations where the 808 just can’t match.
(This is an answer to Lord US’ last comment.)
“I’m just saying that 808 canät make compacts obsolete since there are lots of situations where the 808 just can’t match.”
Agreed. There is simply one-camera-fits-them-all: something will always suck unless one that wants to make tele shots under even bad light drags along tons of HUUGE lens and bodies weighing in tens of kg’s.
Nokia’s claim (“making compact / bridge cameras obsolete”) is indeed a bit too far-fetching when comparing to e.g. pocket superzooms in good light. Nevertheless, they do produce some astounding results if (and only if) you don’t zoom in, much better than any P&S camera today (at the same focal length).
At the beginning of the year, there was a when I wished my Compact camera could send Emails ans MMS. Here I was, holding my camera in my left and my then-phone in my right hand, wishing someone would somehow transport some smartphone features onto a camera.
When I saw the Nokia 808 announcement shortly after, I felt: “Yes, that us EXACTLY what I wanted.” It immediately jumped to number one in my phone evaluation list (I was becoming increasingly annoyed with my then-phone).
Unfortunately my old phone dies three weeks ago, and I had to go vor plan B (a Lumia 800). Am happy with my new phone, but still can’t get PureView out of my mind. The Nokia 808 is, I feel,an unique device that seems to fulfil my original wish, furthermore, I had symbian devices before and found it easy to usu.
Now, is it crazy to want a second smartphone?!
No. Most of us here do it.
Not crazy at all.. I bring my N8, N9 & Galaxy Tab everywhere I go.. Waiting for the 808 like crazy over here.. *:(
Madratz, Janne,
… my click-finger is certainly itching. I mean the finger that’ll click the “buy” button. I’m also very interested in the rich sound recording featuer. Nokia 808 could be an awesome tool to record concerts. And nobody would care since it’s “only” a phone, right?
Get a tablet as your second device you take everywhere (I recommend the iPad 3). Smartphones (even the best ones) are so much worse – I wouldn’t use them for Web browsing when I can also have the iPad 3 around.
You’re funny
I would then end up with three gadgets, and that would be simply too much. Even though the idea is tempting.
But first things first, and in this case, that would be Nokia 808 before any tablet, especially since my current phone (a Lumia) is good enough for internet browsing. My train trips are rather short, it’s simply not worth unpacking an iPad for just checking a few sites and emails.
I might get a tablet if I sense my laptop is dying, I could then use it as a pure tablet or as a laptop-replacement with a keyboard attached. On the other hand, I still burn CDs very often, using them in places where the only music player available is a CD player.
Decisions, desicions.
.. a smaller iPad, small enough to fit into my handbag (not the case with the current iPad size) … hmmmm.
Tempting. Might be my first apple product ever 
A nice sentence they had: “it’s certainly doesn’t feel cheap or tacky, like other low-end Nokias do.”. Other low-end Nokias? They think this is low-end? At 600 euros?!
In my limited time playing with the Symbian Belle platform it seemed OK; not on par with Android, iOS or Windows Phone, but decent enough for a “dumbphone.” There was a bit of sluggishness when swiping across screens, but it performed snappily enough actually within apps.
This guy is a DUMBASS!