Nokia 808 PureView announced itself with a bang at this year's Mobile
World Congress at Barcelona. The phone's 41-megapixel drew attention
from industry watchers as well as casual observers.
Nokia did its
bit in building the excitement - from teaser images, to sample videos
clicked with the 808, and the multi-legged roadshow that previewed the
phone all over. The phone generated plenty of buzz, with PureView
technology drawing lots of early praise.
With everything in
place, Nokia fans and impartial observers alike were looking forward to
the release of the phone, hoping against hope that the Nokia 808 would
signal awakening of the sleeping Finnish giant.
Does the Nokia 808 force you to wake up and take notice, or would you be tempted to hit the snooze button? Let's find out.
Hardware/ Design
There's
nothing spectacular about the front of the Nokia 808. The display takes
the bulk of the space on the front, with the earpiece grill and the
front-camera just above the Nokia branding on the top.
Just below
the screen are three buttons, with no physical separation, such that
they appear as one long button instead. The left-most button is (Green)
Call/ Answer, the middle-button is Menu, while the right-most is the
(Red) Power/ End Call button.
The back of the Nokia 808 PureView
has the 41-megapixel sensor with Carl Zeiss optics, a Xenon flash and
the loudspeaker, in a casing that rises well above the back.
The
left side of the Nokia 808 is completely bare, while the right side
features the volume rocker, the slider that can be used to lock/ unlock
the phone and the dedicated camera key. The curved corners lead to the
mini-HDMI, Micro-USB, mic and 3.5mm jack on the top, and the second
microphone plus a lanyard/ wrist strap hole at the bottom.
The
curves on the 808 are much needed, as they make the task of holding what
is a rather bulky phone, a little bit easier. But the curves can only
do so much, and the Nokia 808 feels like a relic from another era. Throw
in an external antenna, and the 808 will be right at home in the 1990s.
The
weight of the phone does nothing to change that impression. The phone
looks and feels heavy, and wherever we went, the weight (169 grams) was
almost always the first thing people talked about.
The phone
measures 17.95mm thick at the camera - that's the closest a phone has
coming to touch the 2-centimetre mark in recent times. We're not sure
that's the crown Nokia should be gunning for. That's the price you pay
for carrying 41 megapixels in your pocket. But even at its thinnest, the
Nokia 808 is 13.95mm.
Contrast
this with the Samsung Galaxy S III, which is just 8.6mm at its
slimmest. The HTC One X and the iPhone 4S, at 8.9mm and 9.3mm are not
too far away either.
The build quality is solid, with high-quality, matte-finish plastic used throughout.
The
Nokia 808 PureView is powered by a 1.3GHz, single-core ARM11 processor.
It comes with 512MB RAM and 16GB internal storage. Is that enough in
today's world of multi-core processors? Read the performance section.
The removable battery (1400 mAh Nokia BV-4D) hides the microSD and Micro-SIM slots.
Display
The
Nokia 808 features a 4-inch display with 640x360 resolution. For a
phone that aims to compete at the premium end of the segment, that
simply isn't good enough.
While the display size is adequate, it
is crying out for more pixels - wish we could borrow some from the
camera and give them to the display! If you set the disappointing
resolution aside, the display is more than adequate.
The colour reproduction is accurate and the screen is bright, even outdoors.
Camera
Unless
you've been living under a rock, you know that the main attraction of
the Nokia 808 is the 41-megapixel camera combined with the PureView
technology, that Nokia claims offers stunning results. So does it
deliver? In short, yes!
The Nokia 808 PureView camera operates in
two different modes. The first one is the full-resolution mode, where
you can click 38-megapixel (4:3) or 34-megapixel (16:9) photographs.
Don't go looking for a 41-megapixel mode, because it does not exist.
This WikiPedia image explains why the 41-megpaixel sensor is limited to 38 and 34-megapixel shooting modes.
The
Nokia 808 can also click photographs in 2-megapixel (16:9), 3-megapixel
(4:3), 5-megapixel and 8-megapixel effective resolutions. This is where
the PureView technology earns its money.
The PureView technique
involves taking a full image and oversampling it to the effective
resolution you've selected. In 16:9 mode, the full image corresponds to
7728x4354 pixels, while 4:3 aspect ration means a 7152x5368 resolution.
Oversampling
an image means combining adjacent pixels into one. The more pixels you
combine, the more accurately the resultant pixel represents real-world
information. With PureView, Nokia seems to have perfected this
technology. The resultant images are crisp, with more details and lesser
noise.
The optical zoom on Nokia 808 PureView works better than
other mobiles or even point-and-shoots. The large sensor means the 808
implements optical zoom by simply cropping the relevant bit, which means
there is no upscaling involved, which, in turn, results in better
pictures.
Clicking photographs in full-resolution mode is unlike
anything you may be used to. There's no zoom at all. If you want to
click a distant object, point the camera in the general direction and
click away. The 41-megapixel sensor means details or objects not visible
to the naked eye will show up in the photograph just fine. Use crop to
achieve the same result you would've got with a zoom lens.
Where's the Lotus Temple? A zoom and crop later, there it is.
But
the results aren't always what you may expect. While the camera
supports tap to focus, focusing on objects in the distance - ones that
you can't even see on the screen - doesn't always work. A large sensor
cannot be a replacement of a zoom lens with manual focus, and the
results are proof. But that's just nit picking - no one's looking at the
808 to be a DSLR replacement. Not yet, anyways!
Clicked at full-resolution, the image on the right is an Actual Size zoomed and cropped version of the one of the left.
The software is excellent, offering enough pre and post processing adjustments/ options to keep you satisfied.
The
camera supports full-HD video recording as well as 720p at up to 30fps.
The videos, much like the images, are sharp with excellent
audio-quality thanks purportedly to Nokia's Rich Recording technology.
Nokia claims distortion-free audio at up to 145dB, but we weren't even
tempted to put that claim to test.
Overall, the Nokia 808 beats
the pants out of any other camera phone and could easily replace your
entry-level point-and-shoot cameras as well, for both still as well as
video imaging.
Software/ UI
The 808 runs on
Nokia Belle (Symbian OS 10.1) One thing you can say about the Symbian's
overall look and fell is that other than adding a few new icons and a
dash of colour, it hasn't changed much over the years.
While
Belle brings new features like a notification bar and free-resizable
home widgets, Symbian is not an Operating System designed for
touch-devices, and incremental upgrades are not going to change that. We
almost forgot - with Nokia Belle, you get six home-screens instead of
three. Big whoop.
The browsing experience is average, but
inferior to other phones in the similar price-bracket. In terms of
apps, the Nokia 808 comes bundled with almost everything you would need -
from Twitter to Facebook (both are really just wrappers to Nokia's own
Social app), YouTube to Adobe Reader, Shazam to Quickoffice and Mobile
Office. Also bundled is a free version of JoikuSpot, which provides
mobile hotspot functionality.
You may think all bases are
covered, but while the apps are present in name, the functionality
available is pretty basic compared to iOS/ Android counterparts. The
Twitter app, for example, lacks conversation view, ability to view
images inline, and a built-in browser.
Installing new apps isn't a
great experience either. Some apps download in the background, but get
stuck in a modal "preparing installation" for a few seconds, during
which you can't do any other activity!
Our version of 808
PureView let us download 3 paid apps for free, courtesy Nokia. These
apps were Angry Birds, Camera Lover Pack and National Geographic Photo
Tips.
The highlight of the Nokia 808, camera aside, is the Drive
app. Once you move past the question "Why are Maps and Drive two
different apps?", this application promises nothing but bundles of joy.
The
built-in Drive app offers turn-by-turn navigation in what is perhaps
the most complete, easy to use package across all platforms. It offers
all the features you expect, in an intuitive interface, with some nice
touches thrown in for free.
The counter that displays (in
real-time) the amount of data the app has used will help keep those 3G
bills in check. Route Overview is pretty convenient, and the intelligent
swipe, which scrolls in the general direction where you are headed, is
the most practical implementation we've seen.
You can also
download maps onto the Nokia 808 and use them without an Internet
connection. The Maps are pretty detailed (at least for Delhi), and
include important landmarks, commercial establishments etc.
Another
interesting app is the one we encountered right at the start. Upon
first boot, the Phone switch app offered to import contacts, messages
and other data from another Nokia. We were skeptical at first, but the
within seconds, the 808 was using Bluetooth to download data from our
trusted old Nokia E61.
Contacts, Photos, Notes, Bookmarks, SMS
messages (all 626 of them) and, amazingly, 303 recent calls went from
the old phone to the new, just like that. This ensured the most painless
experience we've ever had while switching phones.
The Phone switch app works with select Nokia phones only.
Performance/ Battery Life
The
Nokia 808, unfortunately, is no mean machine. It stutters; gasping for
breath often, like an old man climbing stairs he once galloped two at a
time. The new shirt hides a body in tatters. Physically, he's worn down
by the passage of time, mentally, by his own refusal to move on.
If
you'd we rather spell it in black and white, the performance of the
Nokia 808 ranges from satisfactory at best, to poor, when compared to
the likes of HTC One X and the Samsung Galaxy S III. The apps take some
time to open, the processor can barely keep up with the CPU intensive
PureView technology, and lags aren't that uncommon.
The touch
response is average, unlikely to win awards for performance, but not the
kind you would struggle with either. As noted earlier, the browsing
experience is just about satisfactory. Another frustrating aspect of the
Nokia 808 is its refusal to join known Wi-Fi networks automatically. We
had to manually select the Wi-Fi network every time we switched
locations.
The
in-built keyboard is frustrating and even after two weeks of using the
phone as our primary device, we couldn't type with any kind of speed.
Swype, an alternative keyboard, is available in the Nokia Store as a
free download, but, if anything, it performs worse than the built-in
keyboard. Swype for Symbian seems to be a poor cousin of its Android
counterpart.
The call reception and call quality are excellent,
like most Nokia phones. Battery life is another area where the Nokia 808
does well. Even though the battery is rated at a modest1400 mAh, you
shouldn't have any trouble getting through an entire day on a single
charge. Not least because you are unlikely to find any apps that keep
you engaged enough!
Verdict
Let's come out
and state what everyone's thinking. What if the Nokia 808 was powered by
a dual-core processor, had a gig of RAM, and ran Windows 8?
Sadly,
a review is not the place to be playing the what-if game. One needs to
restrict to what's presented, and the harsh reality, the one that
wouldn't please Nokia or its (rapidly thinning) legion of fans one bit,
is that this phone is no contender for the smartphone crown.
If
you're looking for a camera that can make calls, buy the Nokia 808,
because those are the two things it does very well. However, if you're
looking for a good email/ browsing/ social/ gaming experience, move on,
because Symbian isn't the answer.
Looking beyond the 808, Nokia
has promised that the PureView technology will find its way on to other
devices, and we look forward to phones that pack in better hardware and
OS to back the great camera.
