The current trend for smartphones seems to be all about cramming more and more cameras in. At Mobile World Congress this week, the crown was stolen by the Nokia 9 PureView, which has no less than six cameras – five on the back and one on the front.
Samsung first showed its four-camera hand last year with the Galaxy A7, before bringing the four-eyed look to the flagship Galaxy S10 range just last week. In fact the S10 Plus has five, the same as the LG V40 ThinQ.
But in all those cases, the cameras are laid out so there's three on the back, with one or two selfie cams. The Nokia 9 PureView crams five 12-megapixel cameras with Zeiss Optics on the back, in a kind of asterisk-shaped arrangement. Two of those eyes are RGB color sensors to capture accurate and vibrant colors, while the remaining three are monochrome and focus on sharpness and detail. Of the last two points on that star, one is the flash and the other is a depth sensor.
Once the PureView's five eyes have taken a photo, the phone fuses their views together into one 12-MP photo, which Nokia says will have very high dynamic range and depth of field. From there, users can use the Google Photos software to adjust the focus after the fact, while more experienced photographers can dive into the uncompressed DNG file with Adobe Lightroom.
The front camera is no slouch either, boasting 20 MP. The screen is a 5.99-in OLED display with a 2K resolution, and the phone can be unlocked with either the fingerprint sensor under the display or a face scan. Under the hood, the Nokia 9 PureView is powered by a 3,320 mAh battery, a Snapdragon 845 processor, 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage space.
The only port is a USB-C for charging or compatible headphones, if you haven't already made the switch to Bluetooth. If not, Nokia was nice enough to pack in an adapter. The phone can also be charged wirelessly.
Along with the Nokia 9 PureView, parent company HMD Global also unveiled a few other low to mid-range Nokia-branded phones at MWC. The Nokia 4.2 packs dual 13-MP rear cameras and a 5.7-in HD display, while the Nokia 3.2 ups the screen to 6.26 in at the expense of one of the rear cameras. The Nokia 1 Plus looks like a decent but very basic "smart" phone that you might give a tech-indifferent relative, while the Nokia 210 harks right back to the early 2000s with a simple "brick" design and physical keyboard.
HMD says the Nokia 9 PureView will sell for US$699 and is already shipping. The Nokia 4.2 will be priced at $199 for the model with 3 GB RAM and 32 GB storage, or $169 for 2GB RAM and 16 GB storage. The Nokia 3.2 goes for $139, Nokia 1 Plus for $99 and the Nokia 210 for just $35.
Source: HMD Global