Just how good is Nokia's PureView 41Mp camera tech?

Our pro photographer holidays in Stromboli to find out

Smooth operator

The Nokia 808 does not feature an optical or conventional digital zoom but it does compensate with the introduction of what Nokia calls a "lossless" digital zoom, which is basically a system of cropping the image to the desired area. But since there is no upscaling or interpolation of the image involved, the quality of the zoomed image remains pretty much the same as the native shot.

Pixel binning v. zooming function

The 808 lets you zoom – 3x for stills and 4x for full HD 1080p movies – either through physical controls or directly on the screen by sliding your finger until you have selected the area you wish to zoom into. Once you release the finger from the screen the camera will automatically perform the zooming action.

This SlideZoom function works particularly well for videos, where it results in much smoother action than manual zoom. The other added benefit of the lossless zoom for video is that, being totally silent, it avoids recording the mechanical optic movements onto the soundtrack. Video quality is also very good with a particularly clear and warm audio.

The Nokia 808 PureView lets you easily share images on social networking sites such as Facebook or Flickr by simply clicking on the relevant social media icon provided at the bottom of each image in the gallery.

But first things first. In order to use essential features, such as e-mail and social networks, you need an internet connection and that’s when I hit my first wall. I soon realized that getting the 808 on-line was not going to be the painless thing it normally is with any other phone.