Nokia 808 PureView

Can the killer camera turn Nokia from zero to hero?

Nokia 808 PureView review
So what if it's got a huge camera, at the end of the day it's a phone.

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With the Nokia 808 PureView's 41MP camera and HDMI connector, it is no surprise that it's all about the media experience.

In terms of media, the Nokia 808 PureView feels like the true successor to the Nokia N8 which was a long standing media power house, both based on its powerful 12MP camera, HDMI output, Dolby Digital 5.1 processing, a powerful built-in speaker and USB master functionality.

Nokia 808 Pureview review

This all continues with the Nokia 808 PureView with the advantage of a new 41MP Camera and a larger 4" Gorilla Glass display which makes watching high definition 1080p films even better.

Memory shouldn't be an issue with a 16GB internal mass storage drive and a micro-SD slot supporting up to an additional 32GB taking you to a whopping 48GB of storage space for your images, tunes and videos.

Add the fact that the Nokia 808 PureView comes with Nokia Big Screen out of the box the Nokia 808 Pureview has a built in Media Player interface which can be set to start automatically when the phone is connected to a TV via the micro-HDMI interface connector.

The Nokia 808 PureView also includes DLNA functionality which is accessed by using the Nokia DLNA Play app - allowing you to wirelessly stream your media to and from other connected devices.

Images

Nokia 808 Pureview review

Nokia 808 Pureview review

A bewildering exception in the latest Symbian Bell FP1 default gallery app is the loss of options. In this latest incarnation the only operations that can be undertaken are exit app, open image or tag image on long press.

This is very limited when compared with the previous Symbian Belle Gallery app (Show all images or album based view, share images, slideshow, mark, unmark multiple images for sending, deletion and addition to albums and more).

Once an image is selected reduced functionality is again available on the image screen with the option to send, edit or delete, but lacking slideshow, details, add to album, and use image compared to the previous version of the app.

Music

Nokia 808 Pureview review

Unluckily the latest incarnation of the Nokia Music app has lost the 'sort by artist name' view, which partially rectifies the lack of 'Album Artist' support in previous versions, but limits the number of albums that can be easily browsed.

One counter is that the album view is sorted by 'Album Artist' and then album name, but this does leave you scrolling through all of your albums rather than browsing a shorted artists list and then a short list of their albums.

Nokia 808 Pureview review

This functionality has been available in iPhones and iPads for many years now. We had hoped that Nokia's more recent involvement with Microsoft would have resulted in this functionality porting over from Microsoft's Zune software.

That said, the audio quality is excellent through headphones, and the built in speaker is loud and powerful.

Nokia 808 Pureview review

A welcome Symbian staple which remains in the Nokia 808 PureView is the built in FM transmitter which is a welcome extra, enabling you to listen to your music wirelessly on long drives.