BARCELONA, Spain – Today we announce the Nokia 808 PureView. This is our first smartphone to feature our exclusive new PureView technology, which completely blows away any prior expectations about the quality of camera phone photography.

The Nokia 808 PureView features a 41-megapixel sensor with our highest performance Carl Zeiss optics to date and Nokia’s brand-new pixel oversampling technology.

Sorry, did you just say 41-megapixels?

Yes, that’s right. But this combination isn’t about shooting pictures the size of billboards! Instead, it’s about creating amazing pictures at normal, manageable sizes. There’s a combination of benefits.

The technology means that taking typically sized shots (say, 5 megapixels) the camera can use oversampling to combine up to seven pixels into one “pure” pixel, eliminating the visual noise found on other mobile phone cameras. On top of that, you can zoom in up to 3X without losing any of the details in your shot – and there’s no artificially created pixels in your picture, either.

Otherwise, you can use ‘Creative Shooting Mode’ to capture images at high resolution – 38 megapixels; then reframe, crop and zoom to find the best “picture within the picture” after the image has been shot and before saving it at convenient sizes for sharing and storage.

The oversampling technology also allows for significantly improved low light performance than previous camera phones, Compared to a typical optical zoom camera used at full zoom, the Nokia 808 PureView captures over 5x more light. Under normal lighting conditions, performance is also enhanced, as this combination allows for faster shutter speeds, reducing the effects of camera shake.

Video star

The excellent camera performance also extends to video. The camera allows for 1080p recording at 30fps, with 4X lossless zoom thanks to the big sensor and powerful image processing which handles over 1 billion pixels per second. At lower resolutions, the capabilities of the zoom increase, with 6X at 720p and up to 12X lossless zoom in nHD (640 x 360) recordings. Of course great video is nothing without great audio. 

Here the Nokia 808 PureView also sets a new standard. The Nokia 808 PureView is the world’s first video recording device to allow recording without distortion at audio levels beyond the capability of human hearing. This allows you to even in the harshest of environment capture stereo CD-like audio quality.

It’s also a smartphone

Outside the camera, it’s also a great smartphone, of course! Inside, it’s got the latest Nokia Belle operating system with Feature Pack 1 enhancements. These enhancements allow improved performance, personalisation and entertainment options, with a new browser, the latest Nokia Maps and an improved notifications bar. One other great new feature is that the phone can deliver content recorded in surround sound to any stereo headphones, using technology from Dolby.

The screen is a four-inch, ClearBlack AMOLED display underneath Gorilla Glass, allowing for a big clear view of what’s going on, under any lighting conditions. Inside, there’s a 1.3GHz processor to keep everything humming. There’s 16GB of internal user memory, with support for MicroSD cards up to 32GB to contain all the pictures and video you’ll be shooting.

The device is remarkably pocketable considering how much there is inside. It’s only slightly larger than the Nokia N8 while the total weight, including the battery, is 169g. Talk time (over a 3G network) is rated at 6.5 hours, with a standby time of up to 540 hours.

UPDATE: Want to know more about how PureView technology works? Download the white paper.

UPDATE #2: Check out some unretouched photographs straight from the Nokia 808 PureView. (WARNING: it’s a hefty download!)

UPDATE #3: Now meet the brains behind the PureView technology in our exclusive interview. And listen to our chats on the podcast.

UPDATE #4: How Carl Zeiss helps to create the perfect lens.

UPDATE #5: What Kim Kardashian has in common with the Nokia 808 PureView