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Lumia
February 14, 2014

See and hear what you’ve been missing with Nokia Lumia Icon



The new Nokia Lumia Icon, like its slightly larger cousin the Nokia Lumia 1520, includes four high-performance digital mics for directional stereo recording of your subject, ensuring you capture the true sound of the moment, while reducing background noise.

When you combine the phone’s Nokia Rich Recording audio technology for accurate, distortion-free sound and stereo recording along with Nokia PureView optics, you will have the absolute best visual & sound quality for all your personal videos that will be the envy of all of your friends. It truly is recording without compromise.

What is directional recording?

Directional recording enhances the clarity of your recordings by rejecting the sounds outside the direction of capture. In other words, the sounds in front of the camera will be recorded in the best possible way.

“Previously, if you wanted audio recording capabilities like this you would need to buy a professional video camera or external mics to do the job. Nokia is the first company to introduce four microphone directional stereo recording in a camera phone,” said Heikki Sassi, head of the audio technology management team for Lumia.

“Recording high quality audio has never been this easy – with directional recording the sounds are clear and easy to locate,” Heikki says.

To see the audio capabilities of Nokia Lumia Icon in action, check out how the device stood up to two incredibly loud muscle cars racing down a Las Vegas speedway while still recording crystal clear audio.

Nokia Rich Recording

The Nokia Rich Recording functionality found in the Nokia Lumia Icon (as well as in the Lumia 1020 and Lumia 1520) is based on High Amplitude Audio Capture microphones, combined with Nokia’s state-of-the-art audio capture algorithms and acoustics design to get the very best recordings possible.

You can capture the full hearing range from the lowest bass to the highest treble (ca. 20Hz to 20 KHz in frequency spectrum). The Lumia 1520 and the Lumia Icon are the only smartphone microphone solutions that cover this bandwidth in all conditions. With other devices, “the sound is either distorted or bandwidth limited,” Heikki notes.

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As a result, when using the Nokia Lumia Icon you can record more than 6X louder sound levels than you could with conventional mics.

At the same time, those four mics are also used for things like advanced noise-reduction in wideband and standard voice calls.

Making the most of all four mics

You might wonder if the four mics built in to the Nokia Lumia Icon pose a problem for how to properly hold the device. We have been assured that the mics are positioned so that they are located in the best way possible for the phone, and you won’t inadvertently block them with your fingers.

If you want to experience the amazing sounds you can capture using the four directional mics inside the Nokia Lumia Icon, check out the app Foundbite, which helps you to capture and share the sounds you encounter in a whole new way.

Want to learn more about Nokia Lumia Icon? Check out the full range of specs and features here.