Nokia’s 41-Megapixel Phone May be Headed To The U.S.

Nokia may be bringing the Nokia PureView 808, the smartphone with a mammoth 41-megapixel built-in camera, to the United States.

Announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year, the phone combines a high-resolution sensor with Carl Zeiss optics and Nokia-developed algorithms to create a smartphone camera like no other out there.

While the 41-megapixel number certainly sounds impressive, what’s really fantastic about the Nokia PureView 808 is what it does with those pixels. The 808 uses a new pixel oversampling technology that captures seven pixels of information, and then condenses all seven into one single pixel. The result is an exceptionally sharp 5-megapixel picture.

Unlike your traditional 5-megapixel picture, however, you can zoom in on any part of the photograph and still see everything clearly, thanks to there essentially being seven pixels where the traditional photo would have one.

Nokia posted teaser images on its U.S. Facebook fanpage Friday, with Monday’s date, which also happens to be the date of Microsoft’s mystery event, leading many to believe that Microsoft was perhaps planning a tablet announcement involving Nokia.

All Things D points out, however, that one of the images posted on Nokia’s fanpage shows Hawaii, which has the area code 808, the same as the model number of the phone. A coincidence that suggests Nokia’s big announcement Monday has to do with the 808 and not anything Microsoft related.

The 808 is a Symbian phone, so if it does make its way to the U.S. it will likely be sold unlocked, meaning it won’t be tied to a particular carrier, but you’ll also have to pay full price for it.

What do you think of Nokia’s 41-megapixel smartphone? Would you buy one if the handset became available in the U.S.? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Read more >>

Tweet

Nokia’s profit margin struggle against Apple

A new infographic has been put together by iSuppli that delves into the numbers behind Nokia and Apple’s profit margins in mobile. It really shows why it’s so difficult for Nokia or almost any competitor to put a dent in Apple’s dominance. The chart compares the cost to produce the Lumia 900 versus the iPhone 4S, revealing that Apple not only gets to charge way more for its device but also pays less for its components.

According to iSuppli’s data, the cost of components for Nokia’s Lumia 900 is about $209, while its off-contract retail price is $450. Meanwhile, the comparable 16GB iPhone 4S retails off-contract for $649 but only costs Apple $190 in components. Apple makes almost twice as much as Nokia per phone sale, excluding the costs from manufacturing, marketing, and distribution.

Although the cost difference is partly due to the Lumia’s use of a larger screen and LTE-capable wireless chip, the disparity is also a result of Apple’s command of the supply chain. Apple orders components in much larger quantities and is able to negotiate for lower prices.

This makes it difficult for any Apple competitor to catch up, considering that any smartphone going against the iPhone would have to be advertised with a lower price, while the smaller volume would presumably mean a higher cost in components.

[via WSJ]

Read more >>

Tweet

Nokia’s bold new Meltemi OS will make feature phones smarter

Not content to let its feature phone software stagnate, Nokia is apparently working on a new low-end mobile operating system called “Meltemi,” which will allow the company to sell more capable phones in emerging markets.

News of the Linux-based Meltemi, which is the Greek word for winds that blow across the Aegean see from the north during summer, was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

For Nokia, Meltemi is a sign that the company isn’t forgetting about low-end devices, a segment which represented about 47 percent of its device sales last quarter. It’s also a strong hint that the company isn’t willing to be entirely on another company’s platform. Nokia recently abandoned its plans to develop the MeeGo operating system with Intel (though it is releasing a single MeeGo device for some reason, the N9) in exchange for adopting Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 platform.

Meltemi will allow Nokia to continue innovating with low-end feature phones — which is important, since consumers in emerging markets expect smartphone-like functionality from their feature phones, a source tells the WSJ. Developing a new OS will let Nokia offer those devices at cheaper prices than if they used Windows Phone 7, which requires beefier hardware and licensing fees to Microsoft. As the WSJ points out, Meltemi could be Nokia’s equivalent of Samsung’s Bada platform for low-end phones.

The new software will completely replace Nokia’s S40 software in feature phones, according to the mobile site Boy Genius Report. “Nokia’s vision is seemingly to build an operating system with capability that reaches well beyond “S40,” but that can function on similar low-cost hardware,” writes BGR’s Zach Epstein. “This new platform will be fairly capable, but our understanding is that it will not be a full-fledged OS intended to compete with the likes of Android, iOS and Windows Phone.”

Nokia will still develop inexpensive Windows Phone devices in some markets, BGR says. That will likely happen with Microsoft’s recently announced “Tango” version of the OS, which offers a stripped down experience for low-end hardware.

Nokia has yet to confirm Meltemi’s existence, but a spokesperson told BGR in a statement “our Mobile Phones team has a number of exciting projects in the works that will help connect the next billion consumers to the Internet.”

Read more >>

Tweet