A long-awaited excitement for Nokia fans has finally arrived in 2019 at MWC. HMD Global has proudly announced the most-rumored, most-speculated and most-leaked smartphone with five-camera setup on its back. The new Nokia 9 PureView is now the top-standing flagship from HMD Global.
HMD unveiled the new Nokia 9 PureView during an event at MWC in Barcelona on Sunday. While Samsung and Huawei chose to bring up a new genre of foldable smartphones this year at MWC, HMD thought to bring futuristic improvement in smartphone photography.
Nokia 9 PureView Features
Sure the phone’s most prominent work is its camera but let’s start with from zero onwards. Nokia 9 PureView features a 5.99-inch pOLED PureDisplay with QHD+ resolution of 2880×1440 pixels. It’s HDR10-compliant with Gorilla Glass 5 on top.
Inside, the Nokia 9 PureView is running Snapdragon 845 with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. Storage expansion is supported via microSD card. The phone carries Android One certified label and runs Android 9 Pie out-of the-box.
Nokia 9 PureView is dual-glass built phone with a metal frame in between. It also features an under-display fingerprint sensor which is latest trend but surprising enough as the phone was under development phase for over a year.
However a flagship phone with Snapdragon 845 in 2019 only justifies the single factor – the camera. The camera which took most of the development period might better stay with the processor it was optimised for.
Penta-Camera
Nokia 9 PureView features a a group of five 12-megapixel cameras on it back. All carrying Zeiss lenses with f/1.82 aperture. Two cameras are RGB while the three of them are Monochrome. The five cameras are arranged in a circular manner that the a flash is filling up the left shoulder while there is also a time-of-flight (ToF) 3D depth sensor as well.
For the excitement of photographers, the phone doesn’t only shoot in RAW (.dng) photos but also allows to edit the raw images right on the phone. HMD has partnered with Adobe to allow editing via Photoshop Lightroom.
The phone indeed supports refocusing or adjusting focus after the image has been taken. But consider the Google Photos app in all Nokia phones. HMD has partnered with Google to support the feature right into Google Photos.
The camera captures from all the units and the combine the data into a final image to produce “exceptional dynamic range”. While with the help of ToF sensor, the phone produce more appealing bokeh effect “ever produced by a smartphone” by gathering up to 1200 layers of depth.
On the front side Nokia 9 PureView has a 20-megapixel selfie camera with f/1.8 lens aperture. Which works with pixel binning technique to produce improved low-light 5MP photos.
The phone is backed by a 3320mAh battery capacity with Quick Charge 3 fast charging. The phone also features Qi wireless charging that also supports 10W wireless charging.
Other features include Single speaker with smart amp. There are three microphones that support spatial recording. The Nokia 9 PureView is IP67 water and dust resistant and features USB Type-C connectivity. You get an USB-C to AV jack adapter bundled with the phone.
Pricing and Availability
The Nokia 9 PureView costs $699 and has started shipping. In China the phone costs CNY 3599 (or ~$538)
