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Tuesday Poll: Would You Pay Extra For a 41MP Smartphone Camera?

Cameras and mobile phones have been linked for a long time now, but recently companies have started to put more of a focus (no pun intended) on the cameras built into them. All of this leading up to Nokia blowing the doors off the trend in releasing the 808 Pureview, a Symbian phone that has a 41 megapixel sensor on the back of the device.

Up until recently, Nokia was quiet on whether the phone would be available in the US, but now has announced that Amazon will be carrying the phone unsubsidized for $699. We have seen HTC raise the bar on contract phones with the One X and manufacturers are likely to follow.

Are you willing to pay more money for something like a 41MP camera on a phone?

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  • http://www.facebook.com/dr.brown David Brown

    The thing is, it doesn’t even use all 41MP. It just uses it to crop out about 8mp worth of image from a larger picture. So think of it as super digital zoom, and not a 41MP camera. Don’t get me wrong, the camera on the PureView is amazing, but I think at that point it’s more of a camera with a phone in it than the other way around.

  • JMonkeYJ

    people are not understanding this camera. it NEVER takes a 41 MP image. it uses the fact that it has such a large sensor to do awesome things like take really high quality lower-MP images i think it takes 8-10 MP images) and do smooth digital zooming in video mode. stuff like that. it’s a really cool idea, so yes, i would pay extra for an awesome camera.

  • Jake

    Anyone who says “No” to this question is ignorant of the concept of this Nokia 808 camera module. The sensor is HUGE and each of those 41 million pixels is just as big and capable as the best camera phones on the market. It’s only 41mp to generate extreme quality digital sensor crop zoom and uses pixel binning to maximize light gathering ability and picture quality of non zoomed images.

  • New_Guy

    I sure as hell would. Engadget posted images they shot of skaters in full motion and they looked like statues in mid air. The shots were far more crisp than my 8mp shooter takes with people standing still. The phone would literally eliminate the need for a hand-held shooter, period.

    Com’on green robot!!!

  • bananatroll

    just give me the moto nexus I’ve always hoped would come to fruition and I’ll shell out the dough. Megapixels be damned!


    The folks at Nokia must be stoned. Who needs a 41MP shooter on a phone? There is no lens that can resolve that resolution for a phone. They have completely lost their mind, and deserve to go under at this point.

  • http://twitter.com/jcardona1 jcardona

    Anybody who voted yes is clearly a stupid, stupid idiot.

    • Droidzilla

      I would say no to the exact question as phrased, but I would SO want this camera on my RAZR! If you don’t want this camera on your phone, you either don’t take pictures with your phone or you know nothing about this camera (hint: it’s not about the MP).

  • RoadsterHD1

    more MPixls

  • http://twitter.com/dark_funk dark_funk

    GSMArena did an excellent blind test with 5 modern smartphone cameras (including the 808) and an Olympus Four-Thirds. The 808 held its own, and surpassed the Olympus in some ways (though not overall, IMO). I don’t necessarily want more Megapixels, but better quality is always a good thing. I’d have to hold the 808 to know if the bump is too much for me to deal with in a phone.


    12mp is probably more than enough.. i want clear, non grainy, true color pictures, like a good point and shoot. If they can do that and feel the need to throw in a few dozen more MP, then go for it, but image quality needs to come first!

    • New_Guy

      Check out the reviews on Engadget. They have pictures posted taken by the 808 and they are very crisp photos with zero blur, practically no artifacts whatsoever. The shooter is first rate for sure and would likely make anyone put their everyday hand-held on the shelf.

  • Trevor

    I would probably pay for it if the actual pictures taken with the camera were better than most/all other cell phone cameras. I would not pay extra just to say OMG I HAVE MORE MEGAPIXELS!!!

  • rp780

    Where is the hell no button?

  • PyroHoltz

    Provide better optics and a better focal length. 41MP is just asinine.

  • AlexKCMO

    I remember reading about this a while ago.

    The camera is actually really interesting. It shoots in resolutions similar to 5 or 8 MP, but it uses the 41 MP sensor to “layer” the photo and make sure it’s properly focused and clear. To repeat, the sensor is 41 MP, but the finished photos are not in 41 MP resolution.

    It’s a really interesting idea. If the phone was running Android, had good dev support, and was reasonably priced, I’d be interested since it would be great to only carry one device when going somewhere like Disney.

    Here’s a link explaining it:

    I’d be lying if I said I understood this to the fullest, but my understanding is that the oversampling uses the best pixels to size down the images to roughly 5 MP. If someone could give a better explanation, that would be awesome.

    • Jake

      Agreed. The author of this article is being VERY unfair to the camera module in this phone. He doesn’t seem to have a clue as to the concept envisioned with it.

    • Droidzilla

      This x1000. Droid Life let me down on this one, since I would love to see better optics in an Android phone but the only company doing anything good with their phone camera optics is Nokia (and they have lame hardware otherwise and an even lamer OS).

      Android deserves better cameras. When the best we can say is that our good cameras are as good as the iPhone 4S, we’ve failed (hint: the 4S camera sucks, and so do all Android cameras; good for a phone != good).

      • AlexKCMO

        I think my Rezound camera isn’t half bad. I wouldn’t use it as my sole camera on a trip around the world, but for taking a quick picture in the wild, it does the job very very well.

        • Droidzilla

          Maybe that was a little harsh. Smartphone cameras are usable, and definitely can sub for a real camera in a sunny or well lit environment. But they’re still not that great in every other situation (and they’re only “OK” in bright light). I use only my RAZR because I just don’t want to carry another device. However, I’m not going to pretend that I don’t want a better camera than what’s on current Android phones. Nokia has proven time and again that Motorola, Samsung, Sony (who makes the iPhone camera, FYI), etc. could be using better shooters but just aren’t.

    • Hmm….

      No amount of processing can change the fact that the lens is tiny though. This
      technology will not give any increase in detail, only in dynamic range
      and less noisy high iso performance. People have been using this technique of
      oversampling for years in pro digital photography for cleaner shots (especially for night sky shooting), but everything
      depends on the glass you put in front of it. Obviously, the output would be fantastic for a
      smartphone, but it’s still not going to replace a real camera. I remembered a really good article about this on a photog site I’ve read for years: http://www.dpreview.com/news/2012/02/27/Nokia-808-PureView-with-41MP-sensor Keep in mind, the sensor chart doesn’t show full frame or medium format size, which dwarf all of these. Still, impressive for a smart phone.

      • Jake

        There are compromises with the fixed focal and aperture glass and iris, but the resulting glass is PRETTY darned sharp. Go and hunt down the 38mp full resolution shots and you will be VERY surprised. The sensor AND glass need to both be QUITE good to get the pixel level accuracy that can be found in those images.

        It’s not going to compare to some full frame or medium format setup in the same MP range with good glass in front of it obviously and will probably get WAY softer in the corners compared to most any other camera with more normal sized glass in front and similar sensor size, BUT sharpness of your subject in the center which is most import seems really good considering all that was designed around with the huge sensor and limited flange back distance paired with tiny lens. It really does invalidate a lot of point and shoots outside of the super zooms and maybe stuff oriented toward great photographer tools.

  • http://www.getintonursing.com/ Jon

    I don’t give a damn about megapixels. Now if you ask me would I pay more money for a better camera in my phone that takes amazing pictures and videos…YES! Yes I would.

  • Aaa

    Are people reading the question wrong, was I reading the question wrong, or did you poorly frame the question? I took it to mean would I pay more for a phone with top of the line specs. I agree some specs are excessive, I don’t need a 1080p screen on my phone, or a 41mp camera, but I would like and would pay for a complete phone with really good specs in all areas (RAZR MAXX HD?).

  • http://twitter.com/_Averix Derin

    Why would you release something with a high end feature like that on a dead Symbian OS? If that had been Windows Phone 8, might be worth considering.

  • http://profiles.google.com/morganfboyle morgan boyle

    just give me a 5MP camera that actually looks good in low light.
    i am never going start enlarging and printing photos from my camera phone. Camera phones are for when i want to take a quick photo of friends and i want to upload right away.

  • fauxshizzl

    I will let my D5100 take care of my real pictures. For all else that isn’t necessary to shoot in RAW, there is my phone.

  • DV

    All the MP in the world doesn’t mean much if the optics are crap.


    if it doesnt look like that maybe

  • r0lct

    Only if it has a 1.4 Gigawatt processor.

    • poeddroiduser


      • r0lct

        I guess I should have said battery instead of processor. Either way the “joke” still stands. :P

    • http://profiles.google.com/cvananden Chris VanAnden

      and a flux capacitor.

    • Diablo81588

      That’s a power hungry processor! :P

  • http://www.vgchartz.com SuperChunk

    I want phone cameras to continue to get better with a lot more than just MP, but I won’t pay extra for it.

  • http://twitter.com/NotSoSiniSter NotSoSiniSter

    I DON’T CARE ABOUT MEGAPIXLES!!! Make a 5mp sensor that has amazing low light and shutter speed. 99% of all pictures taken with smartphones end up on facebook or instagram. Not in a museum blown up to fit a wall…

  • Sparta1

    Tip of the day to Nokia.. Leave it to companies that know what they’re doing with camera’s. NIKON!! You’re not fooling anyone with that behemoth, star trek enterprise ship sized hump you call a camera.

    • LionStone

      haha…nice one Sparta! I grew up with Nikon so yea, I agree.

  • Hmm….

    Idiotic. For that many pixels to be worth anything, you would need the best possible professional DSLR/MF lenses, not a speck of glass on a phone. You cannot get extra definition simply by cramming smaller pixels onto a tiny sensor. Even with smart image combining software, you still can’t get better detail (only better dynamic range and potentially cleaner high iso images, assuming the processor and camera are super fast). The physics of lens/sensor/light still apply.

  • Artistan

    What a waste of Mega-Pixels… How about better optics?

  • CoCoCalypso

    Why? So you can zoom in to see more detail of the hair growing out of someones mole? If you’re looking at a picture that hasn’t bee modified in any way, then 12MP is all you need because the human wouldn’t be able to tell the difference at any level above that.

  • jslafarr

    I mean look at this phone – It looks like EVAS phone from wallE. Tellin methey couldn’t slap a 8 map camera on my gnex…. alright

  • http://twitter.com/wtfbobomg Steven

    How much flash space does this come with? How many of the 41MP pictures can you save?

    But no, the deal breaker is that it runs Symbian.

  • droidman101

    Its really 8 MP with a REALLY good sensor

  • chris125

    Not for an ugly phone like that.

  • jslafarr

    If they come out with these phones that have 41mp cams and 4+ gigs of ram with 1080p screens and (razr batteries), nobody would buy phones for a longgg time. Its releasing this (not new) technology with the right timing is what makes these companies money.

  • http://twitter.com/alarsonisu Alex Larson

    Dont need a 41mp camera, but certainly there are times i could use a better camera than what comes stock with many phones.

  • willsours

    5MP is fine. They need to focus on the OPTICS, shutter speed, and low light performance. Why are most electronics companies so stupid?

    • D4niel

      “Why are most electronics companies so stupid?”

      Don’t blame the electronics companies, blame the marketing people and the consumers.

      Look, trying to explain to most people why one camera is better than another is hard. In the context of a short marketing blurb where you have a small number of seconds to get someones attention it’s damn near impossible. They need something quick that shows the relative “goodness” of a camera. The number of pixels is a quick way to do that. Most people look at 5MP vs. 8MP and assume 8MP must be better.

  • Nobody

    That thing looks like it would be painful to carry in your pants pocket.

  • tbaybe

    better pictures would be great… not necessarily more mp. i’ve quit using a camera for the most part, its all my phone, and they aren’t always print quality photos

  • King of Nynex

    I bet even with a 41,000 MP camera, people would still make the pictures look fuzzy with Instagram effects.

  • http://twitter.com/starnovsky Stan Tarnovsky

    I would definitely pay for better camera. But better camera != more MP.

  • http://profiles.google.com/adamtruelove Adam Truelove

    Who the hell is blowing up the photos they take with their phones to wall sized prints?

  • http://twitter.com/Super_Six_Two Mickey L

    Anyone who says yes doesn’t know what a megapixel is

    • Jake

      BUT, what if it’s 41mp, with EACH pixel being JUST AS LARGE as any other smartphone camera and can crop that 41mp down to a square the SAME size as the sensor in your camera phone and give you a 4X zoom that is still 8mp at FULL QUALITY. This was a BAD question as the point of this phone was NEVER to create 41mp pictures. It still creates 5 or 8mp shots in standard modes, but has almost no quality loss while zooming in to around 4x and when not zoomed can use fancy image scaling techniques to give you superior 5 or 8mp images from ANY cellphone and about any point and shoot. There are only 2 point and shoots in existence that can come close to this in the Canon G1X and Sony DSC-RX100 as they are the only modern sensor point and shoots with a sensor in this same size range.

      • ocdtrekkie

        Thank you for being intelligent. People in here are dumb enough to assume it’s designed to take 41 MP pictures.

        • Jake

          Thank you, I’m not really a fan of Symbian, Nokia or WM, but if Nokia could pare this to WM in a little more premium bigger screened device, I would drop Android for NokiaWM in a heartbeat!

          The concept is just extremely fascinating if you are OK with a device with a hump around half an inch thick for the point and shoot slaughtering camera sensor with fixed lens. The lens isn’t even an after thought as this produces some extremely sharp and accurate shots even at the 38mp pixel level.

          • Droidzilla

            Hell, I would take an LG Android phone if it had this image sensor. Why Android (and Apple) manufacturers don’t at least get a good Zeiss lens is freaking beyond me.

      • iclickjohn

        If and a BIG if this can shoot like a Canon G1X then it should be worth around $800 dollars. Why wouldn’t they sell it for the same as the G1X if it is as good, smaller, and also comes with a phone? It would be SO revolutionary that it would be front page news on the WSJ. So no I don’t buy it. But I am curious to see sample pics. Or a review in dp review or robgalbraith.

        • Jake

          Well G1X and the Sony I mentioned can probably out shoot this camera in about every way except maybe wide angle shots since they have big zoom glass and this has a tiny fixed lens. This phone also has a fixed aperture, so is less adaptable to the environment it needs to get a shot from in that way also.

          The fact still remains though that the sensor size is WAY larger than ALL modern point and shoots, EXCEPT those two and a couple niche odd brand or really spendy brand ones. And although the lens is a fixed focal length and aperture it’s a very reasonably sharp lens considering it’s size. 9 outta 10 times those cameras will get better shots probably if you have this and one of those in hand. 9 outta 10 times you will only have this though when you see a perfect shot.

      • Diablo81588

        I’d have to see how this “image scaling” would work before I would buy into this. Unless the camera took vector images instead of using pixels, I don’t see how you could scale a picture, whether that be enlarge or shrink, without some sort of quality loss.

        • Jake

          Well you might lose some 41mp pixel level details, but you end up with 5-8mp images with pixel level details miles and miles ahead of ANY smartphone and most point and shoots.

          • Diablo81588

            Not necessarily. If the pixels are the same size, it would be a standard 5-8mp image. The pixels would have to be smaller for that logic to make sense.

            Edit: Just read the article. They ARE smaller, so this would work.

        • Jake

          And it’s more related to the sensor size in the end than the 41mp you are working with. A tiny 41mp sensor trying to do this same thing would produce total crap images as the pixels would be so small that they data they gathered would be worthless.

  • Good_Ole_Pinocchio

    Sooo Symbian? . . . moving along . . . nothing else matters.

  • http://www.facebook.com/cush2push Geoff Wightman

    I would but it needs to have a 23 inch screen a 6 core processor and 12 gb of ram

    • ocdtrekkie

      No, you wouldn’t, because it’s designed to take 5 MP pictures.


    Why Nokia?

  • http://www.deathbycone.com Jared Kotoff

    I dont want bigger files. 5 or 8mp is fine. i just want bettter pictues!


      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^this I mean honestly 41 megapixels is higher than my dslr but I can get a 1 million megapixel camera and unless the optics and the sensor are good it only makes bigger files that are harder to share

      • AnotherAndroidKid

        Same Ariel. Megapixels don’t make a camera good.


          It’s not just that though my camera averages about 18mb a shot, It’s already getting to the point where peoples email servers can’t accept those pictures without compression. My wife won’t even use my camera because she can’t send pictures to the family without separately processing them. In a world where data caps are going to become a way of life we want 50+mb per shot images?

          • http://www.deathbycone.com Jared Kotoff

            also. 16gb card can only hold about 500 pics or so (when shot in raw) at 18mp. forget about servers, how big is the average cell phone storage? its going to eat up all your memory taking pictures of your cats!


            Not cats but kids so even harder. Ok having seen pictures from this camera it is for real and does take nice shots.

            Not as impressed as I could be given that I consistently picked the GS 3 pictures and the nokia 808 pictures as the two best and the gs 3 packs Android over symbian

          • Jake

            Had seen this before the results a few days back. I had thought before seeing the results that E and F(808 and E-PL2) were bar none the best by LEAPS and BOUNDS. None of the others were even in the same ball park. Not surprised the Nokia outdid even the E-PL2 though as the E’s were more pleasing color wise even if a bit softer over all.


            Just goes to show you that everyone will see something different in the pictures they see. I loved the shots coming out of the nokia and the sgs 3 best and the e-pl2 I really didn’t like at all (It’s actually the camera my wife uses and she loves it I can’t stand it)

          • Jake

            I was referring mostly pixel level resolved detail quality and dynamic range though mostly. If your focus is color and contrast/sharpening related preferences I can see others challenging the big sensors. BUT, the whole point of a big sensor is to resolve more pixel level detail and improve dynamic range. Well that and gather light in limited light conditions better, but didn’t seem to be many of these shots where that was the point of the shot.

            I can see your point, but seems to be a more aesthetic rather than technical/accuracy point.

        • ocdtrekkie

          It’s designed to take 5 MP pictures, Droid-Life did a cruddy (read: nonexistent) job of explaining the device.

      • http://www.tedpavlic.com/ Ted Pavlic

        In fact, those 41MP pictures might be worse due to the challenges of picking up low light with high density CCD arrays.

    • Liderc

      Agreed. Want better cameras, not more MP.

      • ocdtrekkie

        It’s designed to take 5 MP pictures.

    • Jake

      This particular phone has a HUGE sensor that is 1″. Similar size to cameras like the new mirrorless Nikon 1 series and has pixels that are JUST as large per pixel as any current smartphone since the sensor is so HUGE. And it outputs mostly 5 or 8mp shots that are of ultimate quality because they do some fancy pixel processing to get the best possible image quality off the huge sensor. It’s only 41mp to do sensor crop minimal quality loss zooming without much loss in image quality. Zoomed in 4x at about 8mp it should give you an 8mp image of similar quality to most 8mp cams in phones. This is worth some cash on a phone if you ask me.

      Question should have been, “Would you pay extra for a HUGE sensor with system camera light gathering abilities behind a great fixed lens, with the only down side being a bit extra thickness where the camera module sits?”. That’s what you are getting here. I would pay extra for this even if it was 8 or 12mp and didn’t have the zoom functionality, but had massive low light and extreme Image Quality capabilities just like this does.

      • Droidzilla

        I would so pay extra for this. I would pay $100 extra easily for this; throw in a Xenon flash and I’ll make it $150. Put it on a Nokia WP7? No sale.

      • Hmm….

        @Jake That’s a little exaggerated. It’s not 1″, but 1/1.2, which is still huge for a smartphone and very large for even a compact camera. Of course, that’s much smaller than a DSLR or MF sensor, but impressive nonetheless. The limiting factor is the size of the lens, which will never match a decent DSLR lens, or even most compact cam lenses. The technology of oversampling or pixel binning isn’t new, and doesn’t create extra detail, but it is really helpful for cleaning up noise, and can increase dynamic range. I saw you mention the Canon G1X as comparable, but the sensor in that dwarfs this Nokia’s. Here are a couple of helpful links with charts that show the comparative sensor size: http://www.dpreview.com/news/2012/02/27/Nokia-808-PureView-with-41MP-sensor
        Note that the Canon’s sensor is larger than the chart shown for the Nokia comparison (larger than Four Thirds). Of course, full frame DSLR sensors and Medium Format sensors dwarf all of these.

        • Jake

          I was just pointing out the only P&S cams that are even in the same ballpark. I understand the Canon is even bigger, but this is way larger than something that used to be considered a large sensor P&S such as the G3-12, S90-100, LX3/5, and such.

          Smaller glass can be really sharp in the center region where it’s most important. Obviously sharpness and brightness in the corner regions of this device will be a bit weak, but the compromise of a fixed focal length and aperture aspect of this lens allow it to resolve more detail than you might guess, even on 38mp shots the phone can create. It will be very interesting to see some lab shots focused on see how sharp and bright the corners are with this lens, but the fact it’s designed around ONE focal length and ONE aperture give me the feeling it’s going to be better than you are guessing. The focal length is compensated for with the sensor crop zooming. The aperture is something you just have to work around and is the real big compromise here.

          I wouldn’t assume though that this lens is crap compared to most larger glass P&S cameras. Most of them are zooms with various apertures and that complexity that is missing with this lens is where things are evened out. It really is just a different approach to camera design where what is being saved in costs of mechanical complexity is being added to the sensor and glass optimization.

          When we get to global shutter sensors the LAST mechanical aspect of most versatile cameras will be gone and such designs will REALLY take off. Depending at what range of “virtual” shutter speeds such a sensor could operate at and what sorta light it could get in that time, the last remaining point of mechanical aperture would be to adjust depth of field. Once you fix everything mechanically, other than focus, optimizing the glass to cover some area at some distance becomes a lot easier.

    • Fatty Bunter

      You won’t get bigger files. You must not have read about how it actually works?



      If you just want better pictures, it sounds like this is the phone for you!


    And THIS is why Nokia is dying out. {{-_-}}

  • aigele

    CCD image sensors suffer from a degradation in quality at higher resolutions, do they not?

    • http://twitter.com/Belatukadro Justtyn Hutcheson

      they do, but I believe this uses one of the newer CMOS sensors that were developed by Sony a few years ago. The Active CMOS sensors from Olympus before those were a step in the right direction, but Sony’s sensors are what is powering the new wave of DLSR’s with 1080p video capture.
      Here, the issue is filesize, which I believe Nokia uses a proprietary algorithm to get the filesize down without affecting quality.

  • Mike

    Two questions:
    1: How big are these files?
    2: What display is needed to actually use all of that information?

    Just because you can doesn’t necessarily mean you should…

    • ocdtrekkie

      It’s designed to take 5 MP pictures, Droid-Life didn’t explain how it works.

  • Dredamanfoo2

    There comes a time when you have to ask, “What is the point in a camera like that on a phone?”

    • moelsen8

      or.. “what’s the point of a camera like that?”

      • Flyinion

        Pro grade medium or large format cameras for taking pictures that get blown up to large posters or banners or billboards.

        • moelsen8

          alright alright come on you know what i meant :)

    • Caleb Martin

      Or… “what is the point in a phone on a camera like that?”

  • moelsen8


    • KleenDroid

      Because it’s…… Amazing

      • http://twitter.com/GRZLA Grizzly Atoms

        At what? Looking like a wart on a phone? 41MP is just stupid for a phone. The most needed would be 12mp and that is even pushing it.

        • ocdtrekkie

          The only reason you don’t think the 41 MP is cool, is because you don’t realize how it works, because DL was dumb enough to post this without explaining it.

          It’s meant to take 5 MP pictures.

    • justincase_2008

      so instagram will look amazing.

      • moelsen8

        the stupid borders alone will take up 10 megs. jesus

    • Droidzilla

      I would definitely pay more for this camera on an Android, or just about any Nokia camera for that matter. I couldn’t care less about the MP; Nokia uses Zeiss optics and (occasionally) Xenon flashes. It’s a night and day difference, especially at night. The only reason they did the whole MP bit on this one was for hype and media coverage.

      The question shouldn’t be about MP; I wouldn’t pay more just for extra MP. If the question was, “Will you pay extra for a Zeiss lens and a Xenon flash?” everyone should click “yes” (especially since it would add something like $15 to the cost of the phone).