One of the latest smartphone trends is manufacturers trying to outdo each other in terms of sheer camera quantity. The Huawei Mate 20 Pro has three on the back, the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G has four, but today Nokia one-upped the industry with its latest flagship - the Nokia 9 PureView, a smartphone with five rear-facing cameras.
While most other multi-camera smartphones use their additional lenses to add functionality such as zoom, HMD has taken a different approach with the Nokia 9 PureView. The lenses are purely used to capture more detail.
The trypophobia-inducing camera array is made up of five 12MP sensors. Two shoot colour, and the remaining three shoot monochrome. When you take a photo, these lenses all fire simultaneously, shooting at different exposure levels. HMD says this gets you 12.4 stops of dynamic range, which is similar to what you’d get with a pro cinema camera.
In lay-terms, dynamic range is the difference between the darkest element of a photo and the lightest. The wider the dynamic range, the more vibrant and detailed your photo looks. Extra dynamic range also gives you more flexibility when editing a photo with tools like Lightroom.
The Nokia 9 PureView camera setup can also capture more depth - 1,200 layers of information according to HMD - which can be used to create more realistic bokeh in photos.
Key specifications for the Nokia 9 PureView include a 5.99-inch 1080p+ display, a Snapdragon 845 processor, 6GB of RAM, 128GB of non-expandable storage, IP68 water-resistance, an in-screen fingerprint reader, and a 3,320mAh battery. As with most Nokia devices, the Nokia 9 runs Android One (based on Pie) which means you’ll get at least two major operating system upgrades.
The Nokia 9 PureView will launch internationally in early March at USD$699. It will go on sale in Australia "soon" through Harvey Norman and JB Hi-Fi, but further specifics have yet to be confirmed.
Alex Choros
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