Technology

Nokia ups camera stakes with new smartphones

New Mokia 9 PureView will have five cameras

Five Carl Zeiss camera lenses adorn the rear case of a Nokia 9 PureView smartphone. Photograph: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg

Mon Feb 25 2019 - 14:18

Nokia has unveiled a range of new Android phones, raising the camera stakesby introducing a phone with five camera lenses.

The brand, which is now made by Finnish firm HMD Global, is aiming the Nokia 9 PureView at photography fans. The new phone includes two 12 megapixel colour sensors and three 12 megapixel monochrome sensors, which combine images to get as much light into photographs as possible.

The Nokia 9 PureView heads a range of smartphones announced by HMD on Sunday, including an entry-level and two mid-level handsets, all designed to work with Google’s Android One, which guarantees two years’ of operating system upgrades.

The company was showing it could innovate by delivering the world's first five-camera array system in a smartphone, chief executive Florian Seiche said in an interview. It also refreshed its devices in the mid-market, where it already has a top-five ranking in many markets, and introduced a feature phone - the Nokia 210 - able to connect to the internet using an Opera Mini browser.

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Mr Seiche said the Nokia range would serve users, particularly in emerging markets, from feature phone to mid-market devices. He said the mid-market Nokia 3.2 and Nokia 4.2 also appealed to users who wanted good value combined with the simplicity of a “pure” Android operating system, unencumbered with software installed by the device maker and with guaranteed upgrades. “People tend to keep their smartphones longer,” Mr Seiche said. “People start thinking maybe for half the price I can get an experience just as good, and even lasts for a lifetime on our phone.”

Analyst Frank Gillett at Forrester said the high-end photo features of the Nokia 9 PureView plus a full range of phones and features at affordable prices, positioned Nokia to appeal to the hundreds of millions of smartphone buyers set to come online in India and China. "The Nokia models won't contend for leadership with Apple, Huawei and Samsung - but that's not their goal," he added. – Reuters

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