Nokia 9 PureView recently launched at the MWC, currently ongoing in Barcelona, Spain. The mobile phone has been a subject of speculations by Nokia fans, who rave about its impressive litany of features, with the 5 shooters at the rear receiving the most attention, especially from professional and enthusiast photographers.
Premium Design and Display
As we are currently in the glass smartphone era, it doesn’t come as a surprise that HMD opted for the timeless glass body in the new Nokia 9 PureView. The device is also IP67-rated for dust as well as water resistance.
As regards the display, it features a 5.99-inch P-OLED display at the front, which is HDR10-compliant and offers a flagship-grade resolution of 2880 pixels by 1440 pixels or QHD+. A Gorilla Glass 5 piece ensures OLED stays protected from cracks and major scratches.
The device is coming with the trendy under-display fingerprint scanner. However, if that option doesn’t cut it for you, it also allows you to use AI-driven Face Unlock.
Hardware and Software
HMD chose to power the Nokia 9 with the Snapdragon 845 chipset, a decision that looks odd considering the fact that the chipset is a bit outdated since the Snapdragon 855 is the one in vogue now. The device will be available in just one color, which is Midnight Blue. Also, a single version will be produced that has 6GB of RAM and 128GB built-in storage (expandable via MicroSD card). It will run Android One (Pie version) straight out of the box.
The new handset offers a 3320-mAh battery, which supports quick wired charging (QC3 and USB PD) and 10W wireless charging. It doesn’t have any audio jack.
Nokia 9 PureView’s Major Selling Point — Five Camera Lenses
And now, let’s explore the new PureView camera.
This mobile device offers 5 cameras on the back, each having 12MP and sitting behind f/1.8 Zeiss lens. While 2 of them are RGB, the other 3 are monochrome. It also features a sixth camera, which is a ToF (time-of-flight) type, for extra depth information. Finally, you will find, among this extraordinary array of cameras, a dual-tone LED flash.
All 5 camera lenses are of equal fixed focal length, 28mm. There is no ultra-wide angle or telephoto snappers. The Nokia 9 PureView was never engineered to beat the most versatile smartphone camera in the world but to offer breath-taking image quality, which is comparable with that of an expensive full-blown camera.
Here’s how this feat is achieved. The smartphone combines the images from each of the five 12-MP shooters, occasionally even multiple frames from every one of the cameras, into one image that has a remarkable dynamic range, as much as 12.4 stops of light difference that is up to a large sensor camera. The PureView brings unrivaled scene depth detection as well as breath-taking dynamic range.
Apart from these, the Nokia 9 has a secondary selfie camera of 20MP with f/1.8. This snapper supports Tetracell pixel binning so it can merge 4 adjacent pixels in low light situations into one, to bring about 5MP images with lower noise.
Pricing and Availability
The latest phone does not feature the cutting-edge Snapdragon 855, perhaps owing to the complexity of the camera, coupled with the long time its production took. However, it appears HMD has taken this into cognizance because the device will go on sale for $699, significantly cheaper than the present crop of flagship smartphones.
As regards availability, only limited units are produced. Once the stock gets exhausted, Nokia may not make new phones. HMD has not stated the exact units it will make.
