There’s a throwdown coming in the mobile space. Nokia and HTC are butting heads over their smartphones, with phones from both companies sharing many common traits: bright colours, a unibody design, and a multimedia focus.
HTC specifically looks to be taking the imaging crown from Nokia, who’ve done well to hold onto the title with their PureView series of phones – first the superlative Nokia 808 PureView that ran Symbian but had a brilliant 41 megapixel camera, and then there was the case of the Nokia Lumia 920 which ran a proper OS in Windows Phone 8 but ditched the mighty megapixel count for optical image stabilisation.
Now, HTC’s looking to raise the stakes. In a blog post that details the long history of photography, HTC ends with a look at the 808 PureView. They are dismissive of the camera, citing Engadget‘s “megapixels don’t matter” editorial to quote “this won’t help you at all.”
Instead, they offer a better solution: “HTC kicks off a new sound and camera experience in 2013.” They’re clearly referring to their next flagship, the M7, which is expected to run Android and offer high specifications – as well as some potentially exciting new imaging properties.
Specifically, Pocket-lint has claimed that the new camera would work like the Foveon X3 sensor, overlaying pixels for red, blue and green in three separate layers. That works out for a sensor that has “4.3 ultrapixels”, offering a potentially much sharper and more colour-accurate image.
The M7 is expected to be unveiled by HTC in just under two weeks’ time, at a simultaneous press event in London and New York, so I guess we’ll find out what HTC is cooking then. With Nokia already reported to be working on a new Windows Phone codenamed EOS that will include the massive sensor shown on the Nokia 808 PureView, HTC are clearly trying to strike first and undermine Nokia’s reputation.
It’ll be exciting to see the two face off, that’s for sure. Cameras in smartphones have been stagnant for some time, so any competition will be welcomed by consumers I’m sure.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.
February 7th, 2013 → 4:20 pm @ William Judd
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