The Guardian, no slouch when it comes to news reporting, is citing sources close to Nokia that indeed, the company is getting ready to reveal a 41MP Windows Phone dubbed ‘EOS’. Destined for the US, the high end phone is expected to go on sale in the summer (presumably around May).
Originally reported by the Verge, this is the second confirmation of such an inbound device on the cusp of release.
News of such a phone is expected to be revealed in a few weeks in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress, where Nokia has a press conference scheduled...
It was nearly one year ago that Nokia shocked the world with the 41MP 808 PureView camera-phone, a device that actually took photos at 5MP but over-sampled the image giving way to very high quality photos. Combined with an unusually large sensor for mobile, the 808 was able to take some astonishing photos with little image distortion.
Though the 808 was dubbed PureView, Nokia always noted that this was a developing technology and not just a 41MP camera. Later in late 2012, Nokia unveiled an offshoot of PureView with the Nokia Lumia 920. That phone sports an 8.7MP PureView camera that concentrates on low-light photography via optical image stabilization (OIS)—another first for a mobile device.
What’s not clear is if Nokia will somehow combine the 41MP with OIS or if this will be just a refined 41MP sensor with Windows Phone replacing Symbian. Much like the 808, Nokia will probably need to use a secondary processor to help the Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC render such massive images.
Possible specs of EOS
Heading back to April 2012, it was reported that Nokia was already hard at work on a 41MP Windows Phone.
The limitation at the time was the OS itself, which was Windows Phone 7. Famously, Windows Phone 7 could not handle such a sensor nor the camera optimizations that Nokia would need to implement to make use of oversampling. It would take the flexibility of Windows Phone 8 to give Nokia the necessary power.
Possible Nokia PureView 41MP? (2012)
An image of a purported PureView Windows Phone was also revealed back in April and it will be very interesting to see if that device is the same as being revealed on February 25th.
That phone is yellow (one of many colors, we imagine), which in hindsight is interesting only because yellow Lumia phones were not announced yet (it would be the Lumia 920, nearly 6 months later, that was the first yellow Nokia).
April 2012 Rumored Specifications of Nokia 41MP Windows Phone:
- 4.3" Curved Glass touchscreen with HD display
- 41mp sensor, Carl Zeiss lens and PureView imaging technology
- 1080p full HD video recording and Rich Recording technology
- Dual Core processor with Adreno 320 GPU
- Windows Phone Operating System
EOS or Lumia?
Another interesting question is whether or not this will be a Lumia phone. Nokia for a long time has noted that Lumia is but one line of Windows Phones and that they planned on expanding that with additional form factors and technologies.
While Nokia could easily call EOS a Lumia 9xx, we wonder if this will be the first of a new line of Windows Phones for the Finnish company, possibly using the EOS designation or ‘Eos’.
What’s in a name? Eos and its origins.
Surprisingly, we haven’t seen too much about the name ‘Eos’ though a quick lookup reveals that it’s the name of a Greek goddess of the dawn.
Like ‘Lumia’, a term that was coined by 20th Century Artist Thomas Wilfred to refer to art created from light, Nokia appears to be centering on terms that involve the same theme: light. In that sense, EOS (or Eos) fits right in with the Lumia branding.
Regardless, all will be revealed in a few weeks in Barcelona. Windows Phone Central will of course be there live to cover the event, including hands on with whatever Nokia reveals. Stay tuned!
