[Pavel]

Nokia 808 is in my view a revolutionary product that may prove to be a disruptive technology in photography. Basically, the phone uses a sensor with 40+ Mpx (More than Nikon D800). Now that alone is revolutionary in a phone. But that is not what I find intriguing. They have used this pile of pixels (using binning) to reduce noise (as Fuji and others did before) and for digital zooming (or cropping, as many others did before). The result is something using a good quality prime in a very compact package to provide a low noise camera with zoom capability while maintaining very good image quality. This second part is critical. Cell phones and even most cameras traditionally had very few pixels and so binning and cropping had a large impact on image quality. In Nokia 808, the penalty is much less, thanks to huge resolution of the sensor. I therefore consider 808 a revolutionary product even as I freely admit of not being interested to buy this flawed gem (see the review in DPReview). In a long run, the implementation does not matter. The concept does.

Now before Matthew will jump in to say so, let me reiterate that the technology is not new in its elements. The new part is putting all these pieces together (binning and cropping with huge resolution, small package and low cost).

I think that this approach has a potential to change not only cell phone cameras, but most cameras. With the resolution of D800, the sensor resolution is beginning to be extremely demanding of lens quality and only the best glass matches the resolution of the sensor. As the capability to produce still higher resolution sensor becomes possible, the question will arise on how to make the use of all these pixels. Many companies can not compete with Nikon and Canon because they do not have the skills or resources to duplicate the range of lenses these companies have. However, with digital zooming a small number of top notch and inexpensive primes (such as those from Samyang) could replace majority of expensive and complex zooms from Nikon/Canon.

This provides an opening to an ELECTRONICS company with little expertise in lens production to enter the camera market. For users, this could mean a small number of fast, small and inexpensive lenses could replace large bulky and costly systems from Nikon and Canon without a loss of image quality. To achieve that, the key would be to have ultra highres sensor. Not available now, but it may be in a few years!