The Symbian-powered 808 Pure View boasts an unbelievable 41 megapixel Carl Zeiss camera, paired with Dolby Digital Sound and 1080p HD video

Truly staggering camera technology - it's such a shame Nokia chose to debut it on such an underwhelming smartphone

by Anton D. Nagy The Nokia 808 PureView - winner of the GSMA Global Mobile Awards 2012 and 2012 TIPA Award for Best Imaging Innovation - shocked everyone at this year's Mobile World Congress with its 41-megapixel camera sensor.

+ Stellar camera performance; + Excellent build quality; + Buttery smooth graphics thanks to dedicated GPU; + Display provides great color saturation; contrast and outdoor visibility; + FM transmitting option; + Excellent call quality; + Great speaker; + Free Nokia essential software (Maps; Drive,

- Nokia (ex Symbian) Belle OS; - Some might find it too bulky; - Low amount of applications in the Nokia Store; - Poor browser performance; - Poor social experience

What does this leave us with? A cluttered exterior with underperforming internals; a decidedly lacklustre screen; an outstanding camera that crushes its rivals; great battery life; and a mobile OS that's hooked up to every piece of life-extending equipment that it can be.

The Nokia 808 PureView is the new powerhouse of camera phones with its 41MP camera and provides decent playback options with its built in 720p video playback with Dolby audio along with 1080p HDMI output with an on board media hub.

Messaging on the Nokia 808 PureView is easy; with the ability to add homescreen shortcuts to create a new message or audio message or open the Messaging app.

- All folders have the same basic icon making it harder to differentiate at a glance.

The 41-megapixel snapper is the star of the show. Crammed with functions and producing pin-sharp, colourful snaps, this is the best we've seen on a smartphone.

Fantastic camera; grabs clear Full HD video; impressive battery life; decent performance

Outdated OS; disappointing virtual keyboard; few apps; chunky body

Happy with your phone's 8MP camera? Surely 41 of them would be preferable? Nokia thinks so, and is trying to prove the point with the 808 Pureview.

The Nokia 808 PureView exists because smartphones have made compact cameras all but obsolete. A 41Mp camera strapped to a dated Symbian smartphone , the Nokia 808 PureView is a strange mix of awesome and awful, probably best viewed as a compact camera with low-end smartphone functions attached.

- 1 egg for the outdated hardware though the OS is optimized and works w/o lag

Great camera

- 1 egg for Symbian Belle - lack of applications - even MS Skydrive is with limited features (you can only use it pull contacts and photos for easy upgrade to Windows 8

At Mobile World Congress this year, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop cast a wary eye over the catalog of shiny new phones introduced by his competitors and posed the challenge, "which ones will you remember?

Beats every other cameraphone by a wide margin; 38-megapixel photos are surprisingly good; Great call quality

Web browser is unusable; Symbian Belle feels like a terrible imitation of Android; Low-res display; Camera hump is a hindrance