A cache of leaked images sent to GSMArena.com and Chinese tech sites WPDang.com and WPXAP.com may reveal the next flagship smartphone offering from Nokia. The amateur photos, some of which appear to have been taken inside a factory, showcase three color variations (black, yellow, and red) of the purported EOS.
A Twitter account from user @Vizileaks also yielded some close-up images of the phone, focusing on the camera. Vizileaks was also the only source to show the display turned on, claiming in the most recent tweet, “Yes it's a real working model! Shhhh!!!” and tagged “#moretocome.”
The gargantuan camera is easily the most eye-catching inclusion in the array of snapshots, made even more apparent by the images of a red back case with a gaping circular hole. They suggest that the EOS will carry the same 41-megapixel camera as the Nokia PureView 808, which debuted last year and went on to win the “Best New Mobile Handset, Device or Tablet” award at Mobile World Congress 2012. Physically, the so-called EOS looks very similar to the current Nokia flagship Windows Phone, the Lumia 920.
At 41 megapixels, the camera would blow away even top-of-the-line digital SLRs on numbers alone (the current champion of high resolution, the Nikon D800, has 36.3-megapixels), with the HTC One’s 5MP, the iPhone 5’s 8MP, and the Galaxy S4’s 13MP cameras utterly dwarfed. But how would such power translate to a mere smartphone, and why would the average consumer ever need such a high pixel count?
The truth is, the PureView camera has a default setting of only 5MP, but it takes advantage of a technique called “oversampling” – which is exactly how the acclaimed HTC One can make a 5MP image look so crisp. As explained by Arstechnica’s Chris Foresman:
“At [the PureView camera’s] default 5MP setting, every pixel in the finished image corresponds to about eight pixels on the sensor. This oversampling helps reduce noise, increase color accuracy, and increase sharpness.”
This technique allows the PureView camera to achieve what Nokia refers to as “lossless zoom” when shooting at 5MP. Foresman continues:
“At that point, the camera is capturing exactly 3072×1728 pixels from the middle of the sensor, essentially with no oversampling. In between, the camera simply applies a variable amount of oversampling to achieve a finished 5MP image, from 8:1 down to 1:1.”
The alleged EOS may not be able to compete with a full-sized camera fitted with a physical zoom lens, but for something that fits in your pocket, the potential is quite impressive.
Further details, aside from the rumored camera, claim that the EOS will come with an OLED display, polycarbonate body, and 32GB of internal storage with no planned microSD expansion. It will run the latest iteration of Windows Phone 8, which is struggling for support behind Android and iOS.