Nokia’s executive vice president for smartphone business, Jo Harlow has almost confirmed in an interview that adoption of earlier reported 16-lens Array Camera technology from Pelican Imaging in future Lumia smartphones is indeed being worked on by Nokia engineers. If you remember we reported two stories about, Nokia investing in Pelican imaging and then later Pelican Imaging hinting about some synergies found between their 16 lens Array camera and Nokia’s 41 MP sensor and other imaging strengths. They have also hinted about a smartphone coming in 2014.
So, now it is sort of confirmed that may be not in upcoming Nokia EOS, but we will certainly see Pelican tech in next imaging flagship from Nokia. Not only this, Jo Harlow also hinted about better processing capabilities of next Lumia smartphones leading to use of “computational photography” which is nothing but the Array camera tech we have talked about above. So, Future Lumias will certainly have better processors.
I think that is a key challenge to bring to a smartphone because computational imaging or computational photography requires computational power. That was one of the limitations in bringing that kind of experiences on a smartphone. Changes in the processing capabilities of smartphones opens it up as an area of exploration,” Harlow explained.
Finally, something which will sound like music to many ears and is a proof that Nokia is opening up to market trends. Dual-Sim capability is coming to Lumia smartphones in future keeping markets like India in view.
One of the things that we have done with an eye on India is to build out the portfolio and to have flagship devices that create aspiration but to really pay off that aspiration is to have lower end devices. The Lumia 520 is a great example of that. We will continue to push the boundaries of how low we can take Lumia. That’s one thing. Then, of course, there are things that are currently missing. Dual-SIM is an important one and to be really successful in the Indian market. And that’s something on our radar to bring to the portfolio,”
