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HWM+HardwareZone.com Tech Awards 2013: Editor's Choice - Part 1

By Team HardwareZone - 11 Mar 2013

Best Smartphone Innovation

Best Smartphone Innovation

With largely similar hardware components being used, it takes some effort for smartphones manufacturers to truly different their offerings from the rest besides design. The nominees for this year’s Best Smartphone Innovation award were chosen based on their unique properties and the practicality of their implementation. Case in point: Nokia 808 PureView’s astounding camera technology, ASUS PadFone 2’s refined and sleek tablet dock, and of course, Samsung Galaxy Note II’s enhanced phablet software and hardware additions.

Nominees: 

 

  • ASUS PadFone 2 (for tablet/smartphone convergence)
  • Nokia 808 PureView (for PureView camera technology)
  • Samsung Galaxy Note II (for phablet form factor and software enhancements)

 

And the Winner Is...

Nokia 808 PureView

Smartphones have gradually substituted point and shoot cameras since a mobile phone is the one thing that (almost) everyone brings everywhere. Unsurprisingly, manufacturers have jostled hard to be the best in this area, with some providing extra software modes and lenses with bigger apertures. The Nokia 808 PureView represents the next cutting edge in camera technology for smartphones, providing unrivaled imaging quality. For one, the device is backed up by an astounding 41-megapixel camera with a backside illuminated sensor. (As a point of reference, smartphones typically come with 5 to 12-megapixel camera sensors.)

The camera can effectively use a maximum of 38 megapixels when shooting at an aspect ratio of 4:3 (an aspect ratio common in compact digital cameras), and 34 megapixels when shooting at an aspect ratio of 16:9 (the aspect ratio of HD movies). The result is photographs that are nothing short of clarity and details - for a cameraphone, that is.

To add on, Nokia has plans to port the PureView Pro technology to other devices in the future, although no specific time frame has been mentioned at the moment. We are excited to see how this technology would pan out on other Nokia devices, especially on smartphones running on Microsoft's Windows Phone mobile OS.

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

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