Nokia has announced that Nokia 808 PureView camera phone will start rolling out in May in select markets. The Nokia 808 PureView boasts a whopping 41-megapixel camera, and is the first phone to pack Nokia's award-winning PureView technology. With high-performance sensors, exclusive Carl Zeiss optics, and Nokia-developed imaging algorithms, the 808 PureView is bound to take imaging experiences to a whole new level. Russia and India will be the first markets to start selling the Nokia 808 PureView.

Nokia's impressive camera phone was unveiled in February at the Mobile World Congress 2012, where it received the Best Mobile Device Award. The Nokia 808 PureView has received multiple awards since, including one for Best Imaging Innovation for 2012, awarded by the Technical Image Press Association (TIPA).

"PureView has completely raised the bar on imaging performance for the whole smartphone industry - and Nokia is not stopping here," said Jo Harlow, Nokia's Head of Smart Devices, according to the press release. "We're going to carry on developing PureView for our smartphones in ways that will again revolutionize the imaging experience."

The high-end camera phone features a large, high-resolution sensor packing 41 megapixels, along with high-performance Carl Zeiss optics and top-notch pixel oversampling technology. This means that at standard resolutions, the camera can zoom without compromising clarity and capture seven pixels of information, then condensed into one pixel for the sharpest images possible. Meanwhile, at high resolution (max. 38 megapixels) pixel oversampling means users can capture an image and then zoom, reframe, crop and resize to expose a higher-level of details. The Nokia 808 PureView also offers superior low-light performance, as well as the option to save in compact file sizes for easy share on social networks, emails and MMS. With such a whopping camera, virtually anyone can capture professional photos.

Moreover, the Nokia 808 PureView includes full HD 1080p video recording and playback as well, with 4x lossless zoom. In addition, it marks the world's first use of Nokia Rich Recording, which allows audio recording at CD-like levels of quality. This level of quality could previously be achieved only with external microphones. The phone also packs exclusive Dolby Headphone technology, as well as Dolby Digital Plus for 5.1 channel surround playback.

Nokia said it will soon announce additional countries where the Nokia 808 PureView will go on sale. Pricing details are not yet available.

(reported by Alexandra Burlacu, edited by Dave Clark)