Amid a slew of rumors regarding Nokia's upcoming Lumia EOS camera smartphone, the Finnish company just dropped a heavy hint: 41 million reasons to watch its event.

Nokia launched its PureView 808 camera phone with a whopping 41 megapixels last year, but that handset's success was rather limited by its outdated Symbian operating system (OS). Nokia fans never lost hope of seeing another 41-megapixel smartphone with another OS and soon rumors started surfacing about a new Lumia camera beast.

As it turns out, all that hope was not in vain. Nokia has a big event scheduled for July 11 in New York City and boasts 41 million reasons to keep an eye open for the live video from the event. In other words, the Finnish company all but confirmed that its much-rumored Nokia Lumia EOS smartphone will rock a 41-megapixel camera.

The upcoming smartphone is expected to carry the torch of the Nokia 808 PureView, the company's original 41-megapixel monster. The EOS moniker, however, is not official, which means that Nokia could ultimately launch the smartphone with an entirely different name.

The purported Nokia EOS smartphone will launch as a new addition to the company's Lumia family of Windows Phone smartphones. Consequently, the new member of the family will combine that huge camera with Windows Phone 8, in a unit expected to be slightly larger than the new Nokia Lumia 925.

What's all the hype about? Smartphones aren't just phones anymore, and they haven't been just phones for a good while now. A smartphone is a mini PC, a portable music and video player, a calendar, a camera and much more. Since smartphones with better cameras came along fewer and fewer people carry their cameras along because it's easier to have one device and just snap a picture anytime.

The natural evolution of this trend resulted in a strong focus on the camera in a smartphone. Samsung just unveiled its new Galaxy S4 Zoom camera smartphone, while HTC is trying to milk all megapixels with its new UltraPixel technology.

Nokia so far had moderate success with its Lumia line of Windows Phone smartphones, but a handset boasting a 41-megapixel camera is sure to spark plenty of interest. It may not be a professional photographer's choice, but for many amateur snappers it will be a dream come true. Would you ditch your pocket camera for this 41-megapixel smartphone?