The low-end secret of Nokia’s new high end

STEPHEN Elop is having fun. He’s standing on a stage at New York’s Pier 92 events venue, demonstrating the new Nokia Lumia 1020 smartphone. It’s a rare opportunity for him to showcase a smartphone that, in one specific category, is better than anything the world has ever seen.

The event is billed “Zoom reinvented” and much of what Elop is showing off revolves around the zoom functions built into the 1020’s camera. It is a revelation.

A giant screen shows a view of a haystack. Individual blades of grass appear. We zoom in closer, closer until, suddenly, it appears: a tiny needle lying hidden in the haystack.

A video of bees collecting pollen reveals details that simply cannot be seen with the naked eye, like where the bee stores its loot.

Years of research have culminated in a 41-megapixel phone camera and the Nokia Pro Camera imaging system. Among its many dazzling features is a

Capabilities of flagship phones can be brought to lower-priced cameras

zoom function that captures the area around the image seen in the viewfinder. Once the image is captured it is possible to zoom out of the initial picture, explore the area around it and zoom into a new area.

“Now we can help people see more than their eyes can see,” says Elop.

Between his magic tricks, he reminds his audience that Nokia registered its first imaging patent in 1994 — long before phones went smart. Less than 20 years later, Nokia has set a new high-water mark.

“But we are not done, not by a long shot,” says Elop. “We have only just begun this journey. This is the next chapter in smartphone photography.”

Asked whether such fantastical devices are relevant to developing markets such as those in Africa, he has no hesitation. “The Lumia 1020 is a flagship device where the most advanced capabilities are pushed to their limits,” he says.

“At the same time, our engineers show how these technologies can be scaled down. So we lead with the flagship but show how the software and capabilities can eventually be brought to lowerpriced cameras.”

Later, in an interview, he elaborated: “We take elements of this technology and make them available at lower price points. A lot of what we do is software and we make that software available even at low price points, so we will make imaging technology more widely available.”

In truth, the depth of Nokia’s device strategy is not revealed at the high end but in the cheaper phones that have allowed the company to dominate the African market for almost two decades. The recent Asha range of feature phones — basic phones with a limited set of smartphone-like features — is Nokia’s real secret weapon. With this brand leading the way, it is quietly winning back lost market share in South Africa and making major inroads in India.

“The Asha is critically important to us,” Elop said. “We were in India a few weeks ago launching the Asha 501, which has many smartphone capabilities. But what’s different and why we’re very proud of it is that we’re working with a heritage of lower-priced devices and working upward.

“That type of investment is very important to us. It’s about bringing Lumia features like imaging and navigation to the top end of the Asha devices. Asha will continue to innovate while at the same time we push the high-end Windows Phone experience of the Lumia range to lower-end devices.”

It starts with a revolutionary camera. But the destination, Elop said, is an experience that is accessible to all.

Arthur Goldstuck is founder of World Wide Worx and editor-inchief of Gadget.co.za. Follow him on Twitter on @art2gee