Nokia
9 PureView

The Nokia 9 PureView was a flagship device for its maker HMD Global and become one of the big talking points at the MWC trade show in 2014 when it was unveiled. It resurrected one of Nokia’s strongest brands, PureView, to underline the device’s camera technology. HMD Global had partnered with Light, a company that had developed an advanced multi-lens camera, the L16. The Nokia 9 PureView was a big bet on Light’s computational approach to photography. The phone had a constellation of five rear-facing cameras — two colour sensors and three monochrome ones — allowing a theoretical 240-megapixel picture to be captured. This detailed image allowed users to choose from 1,200 focal planes, compared with the usual 10 on smartphones with fewer cameras. The sheer engineering effort to integrate the technology was impressive but was worthwhile at a time when all smartphone makers were using multiple cameras to set their devices apart from the crowd. The phone won a 2019 Good Design Award awarded by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design for its advanced design, reliability, innovative features, and secure Android experience.