Nokia 808 PureView out 30 June, costs whopping £500

Nokia's 41-megapixel 808 PureView is up for pre-order now, but will cost you half a grand to acquire.

The Finnish company has confirmed that its snap-happy Symbian phone will be released at the end of June, and can be pre-ordered right now on Amazon for the eye-watering price of £500.

So what exactly does your monkey buy you? You'll primarily be shelling out for the 41-megapixel sensor, certainly one of the most monolithic cameras ever to be committed to a smart phone.

The downside is that the 808 PureView is running Symbian, an operating system that's often confusing to use, and doesn't have a great app selection. If you're keen on the super-powered camera, my advice would be to hold tight -- Nokia is likely to port the PureView tech to other phones in the future, potentially ones running the upcoming Windows Phone 8 operating system.

Leaked slides that emerged earlier in the year pointed to such a development, so we may not have long to wait before the 41-megapixel camera appendage appears on more futuristic phones.

There's no word yet on whether any UK networks will be selling the 808 PureView -- SoMobile is reporting that Orange will be selling it on 8 July and O2 will be flogging it this month -- though O2 told me it's not planning on offering the phone. I've contacted all five major networks and am yet to receive a firm 'yes' from anyone, but I'll update this story if any operator decides to run with Nokia's snap-happy toy.

We heard Nokia would be selling the 808 PureView in the UK back in May, and the fact that it's going on sale at all is a pleasant surprise -- our impression when we saw the 808 PureView back at Mobile World Congress was that it could simply be a crazy experiment on Nokia's part.

We're working on a full review, so stay tuned. In the meantime let me know whether you're planning on buying this megapixel monster by posting in the comments, or on our Facebook wall.

Watch this: Nokia PureView 808 hands-on

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