As you read these words I will be on my way to Barcelona, Spain for the Mobile World Congress 2025 trade show, and it’ll be the first time I’ve been since 2019. It’ll be a different show experience for me, in many ways, and as I prepared for the trip I thought about my last visit, and how I don’t think any this year will come close to matching the announcement of one, crazy camera phone in particular — the Nokia 9 PureView.
Is MWC even about phones?
Mobile World Congress is about so much more than just smartphones, and quite often, they take a back seat to all the other new products and tech launched at the event. Huawei often used the show to unveil new laptops, Google talks about Android and its software in general, Samsung hasn’t held a major press conference there for years, and Apple doesn’t even attend. While we may associate MWC with smartphones, the truth is they’re only one, small part of what goes on there.
It’s not a recent occurrence either. Ten years ago, we gave our Best of Show award to the HTC Vive virtual reality headset. VR dominated MWC in 2015, just like 5G dominated the 2019 show, and we expect AI to be all most talk about in Spain for MWC 2025. Smartphones just happen to be the vessel for 5G and AI, and often come second on the show floor. Of course, phones are still launched. The Samsung Galaxy S6 took the top spot for phones at MWC 2015, LG introduced its unusual modular LG G5 the year after, and Huawei came with the P10 in 2017.
The cameras on all these phones were always talking points, especially on forward-thinking devices like the Huawei P10, but it was never the focus of the phone and hadn’t fully emerged as a major selling point at the time. The technology was also very different to the cameras on a top modern phone like the Galaxy S25 Ultra today. If we’d have seen a 200MP camera on a phone at MWC 2015, it would have taken the world by storm. Today, it’s a line in a review. However, when I last went to MWC, a phone did its best to get everyone talking, and it was a camera phone first and foremost.
One mad camera changed it all
In 2019 the Nokia name came back with a headliner phone made by HMD Global, which had recently secured the rights to produce phones with the Nokia name attached. It went in to MWC 2019 with the intention of making a big splash, attracting both newcomers and long-time Nokia fans with an exciting camera phone called the Nokia 9 PureView.
It immediately upstaged the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G’s four camera setup with five 12MP cameras on the back, plus some additional sensors taking the total number to seven, and they were all set flush against the rear panel too. Even today, the phone looks crazy, mostly for the diminutive size of the cameras. We’re used to giant camera modules, periscope zooms, and 1-inch sensors taking up a third of the rear panel these days, and the Nokia 9 PureView’s insect-like look is jarring.
But the look wasn’t as out-there as the camera spec. It used a custom Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor and something called a Lux Capacitor to ensure the best camera performance, along with expertise from Zeiss and camera company Light to make it all work. Remember Light? It made a multi-lens camera called the L16, and like it, the Nokia 9’s cameras all worked at once when you took a photo. Clever software combined photos from each camera into one, and because it shot in RAW, photographers could extensively edit images just like the would with a DSLR.
It was like nothing else we’d seen, but it wasn’t really aimed at casual photographers. You really needed to understand the mechanics of photography and image editing to get the most from it. The keenest mobile photographers were flocking to the Google Pixel 3 at the time, and the Nokia 9 PureView’s complexity stood out in the wrong way. But that was the least of the Nokia 9 PureView’s problems.
It should have been a winner
The Nokia 9 PureView should have been a big win for HMD Global (now known simply as HMD, or Human Mobile Devices), but it turned out to be a disaster. I remember being excited to try the camera out on a trip to Taipei, Taiwan, but all I recall about it was it being practically unusable. The camera app was very slow, some images took minutes to process or didn’t capture at all, and trying to do anything in the editor was impossible because the phone would freeze up. That was provided the fingerprint sensor actually unlocked the phone in the first place.
I was one of the lucky ones too. Some who ordered the limited edition phone found other problems, such as poor overall phone performance, and even the camera app failing completely. One buyer shared their experience on Reddit in a thread titled, “Nokia 9 PureView my worst purchase ever.”
The phone’s inconsistency wasn’t a good look for HMD Global, which was trying to win the hearts of Nokia fans at the time. Unfortunately the Nokia 9 PureView was a brave, exciting experiment that didn’t live up to its promise. It was the same for Light, the company which worked with HMD Global and Zeiss on the camera, which despite a pivot to phones and automotive, couldn’t survive and was eventually purchased by John Deere. Yes, the tractor maker.
Where’s the Nokia 10 PureView?
The Nokia 9 PureView wasn’t a good camera phone or a good smartphone. MWC 2019 was buzzing with talk about it, but what came after its limited release turned one of MWC’s most exciting phone announcements into one of its biggest disappointments. It had all the right ingredients though, and looking back it was probably a little ahead of its time. Modern processors and software may be better at handling the complexity of its multi-camera approach, but it’s unlikely HMD wants to have another go, and few other phone makers are likely willing to take a risk on a phone with such niche appeal.
It was the talk of MWC 2019 though, and I remember the discussion and excitement around it fondly. As I explained, rarely do smartphones make a really big impact at MWC these days, and niche camera phones are even more of a rarity. The Nokia 9 PureView made MWC a smartphone show for once, even if it did turn out to be a bit rubbish.
What about MWC 2025? It’s looking good, because Xiaomi — the current savior of current camera phones, in my opinion — is bringing the Xiaomi 15 Ultra to Barcelona. It’s not likely to be as bizarre as the Nokia 9 PureView, but that’s OK. What it needs to do is be equal to, or better than, the fantastic Xiaomi 14 Ultra, and it’ll be well on its way to being the camera phone to beat this year. I’m excited for it, but I’ll also secretly be hoping for a Nokia 10 PureView to make an unexpected appearance, complete with a dozen flush-mounted cameras, crazy features, and a processor that can actually handle it all. I can dream, right?
