Customers of O2 hoping for an upgrade to Nokia's new 41-megapixel camera phone, the 808 PureView, are out of luck: O2 has decided not to offer the handset in the UK.
A spokesperson for O2 confirmed the decision to Wired.co.uk today, although didn't cite specific reasons for it. T-Mobile, Orange and Vodafone have also informed us that they have no plans to offer the phone either. Three could not confirm whether it would or would not offer the phone.
Wired.co.uk has been led to believe by a source close to O2 that it was not the PureView's camera that disappointed the network, but Symbian, its outdated operating system.
Symbian has sorely lacked the innovations and features of its rivals in recent years, despite once being the darling of the mobile OS world -- Nokia even ditched the platform from its smartphones in 2012 in favour of Microsoft's Windows Phone OS.
The PureView appears to be a casualty left on the battlefield during this transition. In our testing thus far, its camera functionality is proving to be a commendable bit of innovation from Nokia, but it's struggling to excite networks from beneath the burden of the handset's last-generation software platform.
O2 explained that it is "continuing to work with Nokia on future products", however, and it's highly likely the camera in the PureView will surface in a future Windows Phone device.
The 808 PureView will still be available SIM-free, meaning O2 and T-Mobile customers can put their current SIM cards into the device, but may need to put up £500 for the privilege.
Nokia reported a loss of 1.3 billion euros (about £1 billion) in its Q1 2012 financial report. This was partly the result of a 52 percent decline in sales of its smartphones compared to Q1 2011.
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