Originally posted by Erik if I sound a bit negative in this thread, it's only because I'm allergic to marketing-speak and wish to demystify some things about the technology involved.
I fully understand this emotion. However, in this paricular case, I disagree.
Nokia will fail with their approach if potential customers fail to see the point. And let's face it, 99% of customers don't have any demand beyond 8MP. Let alone in a phone.
So, their speech
must be that their technology does indeed replace the optical zoom which phone cameras lack.
IMHO, they could have been a bit more aggressive to highlight the unprecedented (for a P&S) low light capabilities and image quality at the wide end. To say that the blurring effect of the Bayer filter becomes invisible (at the wide part) is important and correct.
And they move on to explain in ample detail how this is done and it is binning(*) and in-cropping actually.
(*) I am not sure actually that they do in-sensor binning. It more looks like traditional in-camera downsampling which is a good thing.
I think this is one of the rare cases where marketing speech fulfils a useful function. To make people understand what it is good for.
Btw, 4x downsampling with a Bayer sensor does indeed deliver the same full color RGB pixel quality a Foveon sensor does. With the added advantage that it delivers 4x higher resolution in the luminosity channel.