Nokia has confirmed that the PureView 808 will forgo a U.S. debut and instead head off to Russia, India, and a whole lot of other places first. But there was no way I was going to miss the chance to get my hands on a phone with a 41-megapixel camera.

Unfortunately, no photo prints from the PureView's camera were available, and that would be the best way to judge picture quality. So I was forced to make my evaluation based on what I could see on the phone's low-res screen. Nevertheless, what I saw was impressive. I took a picture of a plant from a moderate distance, and when I zoomed in, I was able to see its tiny petals and other little details.

As for specs, the Pureview 808, which runs on Nokia's Belle platform, has a 4-inch Amoled display, but the resolution is on the low side: just 360 by 340 pixels. The phone has a 1.3GHz single-core processor and 16GB of internal storage—not so much, when you consider that a pictures snapped at full resolution can take up more than 10MB.

At 4.88 inches x 2.27 inches x 0.55 inches, the phone is a bit thick. But its rounded back makes it comfortable to hold. And the Pureview 808 runs on 3G GSM networks, not 4G, so e-mailing those pics to friends may take a while if there's no Wi-Fi network nearby.

Nokia says it will be only a matter of months before we see a phone camera with that kind of resolution here in the States. I can hardly wait.