Nokia apologises for fake Lumia 920 demo

Camera stunt wasn't real.

Nokia has admitted that a demo it staged this week to showcase the anti-blur capabilities of the camera included in its new Lumia 920 smartphone was a fake.

The Finnish handset maker came clean in a blog post Thursday, explaining that the video footage it showed during the Lumia 920 launch event to highlight the optical image stabilisation (OIS) capabilities of the smartphone's new PureView camera wasn't actually filmed with the phone. It was filmed instead with a large-scale video camera.

"Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but we should have posted a disclaimer stating this was a representation of OIS only," wrote Heidi Lemmetyinen, editor-in-chief of Nokia's official blog, in the post. "This was not shot with a Lumia 920. At least, not yet. We apologise for the confusion we created."

Nokia's blog post, entitled "An apology is due," was published after tech bloggers at The Verge reported the fake-out, having noticed a reflection of a large video camera in Wednesday's demo video.

Nokia posted a new video on its blog showing footage actually filmed with the Lumia 920's OIS technology, placing it with side-by-side footage filmed by another smartphone without OIS for viewers to compare.

"Here is the video shown at the press conference shot using a Lumia 920," Lemmetyinen wrote. "On the right is a Lumia 920 prototype with OIS. On the left is a smartphone without OIS. The difference is apparent."

The new Lumia 920, which runs on Microsoft's new Windows Phone 8 OS, is largely considered a make-or-break move for Nokia. The smartphone maker has struggled to compete against market leaders Apple and Samsung.

According to recent data from mobile analysts ComScore, Android and iOS collectively account for 85.6 percent of the U.S. subscriber base, while Microsoft's Windows Phone accounts for a comparatively meager 3.6 percent.

Nokia did not disclose pricing or availability details for the new Lumia 920 at this week's launch event, a move that apparently left investors wanting more; Nokia shares plummeted 16 percent after the new smartphone was unveiled.

This article originally appeared at crn.com