[Review] Huawei Nova - A miniature Nexus 6P

When compared to my faithful Nexus 6P it looks like its little brother, yet Huawei Nova it has very little to envy to the smartphone born from the collaboration between Google and Huawei, thanks to a good choice of hardware and undoubtedly excellent optimization.

Have you thought about buying it? We tell you the pros and cons of this device.

Doppelganger

The design of Huawei Nova really resembles in all respects that of Nexus 6P, starting from metal shell - except for a couple of plastic inserts - up to the black bar on the back, fortunately no longer in relief as was the case on the former top of the Google range.

The keys on the right side of the device, on the other hand, are slightly different, with the on and off button that is no longer knurled but edged in red, and the speakers, this time placed on the lower edge, next to the very comfortable entrance. USB Type-C. The upper side instead houses the headphone jack and a microphone, while on the left side there is only the small door that allows us to insert the nano-SIM and an eventual microSD, useful in case i 32 GB of internal memory were not enough for you.

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN HUAWEI NOVA, BUY IT HERE 

The most evident changes, however, concern the front, enriched by a 2.5D glass slightly curved on the edges, which greatly improves the ergonomics of the smartphone, and from a 5 inch Full HD IPS display which behaves very well outdoors and which boasts a very wide viewing angle. The only real flaw is represented by the brightness sensor, which during our test proved unresponsive, forcing us to manually adjust the screen every now and then.

Team that wins ...

Instead, there is very little to say about the performance of this device. With his octa-core Snapdragon 625 processor, his 3GB RAM and Adreno GPU 506, Huawei Nova has proven to be able to withstand even the intensive use that I usually tend to make of it. Furthermore, by alternating games, navigation, calls and various messages, the battery from 3020 mAh she always managed to take me to the end of the day, without having to worry about traveling with a heavy powerbank or an equally annoying charging cable.

Good also the fingerprint sensor, very fast as in all the smartphones of the Chinese giant, and the speakers, which reach a rather high volume without distorting the sound.

As for the software, on the other hand, we find a coupled which is now widespread on Huawei's smartphones: Android 6.0 with EMUI 4.1. A choice that guarantees the Asian manufacturer to have fairly up-to-date smartphones, well optimized and rather user-friendly and which offers users a number of interesting additional options, such as the gestures related to the aforementioned fingerprint reader, or the use of the knuckles, and notifications in chronological order.

Noise

Huawei Nova hosts two cameras: a rear, from 12 megapixel con autofocus, and a front 8 megapixel camera, with fixed focus. In general, they both tend to perform quite well, as long as the lighting conditions are pretty good. When ambient lighting is reduced, the results tend to be a little different, with photos much noisier than expected. On the other hand, the videos are good, which always turn out to be very fluid even though the digital stabilization is not exactly the best.

And if you are a lover of "special" effects, know that the little Nova has several aces up his sleeve. In fact, you will have at your disposal time-lapse, slow motion video, HDR and Light Painting, while for photography lovers there are manual settings, which allow you to adjust the ISO, exposure, focus and white balance.

Here the original photos: https://goo.gl/photos/aS8Rt8c5uxPU9hqx6

Good but not great

Huawei Nova performed really well during our test, proving itself responsive in every situation and allowing us to get to the end of the day without too many problems. Sure, the defects are not lacking, just think of the brightness sensor or the lack of support for the 5 GHz wireless band, but it is undeniable that this device is still un excellent investment, even if - we can't help but notice - there are cheaper smartphones from the same manufacturer and capable of offering similar performance.

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN HUAWEI NOVA, BUY IT HERE