the mid ranger phone market is really
hot this year at Aoife while we took the
wraps off a pair of wallet friendly
phones and since I have smaller hands
I'll be reviewing the smaller offering
I'm Juan Carlos bag Nell for Pocket now
and here's our full review of the huawei
Nova first a little housekeeping we've
got a 5-inch 1080p LCD powered by a new
mid-range chipset look welcome 6 2 5 3
gigabytes of RAM and 32 gigabytes of
storage with 8 dual SIM card tray that
can accept microSD cards to expand that
storage an 8 megapixel selfie camera
adorns the front face with a 12
megapixel rear camera on the back
capable of shooting UHD video a 3000 20
milliamp hour battery is a respectable
size for a smaller mid-range ur and USB
type-c should be expected on all new
phones moving forward these days proof
getting the specs out of the way this
screen size is pretty terrific for folks
with smaller hands or people wanting a
better one-handed experience some might
complain about the rear mounted
fingerprint sensor when the phone is on
a table but using the Nova on-the-go you
rarely have to dance the phone around in
your hand to fully navigate the user
interface though this LCD is a bit dim
unfortunately landing just ahead of the
LG g5 and just behind the honor 8 it's
right at that threshold where it's
bright enough to see what you're doing
went outdoors but this is not a sunlight
busting champ
the Nova borrows a number of design cues
from previous Huawei devices rounding
the corners in sculpting the back like
the g8 including the cutout around the
camera like the p9 and chamfering the
edges to play with light this is a clean
look for Huawei which takes a small step
away from some of the previous Apple and
HTC inspired designs and it develops a
more cohesive brand look alongside
products like the media pad m3 what's
odd is seeing the larger Nova plus alter
that look because of the bigger camera
bulge and of course we have huawei's
custom launcher pre-installed emui takes
familiar Android design elements like
the app drawer and throws them out the
window for an overall user interface
more closely related to iOS mixing
widgets and apps shortcuts can look
really cluttered which is why Apple
doesn't do this we've covered a
you I in greater detail and past reviews
but for folks who don't enjoy this
layout installing Google now launcher or
nova launcher on your nova can get you
most of the way back to something more
familiar moving over to performance the
Nova is packing a Qualcomm six to five
chip set and it's the first time we've
reviewed a phone using the silicon the
numbering for the CPU is spot-on as the
Nova performs somewhere between the
Huawei GX 8 which used a Qualcomm 615
and phones like the Alcatel idol 4s
which use a Qualcomm 6 v 2 this is about
as middle-of-the-road as you can be in
the middle of mid pack performers this
chipset does arrive with a few tricks
however a smaller manufacturing process
helps it run cooler and this phone
didn't heat up radically while
installing our normal collection of apps
the 625 also supports UHD video
recording which we'll talk about more in
the next section on the camera using the
phone in real-world situations it
definitely feels a step behind devices
with more powerful Hardware basic
navigation is handled well but after
using an honor 8 for so long the
difference is in applo ting time
multitasking and gaming are noticeable
and let's talk about this camera playing
with the smaller of the nova siblings
we're swapping hardware image
stabilization for larger pixels and the
results aren't bad we don't have the
same semi-professional focus on controls
here with more of a point-and-shoot
approach to this camera app
unsurprisingly similar to what apple
offers on the iPhone on the whole we get
nice shots out of the setup white
balance tends to land a bit on the warm
side and we definitely see a tendency
towards over saturation but images
should satisfy most consumers shopping
near this price point though the Nova
just isn't the kind of budget camera
champ we might find on a 1 plus 3 or
it's cousin the honor 8 we are working
on early software - as about one out of
20 HDR shots just completely jumped the
rails like this one here now getting
dark all phones could benefit from image
stabilization in low-light situations
but the Nova performs better here than
we thought it would pushing the phone to
its limits on this snail shot we managed
to land focus and expose an image in
almost no light it's a terrible shot and
you would definitely just want to throw
your flash but the phone still managed
to produce something which was in some
way shape or form I
identify Balazs it's nail now what's
interesting about the shooter is seeing
a 600 series qualcomm chipset capable of
UHD video which doesn't overheat as
easily as the Alcatel or sony phones
we've reviewed nova produced a crisp
image with around a 40 megabits per
second bitrate but no hardware image
stabilization means every shot is going
to be twitchy even when you're trying to
hold still
though scaling back to 1080p we get an
absolutely terrific software
stabilization so there is an option to
prevent seasick video I trip right about
here and the camera barely flinched
moving over to audio the speaker on tap
is thankfully louder than phone's like
the honor rate though the output is a
touch airy or hissy at max volume a can
hold on to some aggressively loud music
tracks with little distortion but the
highs will sound brittle or shrill not
bad for alerts not great for music
headphone audio unfortunately is a
lowest-common-denominator solution it's
functional but this is a woefully weak
amp and the nova posts DAC quality
numbers more in keeping with lower
budget options in checking out the
radios
unfortunately the Nova didn't fully
support et LTE so we couldn't get a
great handle on that radio reception
over HSPA calls were clear and
connection was strong around my
neighborhood surprisingly Wi-Fi
performance was very strong for a metal
backbone in this price tear staying
connected to my router at greater
distances than most flagships we've
reviewed the flipside to this however is
that our review unit doesn't seem to
support five gigahertz we can only see
2.4 gig signals when trying to connect
and lastly looking at battery life we
were hopeful that this revised processor
would prove to be a battery champ thanks
to a die shrink which helps the phone
run cooler but this has to be balanced
against the display now testing at 190
lux we picked that number because it was
close to 50% output on the galaxy s7
this means the backlight on the Nova is
working at close to three-quarters of
its peak output running our media test
streaming 30 minutes of HD video over
Wi-Fi at 190 Lux the Nova did well
draining only 5% of its battery and
these numbers are right in line with
phones like the galaxy s7
easily vesting devices using the less
power efficient Qualcomm 650 chipsets in
charging the phone however Huawei
doesn't list a specific quick charging
specification and recharge numbers our
average after 1/2 hour on a charger
we only saw a 27% recharge so let's wrap
this up where does that leave us
with the Huawei Nova there are just so
many conflicting emotions the $400
market is crazy competitive right now we
just shot another video roundup on all
of the great options at this price point
so Western pricing for the Nova will be
crucial the announced price of 399 euro
doesn't instill us with a lot of
confidence if this phone lands unlocked
around 380 dollars attractive design
can't make up the performance difference
against a phone like the honor 8 which
would only cost about 20 dollars more
and is arguably even more attractive
however this phone is near perfectly
built to do battle against the new Moto
G 4 + nearly spec 4 spec it easily
handles Moto's current budget champ a
small premium price bump would certainly
make sense given what this phone can do
but carving into that hundred dollar
buffer between a moto and a 1 + 3 axon 7
or honor rate just makes the argument
for ANOVA increasingly difficult
I like the Nova a lot it's a terrific
form factor and an attractive device but
this is the most dangerous territory to
launch a phone right now as always
thanks so much for watching be sure to
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the next review
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