Huawei just unveiled its premium phone, the Huawei Nova 3, and its lighter version, the Nova 3i, in India. Ashish Narsale explores their advantages and disadvantages.
The Huawei Nova3 and the Huawei Nova3i were launched in China on July 18.
This phone series will now be exclusively available for sale on Amazon India.
Let's see what these premium phones are all about.
Design
The Huawei Nova 3 and the Nova 3i follow the design language of Huawei P20 series.
Both variants are adorned with glass on both sides, while the sandwiched metal frame protects the vitals inside a 6.1” inch phone body.
In front, the display occupies all available area except for a notch at the top and a small chin at the bottom.
The bezel on the left and right of the phone are very thin.
The notch at the top houses the front dual camera modules, an earpiece, the IR and other sensors.
On the rear, the dual cameras are stacked vertically on the left corner of the phone, followed by LED flash.
The fingerprint sensor is placed top centre, just below and aligned to the LED flash.
At the bottom of the frame, we find a speaker grill and centrally aligned Type-C USB 2.0 port for charging and data transfer.
The Huawei Nova 3i has a micro B USB 2.0 port instead.
To the right of the port lies a 3.5mm audio jack.
The phones will be available in iris purple and black.
Display
The displays on both variants are similar; they have a 6.3” inches TFT LCD display with a screen resolution of 2340 x 1080 pixels (FHD+).
The obstructive notch for many can be hidden through the phone settings.
As the bezel at the bottom is almost bare minimum, the navigation buttons are accessible from within the display and their position can be customised according to your liking.
Hardware
It's the hardware that separates the two variants.
The Huawei Nova 3 runs on Huawei's flagship Octa-core processor, the HiSilicon Kirin 970.
It's the same processor that powers Huawei's flagship Huawei P20 Pro.
Four of the eight cores are clocked at 2.36 GHz and the remaining are clocked at 1.8 GHz.
The processing is supported by 6 GB RAM for memory and 128 ROM for storage.
The Huawei Nova 3i will run on the HiSilicon Kirin 710 processor, which is supported by 4 GB RAM of memory and 128 GB of storage space.
Camera
The Huawei Nova 3 and Huawei Nova 3i have quad cameras, two in the front and two at the rear.
The cameras on both the variants are backed by AI for artificial intelligence assisted photography.
The rear dual cameras on the Huawei Nova 3 are 24 + 16 MP with f/1.8 aperture and support PDAF, whereas the rear dual cameras on the Huawei Nova 3i consists of 16 + 2 MP with f/2.2 aperture, which also supports PDAF.
The rear cameras in both variants can detect 22 types of scenes for optimising the camera setting best suited to the environment and lighting condition.
The front cameras on both variants are a set of 24 + 2 MP with f/2.0 aperture and support many features.
With the assistance of an embedded IR(Infrared) sensor, the front cameras on the Huawei Nova 3 can detect faces in any given light condition for the face unlock feature.
The front cameras on both variants can detect eight types of scenes and automatically optimise the camera settings in real time while taking photos.
The front cameras also support HDR Pro mode, which controls the exposure at the hardware level for a perfect photo even in direct sunlight.
And if you envied the animoji in the Apple iPhone X, the 3D Qmoji is available on both variants.
Battery
The Huawei Nova 3 has a 3750 mAh which supports fast charging and is aided with AI for resource allocation to avoid unnecessary battery drain.
The Huawei Nova 3i is packed with a 3340 mAh battery.
Software
The phones come with Android Oreo 8.1 out of the box and are layered with Huawei's EMUI 8.2.
Price
The Huawei Nova 3 can be pre booked for ₹34,999 and the Huawei Nova 3i for ₹20,990 on Amazon India.
Verdict
Nowadays, we are spoiled for choice when it comes to a new phone.
I would suggest that you either buy a fully loaded flagship phone or a stripped down version of the same at half the price so that you can still enjoy the premium build and some flagship features.
The Huawei Nova 3 and the Nova 3i are stripped down versions of the Huawei P20 pro, so the premium look and feel can be bought at half the price of the flagship.
If you like good design, enjoy taking and shoot photos mostly in the daylight, then these are the phones for you.
