The Huawei nova has a very promising 5" IPS display of 1080p resolution and 441ppi pixel density. The 2.5D screen glass looks nice, but we would have really appreciated an adequate glass protection to keep the scratches away from the display. Once again, there is no protective glass mentioned anywhere in the Huawei's promo materials and official specs.
Huawei promises 450nits of maximum brightness. The 390 nits max brightness we measured is close enough to their claim.
The minimum level of brightness that we observed is great at 3.3nits and should be quite comfortable for reading in the dark.
Thanks to the really deep blacks the contrast is excellent at 1540:1, living up to Huawei's promised 1500:1, and it's better than the P9 and Honor 8's.
Regarding color reproduction accuracy, the Huawei nova screen is an average performer. It came out less than stellar with an average deviation (DeltaE) of 6.7 - a bit higher than what we would ideally like. Fortunately, opting for the warm colors calibration option fixes all colors that were off and achieves a very good average deviation (DeltaE) of 4.8.
Display test | 100% brightness | ||
Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | ||
0.25 | 385 | 1540 | |
0.31 | 397 | 1281 | |
0.46 | 500 | 1094 | |
0.42 | 497 | 1192 | |
0.37 | 460 | 1243 | |
0.44 | 539 | 1219 | |
0.00 | 422 | ∞ | |
0.49 | 561 | 1145 | |
0.00 | 433 | ∞ | |
0.00 | 363 | ∞ |
The Huawei nova did an uninspiring job in our sunlight legibility test. A score of 2.467 means you may have a hard time seeing what's happening on the display in bright sunlight.
The Huawei nova is powered by a hefty 3,020mAh battery. The battery is non-removable but combined with the 14nm midrange Snapdragon processor we expect it to go a long way.
We ran our battery test and the Huawei nova plus scored an 84h rating, which means you can count on the battery to last 3 and a half days on a single charge if you do an hour each of calling, browsing the web and video playback a day. The phone posted consistently good scores on all tests, including standby.
The dual-SIM standby takes just 2 hours from the total endurance rating.
Standby battery life was gauged in the Performance mode, which does not put any limits on the hardware. The Standard mode will add a couple of hours to the rating, while the Ultra Power Saving will keep your phone alive for some extra time.
The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritties. You can also check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.
The Huawei nova is properly equipped in terms of connectivity. The radio support includes up to four 2G bands, five 3G bands, and eight 4G bands. The LTE connectivity is Cat.7 which means up to 300Mbps downlink and up to 150Mbps uplink.
Our variant comes with a hybrid nano-SIM/microSD slot. The secondary card can only hook to 2G networks while the primary one gets the full set of cellular connectivity.
The Huawei nova oddly supports single-band 2.4GHz Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, with Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi+ and hotspot capabilities. Bluetooth is v4.1 and NFC is available too.
The GPS support includes A-GPS and GLONASS. There is an FM radio as well.
A 3.5mm jack provides the standard audio connectivity option. There is the new USB Type-C connector for charging and data connections. Mind you, it defaults to charge-only every single time you connect it to a PC, and you have to manually switch the mode from the notification area if you want to do something else.
Tip us
1.9m 150k
RSS
EV
Merch
Log in I forgot my password Sign up