Huawei Nova 2

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Reviews for the Huawei Nova 2

Foreign Reviews

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Model: Huawei used to be synonymous with PC modems and networking devices but these days they are also quite well known for making good Android smartphones in most markets and it seems like Huawei might be trying to beat Apple to the punch before their release of the iPhone 8. For starters, it seems like the Nova 2 and its bigger brother, the Nova 2 Plus, is somewhat reminiscent of the 6S and 6 Plus from Apple. But do not let its design trick you into thinking that it’s just another one of those apple wannabe’s. Under the hood, the Huawei Nova 2 is packing Huawei’s own SoC design called the Kirin 659, which may seem like a untested design but it is still an 8 core CPU, which may prove to be a capable driver. Apart from that the Huawei Nova 2 is also equipped with 4 GB of RAM, 64 GB of storage, a dual 12 MP plus 8 MP camera combo for the rear,  and an additional 20 MP front camera. The specs are about mid-range if purely comparing the numbers. With the preloaded Android 7 Nougat it remains quite snappy although as with most China made phones there are tons of bloatware, which some users may never end up using. Display-wise the Huawei Nova 2 is sporting a 5-inch FHD IPS based LCD panel. It is reasonably sharp and vivid. However, the brightness is about average. In terms of the chassis construction and design the Huawei Nova 2 is made out of a single metal unibody, which is similar to the iPhone. It looks premium and not poorly made, although it seems that Huawei does not seem to grasp the concept of glossiness equals fingerprint magnet. In this case you might want to have a phone case not for damage protection but for fingerprint protection. Otherwise the chassis is reasonably rigid and solid.

The speakers are about as good as they can get. They are not groundbreaking but would surely do you wonders in a pinch. It is just a common thing that phones of this market segment don usually not have anything more than its needed. Dual camera setups are starting to get mainstream. The Nova 2's gives some satisfactory shots with proper zoom, which does not take away from its quality. However, a monochrome mode is unavailable. This does not mean that the camera is bad, but some over sharpening effects can be seen. Lastly, battery life should be mentioned. While the Huawei Nova 2 has a battery capacity of 2950 mAh it does not really take away from its battery life which it loses at about 15% per hour when on load. The battery life of easily 10 hours under lighter load and possibly even longer if used infrequently is reasonable. The phone is about solid with its mid-range specification and performance. It surpasses its predecessor even though the Snapdragon SoC was replaced by Huawei’s in house design.

Hands-on article by Jagadisa Rajarathnam

ARM Mali-T830 MP2: Integrated graphics card for smartphones and tablets with two clusters (MP2) supporting OpenGL ES 3.2. Only some 3D games with very low demands are playable with these cards. » Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Graphics Cards and the corresponding Benchmark List.
Kirin 659: ARM-based octa-core SoC (4x Cortex-A53 max. 2.36 GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 max 1.7 GHz) with an integrated LTE modem (Cat. 13) and a ARM Mali-T830 MP2. In our benchmarks around 4% faster as the older Kirin 658.» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Processsors.
5":

This is a typical smartphone diagonal.

» To find out how fine a display is, see our DPI List.
0.143 kg:

Only few smartphones are more lightweight than this.

Huawei: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. is a Chinese company founded in 1987 with focus on telecommunications hardware and 170000 employees. In the first quarter of 2016, Huawei had a market share of 8.2% in the smartphone market, making it the third-largest smartphone manufacturer in the world. Compared to the same quarter of 2015, Huawei increased its market share by more than 58%.
In 2014, Huawei created the sub brand Honor and offers certain smartphone series under this name. The name Huawei is usually not listed for these products.
There are a lot of reviews on Huawei phones with slightly above average ratings (as of 2016).
79.16%: This rating is not convincing. The laptop is evaluated below average, this is not really a recommendation for purchase.
» Further information can be found in our Notebook Purchase Guide.

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