Say Hello to the Huawei Nova 3i
The Huawei Nova 3i is the latest entrant to Huawei’s Nova lineup. It builds on the popularity of the Huawei Nova 2i which came out last year. Priced at LKR 44,000/- upwards, the Huawei Nova 3i is available from Huawei showrooms and authorized resellers islandwide.
Wrapped in a glass and plastic body, the first thing you notice about the Huawei Nova 3i is the display. Why? Because it’s huge. Now packing a large display onto a smartphone isn’t exactly easy. This is because with a screen that size, managing the phone with one hand becomes a trick. This is where Huawei’s FullView display comes into the picture. So, you get a 6.3-inch screen with a resolution of 2340×1080.
Like any 2018 smartphone, the Huawei Nova 3i comes with a notch at the top of the display. For those who don’t like it, fret not as the notch can be turned off if needed.
The notch houses the earpiece, front camera and the ambient light sensor as well. The sides of the device house the Volume rocker and power/lock buttons.
Located at the bottom of the Huawei Nova 3i are the micro USB port (No USB Type-C unfortunately), 3.5mm headphone jack (phew) and a loudspeaker on the right. It’s not a stereo speaker setup but then again, it’s not really a deal breaker. The back houses the fingerprint sensor, dual camera setup and LED flashlight.
Looking inside
The Huawei Nova 3i ships with a Hisilicon Kirin 710 Octa-core processor. Depending on the market, the Huawei Nova 3i comes with up to 128GB of internal storage and up to 6GB of RAM. If you need additional storage, you can forgo one SIM slot and pop a MicroSD card in.
The device runs Android 8.1 Oreo, skinned with the latest EMUI version which is EMUI 8.2. If you’ve used Huawei devices before, then the EMUI wouldn’t take too long to get used to. If it’s your first time with a Huawei device, even then, the time taken to get used to the phone is minimal.
The operating system gives you a plethora of customization features such as icon packs, wallpapers and lockscreen tweaks and several downloadable themes as well.
Having used Vanilla android for most of my smartphone time, I didn’t spend too much time customizing these aspects. But if you have the need to, you can do so.
In addition, the Huawei Nova 3i also supports Google’s ARCore feature. This means that the phone can run apps that rely on Augmented Reality. This was especially cool because one app that uses AR is Jurassic World Alive. You can also find several AR apps on the Google Play Store as well.
There are several customizations I did find useful. For example, you can use gesture to mute incoming calls, increase or decrease the volume and even unlock your phone when picked up. This requires you to set up the Face unlock feature on the phone which, again, is easy to do. Speaking of customizations, what I was really looking forward to was the camera.
Using AI to help you take better pictures
The Huawei Nova 3i couples a 16 MP, f/2.2 lens along with a 2 MP depth sensor. This has become standard for smartphones that pack a dual camera setup. In addition to this, the phone also has a dedicated AI mode when taking pictures.
So, when you are about to take a picture, the AI will automatically detect the best setting based on the environment and adjust the camera settings accordingly. This means your photos look a lot better as well. Once a photo has been captured, you can toggle the AI mode on and off to see the differences between the AI mode and regular mode.
Apart from the AI mode, the Huawei Nova 3i also sports several other photography modes such as Slow-mo, Night time, Panorama, HDR, Watermark, Good food and even a 3D panorama mode.
Another cool feature about the camera is the AR Lens mode. You can take your pic(k) of 3D Qmoji, Effects, Backgrounds and 3D Objects. They all use your facial expression overlaid with several filters to produce some hilarious and surprisingly accurate effects. Pretty fun if you’re bored and have some time to waste.
The portrait mode was another feature that blew me away. The front camera of the Nova 3i packs a 24 MP, f/2.0 lens along with a 2 MP, depth sensor, much like the rear camera setup. Apart from having the standard bokeh effect in portrait photography, the Huawei Nova 3i makes use of 3D lighting.
This adds several lighting effects such as soft, Butterfly, Split, Stage and Classic lighting. The classic lighting is thus far my favorite. It detects a face and then cuts out the rest of the image leaving only the face. This makes it interesting if you’re trying out portrait photography.
If you want even more control over the camera, the Huawei Nova 3i offers full manual controls as well. So, you can control the ISO, shutter speed, noise, and focus levels, all in real time. As far as a smartphone camera, the Huawei Nova 3i has a lot going for it. In terms of video, the Huawei Nova 3i can capture footage at 1080p at 30FPS.
Now, using all these features would take a hit on the phone’s battery, right?
Can the Huawei Nova 3i Last the day?
You’d think with all these features running, the Huawei Nova 3i would be dead in a couple of hours. Interestingly, the battery life on the device was surprisingly good.
I’ve been using the phone for some time now. From gaming to Netflix, to Facebook and Instagram, the Huawei Nova 3i had around 20% battery left after a full day of use. Then again, results will vary based on what you are doing. But the fact that I don’t have to keep depending on my power bank is a relief.
Overall, though, I was quite impressed with the 3340mAh battery on the Huawei Nova 3i. Sadly, the phone doesn’t support fast charging and the micro USB port also means that a full charge takes around 2 hours. Again, not a deal breaker, especially for a phone at this price point.
Making the Huawei Nova 3i break a sweat
While benchmarks are designed to utilize the complete capacity of a device, they are not exactly a representation of real-world usage. We decided to put the Huawei Nova 3i against some tough benchmarks such as GeekBench 4 and 3D Mark.
In short, the Huawei Nova 3i does quite a good job of handling a heavy workload for a midrange device. One thing that should be noted was that the device remained cool throughout the entire process. This is especially handy if you’re planning on gaming a lot.
Final thoughts
For the price, the Huawei Nova 3i is quite a good option for anyone who’s on the lookout for a mid-range smartphone that packs an impressive set of specs. The glass back design accentuates the premium look of the device, but it also makes it a fingerprint magnet.
In addition, it also makes it quite slippery to hold on to. Fortunately, a cover or case will solve that problem. The lack of fast charging is also a bit of a downer along with the lack of a USB Type-C port as well. The fingerprint sensor is ridiculously fast, and I found myself locking the phone just because I accidentally brushed the sensor with my finger and the phone got unlocked.
If you’re in the market for a mid-range smartphone that also looks good and has a really good camera, give the Huawei Nova 3i a shot. If you’re already using one, let us know what you think at – mirrormagazine@gmail.com
The author is senior tech writer for ReadMe a leading tech news provider. For more information log onto readme.lk