Dubai
Huawei’s new mid-range device — Nova 2 Plus — draws plenty of style from this year’s P10 with antenna bands blending into the body.
The Chinese firm has finally joined the 20MP front-facing camera bandwagon. Others are Vivo V5 series, Gionee A1 Plus and Oppo R11 series.
The 5.5-inch device with a 2.5D curved glass over the top has a resolution of 1,920 × 1,080 pixels (400 pixels per inch density) is powered by home-grown 2.36GHz Octa-core Kirin 659 processor and coupled with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage capacity. The dual-SIM hybrid tray supports up to 128GB microSD card.
The Full HD screen is decent with bright colours and details and you cannot expect an AMOLED screen at this price point.
It has a strong and slim metallic unibody at 6.9mm. It weighs 169 grams. It runs on Android 7.0 Nougat with Huawei’s EMUI 5.1 user interface over the top. The new user interface is much cleaner and less intrusive than previous Huawei skins, and all of Android Nougat’s software features are here with the exception of the Google Assistant.
It can be turned into Google mode to get Google Assistant by launching Google Now.
With the fingerprint sensor, users can pull the notification centre up or down, take pictures or videos and answer calls. The fingerprint sensor, which is on the back side, is one of the fastest in the market and unlocks the device in 0.3 seconds.
The apps load fast and surfing the internet and swiping the pages are also fast but demanding graphic intensive games experience lag as the GPU is not that powerful.
The dual 12MP wide-angle lens with f/1.8 aperture and 8MP telephoto lens with f/2.4 aperture back cameras has phase detection autofocus and LED flash to let you zoom two times with no real loss of quality.
It is a solid camera for the budget phone and does well even in low light and at night, though it does tend to blur if you move too much.
Pictures are clear and detailed in better light conditions, and autofocus locks on quickly. Shots become grainy in dimmer light, but enabling HDR or Night Shot mode does help reduce some of the muddiness.
Huawei’s popular camera modes such as professional mode, perfect selfie, beauty mode, food mode, 3D Panorama, Panorama, Light Painting, Time Lapse, Slow Motion. Other offbeat features include the option to add a watermark, make an audio note, or capture a document.
It has got nine filters to add.
The ‘Portrait’ mode combined with the bokeh effect — basically blurs the background of an image — and beauty mode effects we’ve seen in the past on other Huawei devices into a single effect. If you’re planning to take photos of people on either the front or back camera, tap the little portrait logo and you’ll enter the new mode.
It can record 1080p at 30 frames per second.
The front camera with f/2.0 aperture is where the device excels with Professional Portrait Mode and new facial recognition technology to deliver more natural and true-to-life portraits. The LCD screen turns into a flash in lowlight conditions to make portraits really pop out.
The front camera also allows users to shoot with a bokeh effect. It has got Panorama, 3D Panorama, Time-Lapse, Watermark and Audio Note as modes and nine filters. The front can record videos in 720p.
The ‘Moving Picture’ feature is fun and opens up some interesting creative opportunities similar to Apple’s Live Photos mode.
Huawei has added a Hi-Fi chip to minimise distortion, harmonics, noise and other disturbance with audio processing to create theatre-quality and 3D stereo sound. The audio quality (24-bit) is really superb and really high to fill a room.
Regarding connectivity, it has WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, WiFi Direct, hot spot, Bluetooth 4.2, USB Type-C port but no NFC.
The ‘App Twin’ app lets users create second Facebook and WhatsApp accounts with different names. But this will not work with third-party apps.
The ‘floating dock’ features lets users move the virtual key anywhere on the home screen with primary Android keys — Back, Home, Task Switcher, Lock and Close all running apps. It will help you control your phone with just one hand.
Motion control also plays a significant role as it did on previous models. There are flip gestures, as well as picking up, tilting and even things like knuckle detection and drawing. All of those are extensively customisable to your liking as well.
The 3,340mAh battery is more than enough to supply juice for a full day of usage. With quick charging solution, it can charge to 40 per cent in 30 minutes and to full in 103 minutes. Support for power saving features.
It is available in black, gold and blue colours at a price of Dh1,399.
Pros
Slim and sleek design
20MP selfie camera
Plenty of storage capacity
Excellent audio quality
Value for money
Cons
No NFC
Only one SIM supports 4G
GPU not powerful
Bit heavy
Resembles iPhone 6 Plus
