Review of Huawei Nova 2 - when the first generation is still better

What's included

I had nothing on the test other than a smartphone. However, we managed to find out (reliably!) that the smartphone comes with:

• USB Type-C cable
• Power supply with support for SuperCharge fast charging
• SIM card removal needle
• wired headset
• plastic bumper - just like Huawei P10

Photo taken from gagadget.com, which is understandable

We must pay tribute to manufacturers from China - many include even a simple case with their devices. When a model is new, you can’t find accessories for it, but here you get a case right out of the box for the first time. Class!

Appearance

The front side of the smartphone is almost completely occupied by a 5-inch screen; the Huawei logo fits organically into the panel below; the touch keys are located a little higher, directly on the display itself.

Above it is the front camera lens, speaker and LED notification indicator.

The front side is completely covered with protective 2.5D glass.

The body is made of metal with a matte finish, the corners are rounded, and the ends are beveled and smoothly flow into the back panel. Which looks very laconic and strict: there are no flashy details or logos.

There are only two main camera lenses, located in a row with an LED flash.

Below, in the center, there is a fingerprint scanner in the color of the panel, framed by a dark metal frame.

On the right side are the volume key and the power button, which has a slightly rough surface.

On the left side there is a slot for two nanoSIM cards (or a microSd memory card, it’s your choice).

There is an additional microphone at the top of the end, but all the other connectors are located at the bottom: USB Type-C, 3.5 mm audio jack for a headset, a conversational microphone and a speaker grille.

The dimensions of the smartphone are small: 68.9 × 142.2 × 6.9 mm, and the weight is only 143 grams.

In the official store, Huawei Nova 2 is available in three colors: black. gold and blue.

Design or iPhone is everything

Huawei Nova 2 has something to praise and criticize. Let's start with the last one.

How long can you completely copy Apple?! It's not funny anymore.

Let all sorts of Doogees and Cubots do this, but where is Huawei? It’s one thing when you’re catching up with a weak brand from China. Another thing is Huawei 2021. Everyone knows about the company and has heard that their smartphones are of high quality.

The world's third largest smartphone seller after all. Why would such a cool company copy a competitor? I just can’t get my head around it.

Do you think I’m such a bastard, I’m scolding Huawei again? Here's the opinion of an impromptu focus group. I showed Nova 2 to several people who were very far from the trends of the mobile world, and all of them said in the first second: “Oh! It’s an iPhone 7!”

Huawei Nova first generation

The thing is that the first generation of Nova had its own, special and eye-catching design. The manufacturer took the G8 and reborn it into a new device: a fresh appearance with recognizable Huawei features, excellent ergonomics - that's all.

And Nova 2 turned out to be the purest copy of the iPhone 7. I won’t even describe the appearance in detail. Everything is already visible.

Positive!

If we ignore all this nonsense, like “it’s similar or not similar,” Nova 2 looks, and most importantly, feels great in the hand!

It's really pleasant to use: thin body, neatly rounded corners, excellent 2.5D glass with oleophobic coating, assembly - everything is on the level.

Of course, there are a couple of nuances, but they are not significant.

For example, small traces of use in the form of stains remain on the back surface. This can be seen in the photo below.

Such abrasions do not disappear anywhere, but only multiply over time. The recipe for this problem is simple - pack the device in a case. However, hiding such beauty under plastic - well, I don’t know. That's not why Huawei copied the iPhone 7.

OK! That's it, I won't make fun of you anymore.

The most important thing is that Huawei did not experiment. The audio port remained untouched (located at the bottom), touch buttons on the body did not appear, and still eat up useful screen space. Yes, they hide in games and when watching movies. However, I can't understand why the engineers still leave them in the gallery. This has not happened anywhere for a long time, but in the proprietary EMUI shell this thorn still exists.

The fingerprint scanner is located on the back. This is not the best place for it, but at least it’s good that the finger can reach it without any problems. There is no need to specially intercept the device.

The sensor responds almost lightning fast. 10 out of 10 unlocks are successful. And the scanner in Huawei devices also has an additional touch button: you can scroll through photos, answer calls or take selfies - everything is convenient!

Display

There's nothing special to say about the screen. We have before us the most common IPS matrix without an air gap.

• diagonal 5 inches
• resolution 1920 x 1080 pixels
• point density 443

Like all IPS panels, our screen conveys an excellent, natural, moderately contrasting picture.

Viewing angles are not ideal: under the strongest deviation, a whitish fog appears - a normal phenomenon.

There is an oleophobic coating and it is excellent. After the release of P10, this point needs to be clarified separately - it was surprisingly not there.

Specifications Huawei Nova 2

This is one of the most controversial aspects of the new product. The thing is that the first generation is in some places ahead of the device, which, according to the idea, should be cooler, more powerful, taller, stronger. In fact, there are nuances that I marked in red, and those that have improved I marked in green.

First of all, two things upset me, or rather, their absence: NFC and video recording in 4K resolution.

With the help of the first generation Nova, you could pay for purchases with your smartphone (Android Pay) and shoot high-quality videos. 10 months have passed and we are deprived of these joys of life, and we are also forced to pay extra for a new product.

This is weird.

Yes, the second generation received two rear cameras. However, whether this is good or bad, we will find out a little later.

Performance

If you are not a gamer who is chasing all the new products, then you will not experience any problems. For mid-level games, the reserve is quite enough without a drop in frame rate, but with voracious monsters there will still be some losses. Throttling can only be detected when playing demanding games for a long time. Otherwise there are no problems, but sometimes the case gets very hot.

If we talk about performance in numbers, the Antutu and GeekBench benchmark tests produce the following results:

The backbone of the computing power is the Kirin 659 processor. This is a 64-bit, eight-core, 16nm processor, clocked at four powerful cores at 2.36 GHz and four power-efficient cores at 1.7 GHz. The ARM Mali-T830 chip is responsible for the graphics. The amount of RAM is 4 GB. There is no choice of RAM or internal memory, only 4 GB and 64 GB, respectively, but the internal memory can be expanded using microSD memory cards with a capacity of up to 128 GB.

Is it possible to play?

Nova 2 and its Plus version are the first smartphones to be powered by the new Kirin 659 processor . It is reliably known that this “stone” is no more powerful than last year’s Qualcomm Snapdragon 625. In synthetics, the results are the same, plus or minus.

In games everything is the same - no breakthrough. At maximum speed, "Tanks" barely move - the frame rate drops to 6-8 FPS. On the average graphics the frequency already increases to 30-35 FPS, but during action scenes it drops to 12-14 frames per second. Again, no way.

In general, Huawei Nova 2 is completely unsuitable for gaming. Except for simple runners and similar things.

But the smartphone does an excellent job of playing 4K video. And the interface itself does not slow down. During a week of active use there was not a single brake or system lag. The shell is perfectly optimized.

Throttling is minimal. The first AnTuTu test had 62,463 points; after five tests in a row, performance dropped to 63,805 points. But the device heats up - after 10 minutes of gaming on the cores, the temperature reached 50 degrees. This does not bother me, but there is a category of citizens who are very sensitive to this moment.

Processor and memory

The memory parameters for a device in the mid-price segment are quite decent. 4 gigabytes of RAM is the norm. 64 gigabytes is a nice bonus, since manufacturers often cheat and make devices with 32 gigabytes, and models with larger memory are sold at a higher price. This did not happen in this case.

Important! What's bad about the Nova 2 is that the memory is not the fastest, and this affects the phone's performance. Despite the more than decent Kirin 659 processor, the phone sometimes slows down, and in order to reason with it, you have to unload all applications from memory. This is a rather sad fact.

The Kirin 659 processor is developed by Huawei. Here the brand is not going to abandon its own developments and buy chipsets from other manufacturers. For a mid-class phone, the processor performs well; it scores 60 thousand points in Antutu. Games run on medium settings without any problems at all. Heavy graphics games at high settings can be a little slow, but memory is again to blame. The device does not heat up when charging, playing games or other processes. Rating – 4/5.

Connection

I do not make a separate point about communication in my reviews. There is one simple reason for this - 98% of modern smartphones receive the cellular network signal well, do not lose connection out of the blue, do not fall into EDGE, and so on.

Unfortunately, Huawei Nova 2 is one of those rare 2% and its connection is terrible.

I don’t know what the problem could be, perhaps it’s a problem with my particular copy, but the situation is as follows, and I simply have to tell you about it.

When you enter a room, we forget about LTE, data transmission drops to fatal “E”.

Where the Chinese UMIDIGI (a manufacturer three heads lower than Huawei) Z1 has all the sticks and 4G, Nova 2 has everything on the edge. Data transfer? She's not there at all!

And such situations happen every day. Most of them can be treated by turning on/off airplane mode. Then the smartphone immediately connects to LTE.

Simply unacceptable behavior in 2021 for a smartphone at any price. For any!

Description of the advantages and disadvantages of the nova 2 phone

The dimensions of Huawei nova 2 are 68.9 mm wide, 142.2 mm long and 6.9 mm thick. With such dimensions it is convenient to operate the device with one hand. In addition, the weight of the device is about 143 g. Even if you operate the device with one hand, its weight is almost not felt.

If we evaluate the overall ease of use of the phone taking into account the size and weight, then there will be no problems with everyday use.

The smartphone is equipped with an 8-core Huawei HiSilicon KIRIN 659 processor, which is made on 16 nm. technical process.

The smartphone has 4 GB. RAM, which is quite enough. In very rare cases it will not be enough, but with this amount of RAM, you will rarely have problems.

The device's data storage capacity is 64 GB, and while this is enough for photos, it may not be enough for video shooting and a large number of games.

The phone is compatible with SD cards, so you can easily expand its memory. So you probably don't need to worry about storage capacity.

Nova 2 has a 5-inch display diagonal. The display is large enough that you will rarely have problems with its size. However, this display is not suitable for writing long texts.

The smartphone has a high-end display and any graphic content you display on it, including videos and games, will be displayed clearly.

The main camera of the phone has 11.81 megapixels, which should be enough in most cases. However, you may be slightly unsatisfied with the quality of the photos.

Also, the smartphone has a front camera of 19.66 megapixels, which is an extremely high figure. Since this camera can take high-quality photos, you will rarely be disappointed with its resolution. You can rely on the camera quality of this smartphone.

The battery capacity of Huawei nova 2 is 2950 mAh, which is a relatively large indicator. Compared to other smartphones, the battery life of the Huawei nova 2 is good. With this capacity, you won't experience any problems even if you spend time on the Internet or Twitter for a long period of time. Even while playing games or watching videos, you can do so comfortably without worrying about battery life. However, some caution should be exercised when watching movies or playing games for too long.

Cameras - there are three of them

This is the case when quantity does not mean quality at all.

Front-camera

I remember that in the first generation, the manufacturer placed special emphasis on the quality of selfies; they even invited some Instagrammer to the presentation, who allegedly threw away her iPhone (yep!) and now uses Huawei Nova. However, the pictures from his front camera were really wow!

The 20-megapixel sensor in the new product (previously it was only 8 megapixels, for a minute) gives every reason to expect very high results.

Regular shooting

With blur effect

Despite the lack of a fixed focus and not the highest lens aperture (f/2.0), selfies turn out very cool!

For this money (24 thousand rubles), Huawei Nova 2 boasts the best front camera on the market. In its price segment and even jumping into the flagship one. Well, except for the blur effect, of course. It works poorly.

Rear cameras

Much to my disappointment, I didn’t like the pictures taken with the main 12-megapixel camera. And then the first generation of Nova was ahead.

Detailing, white balance determination, HDR function - last year's Nova is better than the new product in everything.

No HDR

HDR

No HDR

HDR

Yes, perhaps Huawei is still optimizing software algorithms, as was the case with their flagship P10, but you still shouldn’t expect drastic changes.

I don't want to say that the Huawei Nova 2 camera is bad - far from it. You can take good pictures with a smartphone, but the defect rate will still be quite high.

sdr

dav

By the way, here is an example taken with a P10 camera on the latest firmware. Look at the photo and be amazed at what modern smartphones are capable of!

Let's return to our "nova".

Having two sensors on the back means you can play around with portrait mode. And Nova 2 blurs the background quite well, especially if it concerns people and there is plenty of ambient lighting.

Unfortunately, the photos are very noisy, but such nuances cannot be seen on a smartphone screen or on social networks.

Since we have two photo modules, we also have optical zoom. Well, how about “optical”? When you click on the corresponding icon, the picture, of course, gets closer, but the quality and detail drop significantly. Here are some examples.

1x

2x

Video shooting

As I said earlier, the new product has lost the ability to record 4K videos. Now we only have Full HD and 30 frames per second. There is no, not even digital stabilization.

And the quality of the content is mediocre, there are clearly not enough stars in the sky. The flow rate is a modest 17 Mbit/s. You can see an example below.

Camera

It’s worth starting with the front camera, since this is what the manufacturer was most proud of at the presentation. Its resolution is 20 megapixels, which is an outstanding indicator for a front camera. In good lighting the pictures come out very good. They are bright, clear and have excellent detail. As light levels drop, quality predictably begins to drop. Sometimes situations arise in which the camera begins to blur the background, and in group selfies it turns out that only one person is in focus, and the rest are blurred. This is unpleasant, but such errors only happen in low light. Under normal lighting, such errors practically do not occur.

The skin enhancement effect works great and doesn't make you feel like you're being drawn on, as sometimes happens on Chinese smartphones. Mistakes do happen, but they are extremely rare.

The main camera is dual with a sensor resolution of 12 megapixels and 8 megapixels. One sensor is responsible for the wide angle, and the second is responsible for enlarging the image. If in numbers, then these are 27 mm and 54 mm. Thanks to this arrangement, you can take pictures with 2x magnification without losing quality. The pictures turn out good not only in bright light, but even in cases where the lighting starts to falter. Despite the decrease in lighting level, the quality drops slightly, but at the same time they do not become an incomprehensible jumble of light sources on a black background. Even dynamic images, such as fireworks or a concert in a dark rock club, do not look bad compared to many other photos taken on other smartphones.

Videos can only be shot in FullHD at 30 fps, but despite such limitations and the lack of 4K, which was in the first Nova, the videos are of high quality even in the dark. On the one hand, depriving a smartphone of the 4K shooting function is a problem, but on the other hand, how many people have used this in everyday life? And the quality of that 4K suffered.

As for shooting modes, there are countless of them. There is everything: from simple photo shooting to professional video shooting, from shooting various interesting effects to shooting 3D panoramas of objects. In general, even in a standard application, everyone will find everything they need for themselves, and will not have to look for a separate application. Although, of course, if you have some favorite applications for taking photos, it is unlikely that you will give them up.

Sound quality

The device received one single multimedia speaker. The conversational speaker does not help him in any way, although this is another trend of this year - a kind of stereo.

The speaker is loud enough, above average. The quality is tolerable: at maximum volume you can’t hear wheezing or squeaking – that’s already good.

The sound in the headphones is excellent.

We buy normal “ears” and listen to everything we need from our smartphone. "Secret" for those who are still in the tank.

The settings of the standard player have added all sorts of gadgets and gadgets, including a 10-band (!) equalizer. The last one is a useful thing, the rest is not for everyone. As for me, the sound is good even without enhancements.

Battery life

The smartphone lasts one day with normal use. Two SIM cards, constant notifications, synchronization, surfing the web and social networks - everything is as it should be. As a result, we get 3.5 hours of screen time and a device that tearfully asks to be charged by 10 pm.

In principle, this is a normal result. There is nothing special to scold or praise for.