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!

Equipment

The smartphone comes in an original cardboard box, reminiscent of the old Huawei P8. Due to the fact that the device is located vertically inside and not horizontally, the box turned out to be compact, although it contains a good set of accessories: a “fast” charger, a cable, a clip for the nanoSIM/microSD holder resembling a treble clef, a headset, documentation and a plastic case - bumper like Huawei P10.

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!

Design

In terms of appearance, Nova 2 has little in common with last year’s model - visually, the new product is a kind of mix on the theme of the iPhone 7 Plus, Xiaomi Mi 6 and other modern models with two main camera modules. There is no visual similarity with the first Nova, although they are united by the compact dimensions of the body and metal as the main material of the “back”.

However, traditionally for Huawei, we are not talking about direct copying, but rather about rethinking general ideas. Plastic inserts for the operation of radio modules are located as close as possible to the edges so as not to attract unnecessary attention, the “back” is matte, the sides are glossy, all corners are rounded.

The screen “flows” into the sides as imperceptibly as possible and the device lies very nicely in the hand. Like all metal smartphones, Nova 2 feels slippery, but this “problem” can be solved by the included case, which does not greatly increase the overall dimensions.

A somewhat controversial point is the location of the fingerprint scanner. After the release of the Huawei P10, we expected to see it under the screen, and not at the back, as was the case in the Huawei P9 and Nova. And since the free space should not be idle, they decided to occupy it with the traditional glossy manufacturer’s logo. At the same time, the logo on the cover is almost impossible to distinguish, at least in a black smartphone.

The scanner itself, as we are used to, can be called almost a reference – it works quickly in most situations and when placed at the rear it turns out to be more functional. You can swipe to open the notification panel, scroll through photos in the gallery, or take photos by touching the camera.

The location of the remaining elements is absolutely familiar: convenient power and volume keys on the right, interface connectors on the bottom, a hybrid tray for two NanoSIM and memory cards on the left. There is an indicator of missed events above the screen.

In addition to black, the smartphone will go on sale in gold and blue colors. You can also remember the special offer for the first customers who pre-ordered - a gift set of a fitness bracelet, a tripod-selfie stick and a pair of ring holders.

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.

General impression

The first thing to note about this smartphone is that it is not for you if you like phones with large screens. The screen diagonal of Huawei Nova 2 is exactly five inches.

The thickness of the case is very small and is only 6.9 mm. The scratch resistance of the case is at a fairly high level. During the test, when the smartphone was used as the main means of communication for a week and a half, it was not possible to cause any serious damage to it. At the same time, it was used without covers or films. He rarely found himself with iron keys or small change in one pocket, but plastic objects like a car key came across regularly. Many smartphones scratch significantly more under similar operating conditions.

The camera windows are protected from scratches by small protruding rims. It is difficult to say how much this will save during long-term use, but during the test they remained in pristine condition.

The design of Nova 2 can hardly be called original. Externally, it is very similar to the iPhone, OnePlus 5, Pixel and some other devices. But, on the other hand, the designers from Huawei also did not just come up with this design with rounded edges and an aluminum-magnesium body. We have already seen all this in other models of the company.

The fingerprint scanner is located on the rear panel. Volume and Power buttons on the side. On the left is a tray for two SIM cards and a memory card. Below is a minijack, which still tries to maintain its place on the body of modern smartphones. Next to it is one speaker and USB Type-C version 2.0.

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.

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!

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.

Software platform

As befits a current device, Nova 2 runs Android 7.0 with the proprietary EMUI 5.1 interface. In previous reviews, we discussed the capabilities of the shell in more detail, so now we will only note its main features.

Compared to EMUI 4.0, the fifth version has become much closer to “pure” Android. The company began to use a standard multitasking menu; the curtain also resembles the solution from Google; it is also possible to choose between the location of all applications on desktops and the presence of an application menu, the order of on-screen control keys, and so on.

The application icons are redrawn by Huawei and some will find them too colorful, so EMUI 5, in my opinion, lacks a “clean” theme created by the manufacturer - the solutions available from users are not made as neatly as the pre-installed themes.

Otherwise, the shell is convenient - I like the ability to launch a global search on the smartphone by swiping down on the desktop, automatic change of screensavers for the lock screen, the ability to quickly turn on the flashlight using the panel that slides out from the bottom, and so on.

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.

Calls, multimedia

Huawei Nova 2 supports simultaneous operation of two SIMs in standby mode. During my use, I had no complaints about the quality of mobile network signal reception.

The ringing and conversational speakers are average in volume, it is enough in most situations. The multimedia speaker is common for such devices - it seems to be of high quality, but you always want to get even more volume/volume.

The company talks about the presence of a separate audio chip in the Kirin 659, although for my taste the sound in the headphones is comparable to other Huawei smartphones in the mid- and high-end segment - normal.

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.

Autonomy

The characteristics of Huawei Nova 2 show that the device is not equipped with a high-capacity battery. This affects the operating time without connecting to an outlet. With active use of the smartphone, it will last for 10 hours. This is enough to remove the device from charging in the morning, and when you return home you will have to connect it to power again.

Advice! When traveling to your device, you should buy an external battery, otherwise there is every chance of quickly being left without access to the network.

Average loads on the device allowed it to last 1.5 days, provided that the total display backlight time was about 3 hours. The phone has several power saving modes.

1. The first will allow you to work at 20% for about 11 hours, while any synchronization, background activity and visual effects will be disabled.
2. There is also an ultra-economy mode. In it, the device promises to last about 1.5 days at 20%, but you can only use a limited set of applications.

The device is more than typical, and anyone who wants to stay in touch for a long time with the full functionality of a smartphone will not be able to do this for more than 1 day with this device. Autonomy – 3/5.