Huawei Nova 8 & Nova 8 Pro: Everything you need to know

Huawei has just announced the latest entrant in its mid-range Nova smartphone series, with the Nova 8 series just being launched in China. The biggest upgrade over its predecessor is the new high refresh rate that’s now available across the series, while you get the same Kirin 985 processor on the Nova 8 series—along with 5G connectivity, of course.

Just like recent Huawei phones, the Nova 8 series does not come with Google Mobile Services (GMS). That aside, here’s what you need to know about Huawei’s latest stab at the mid-range market.

Huawei Nova 8

First up, the Huawei Nova 8. Up front, you’re looking at a 6.57″ curved OLED display pushing a FHD+ resolution of 2340×1080 pixels. Meanwhile, the display also supports a 90Hz refresh rate and a 240Hz touch sampling rate, which is on par with the newer phones of 2020 (and what we expect to see on most mid-range-to-flagship class phones in 2021).

Design-wise, there’s a centrally-placed hole-punch cutout on the screen that houses a 32Mp selfie shooter, while an in-display fingerprint scanner will serve as a biometric unlocking method. Look closely, and you’ll also spot a speaker grill cutout in the top bezel of the phone, although we can’t really tell if the phone comes with stereo speakers for now.

Under the hood, the Nova 8 is powered by Huawei’s in-house Kirin 985 chipset—the same processor running on the Huawei Nova 7. Flip the phone around, and you’ll spot a quad-camera setup on the rear: a 64MP main sensor, an 8MP ultra-wide shooter, and 2MP sensors to capture macro shots and depth.

You’ll also be able to charge the relatively small 3,800mAh battery at 66W—although this would only apply for wired USB-C charging; wireless charging is not available here, unfortunately. 8GB of RAM is available as standard, although you have storage options between 128GB and 256GB to choose from. And, as mentioned, the phone does not run on GMS, which means you’ll get Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) coupled with Android 10-based EMUI 11.

Huawei Nova 8 Pro

Moving up a rung in the series, the Nova 8 Pro features a larger 6.72″ curved OLED display, pushing a FHD+ resolution of 2676×1236 pixels. You also get a high refresh rate on the Pro, but this time, you’re looking at a 120Hz display. Additionally, the hole-punch cutout here is situated on the top-left corner of the display, with twin selfie shooters housed: a 16MP main camera, and a 32MP ultra-wide shooter that should come in handy for those big group selfies.

To sustain that larger display and higher refresh rate, Huawei has equipped the Nova 8 Pro with a larger 4,000mAh battery—which you can also charge at 66W via USB-C. Elsewhere, things are pretty similar to the standard Nova 8, with the Pro featuring the same quad-camera setup on the rear, and the same in-display fingerprint scanner to unlock the device.

You’ll also get the same Kirin 985 chipset under the hood (and 5G connectivity), and the same storage/memory configurations of 8GB+128GB/256GB. This also runs on HMS, with Android 10-based EMUI 11. Something rather interesting that Huawei talks about is the Audio Zoom feature, which will work in tandem with the company’s FreeBuds Pro to record “three-dimensional” audio.

Price and availability

Pre-orders for the Huawei Nova 8 series are now open in China, with official sales to begin on the 30th of December 2020. At the moment, there has been no mention of a wider, global or regional release date. However, Malaysia has traditionally been seen as a key market for Huawei, so chances are that we’ll see a Malaysian release at some point in the future.

In any case, official pricing in China for the series is as follows:

Huawei Nova 8 – 8GB RAM, 128GB storage – CNY 3,299 (~RM2,047)
Huawei Nova 8 – 8GB RAM, 256GB storage – CNY 3,699 (~RM2,295)
Huawei Nova 8 Pro – 8GB RAM, 128GB storage – CNY 3,999 (~RM2,481)
Huawei Nova 8 Pro – 8GB RAM, 256GB storage – CNY 4,399 (~RM2,729)

So, what do you think? On paper, Huawei’s latest mid-range series looks decent enough, but of course, you’ll be missing out on Google’s apps and services. In a market as competitive as the mid-range smartphone market, this might be a deal-breaker for many users. Share your thoughts on this in the comments section below.

[ VIA , SOURCE , 2 ]