A brief explanation at the beginning: Nova is a new series of Huawei. Compared with the commercial Mate series and high-end P series, Nova is a series targeting young people.

In recent years, major manufacturers have paid more and more attention to offline channels. It is very important for Huawei to have a sophisticated mid-range series. After all, OPPO is the best offline channel operator, VIVO， There are three Huawei companies. Huawei is not short of channels, but a product with offline popularity genes. So what is the performance of Huawei Nova as the pioneer of this popular series?

When I first started, Huawei Nova gave Max the impression that it was "exquisite". The metal sandblasting process was just right, which made me feel that it was indeed Huawei's peak technology. Of course, this may also be because Huawei Nova's screen is only five inches. If Max is not mistaken, this is the only five inch model of Huawei in recent years, or even the only one of domestic models. Huawei Nova is really a clean stream in this era of big screen dominance.

The camera, earpiece and distance sensor are arranged from left to right on the top of the front. Below is a classic Huawei LOGO's ultra wide and long chin. However, this time, Huawei did not use the ID frameless design, which was used before, but used a white frame, ultra narrow black edge front panel that is easily accepted by the public, I believe this design scheme will make it easier for offline customers to pay.

The 5-inch screen and 2.5D curved glass make the 7.1mm thick Huawei Nova the best phone Max has ever touched this year, which is easy to control. As we all know, the connection process between the all metal middle frame and the front glass panel is the most difficult problem to test the hand feel of the mobile phone edge. Huawei Nova has also done a very good job in this regard. Although the radian of Nova's 2.5D glass is not very large, it has also skillfully done radian treatment on the plastic buffer layer in the middle, making the connection between 2.5D glass and the metal middle frame more smooth.

To ensure excellent grip, the trimming of the metal middle frame is also very important. Huawei Nova has made CNC bright edge chamfers on the front and back of the metal middle frame, and has also used special 3D curved surface bright edge chamfers on the back. In order to maintain the hand feel, Nova's integrated metal body also uses three processing technologies, including the metal wire drawing process for the middle frame, the CNC high bright edge, and the delicate sandblasting process for the back. This matching method complements each other and finally brings us the ultimate hand feel.

Let's talk about the back of Nova. I believe many mobile phone geeks are familiar with this design, which is very similar to the back of the Nexus mobile phone manufactured by Huawei for Google. In the upper part, the traditional plastic injection molding is replaced by curved glass embedding, and then holes are made in the glass to prevent the camera and dual color temperature flash. A circular fingerprint identification module is placed in the upper part of the. The most common plastic injection molding is used at the bottom, but it can be seen that Huawei has reduced this area to a minimum for aesthetic purposes, and it is not obvious that it does not take a closer look after adding the metal coating.

At the beginning, Max thought that the position of the fingerprint identification module was slightly higher from the perspective of the proportion of the whole machine. He was afraid that the fingers would not be natural when the thumb was unlocked. But once he got started, he realized that this concern was completely redundant on the five inch machine, and that this size of fingerprint was actually the most suitable position. The fingerprint entry speed is very fast, but the unlocking speed is not fast among the 2000 machines today.

Huawei Nova retains a practical 3.5mm headphone interface on the top, which is still important for an offline phone. After all, wired headphones are still mainstream at this stage. But what killed Max was that the noise reduction microphone and the headphone connector were not on the same axis, and the headphone connector was neither left nor right, so the location was embarrassing!

The speaker at the bottom does not use the common symmetrical opening design, which is a very honest boy! This time, the charging interface adopts the mainstream USB Type-C interface this year, but the parameters are only the speed of USB2.0. Although Type-C is not very popular offline, this design can really bring a better user experience, so it is unnecessary to confirm the pros and cons before each charging.

Huawei Nova, as a mobile phone targeting young people, can't take bad photos. In recent years, the development direction of mobile camera has changed from high pixel to large pixel. So Nova uses Sony IMX28612 million pixels on P9, and the unit pixel size has reached 1.25 μ m. It is believed that this camera must have special advantages in weak light imaging.

With the excellent imaging quality of this CMOS that shines brightly on P9, there is basically no problem in taking photos in broad daylight, with clear details and accurate white balance. The nighttime performance also has sufficient light inflow due to the addition of large pixel base, and the dark details are obvious. But for people like Max who are prone to shake, the lack of optical anti shake still reduces the probability of imaging, which is easy to be blurred.

The macro performance of this camera is excellent. The main vein of the leaf is very clear and the color is very accurate. The focus is good and the speed is fast. The virtualization of the background is also very natural. Although the degree of virtualization is not large, it is already an excellent performance if the software is not modified later.

This time, Huawei Nova focuses on the self portrait beauty function. It uses an 8 million front camera to create professional and fashionable makeup in real time with Huawei's real-time beauty self portrait 2.0 and eight built-in beauty templates, Max took a few pictures of himself, and the effect was really shocking. But taking me as an example, he really blinded my eyes. This beautiful picture is really more and more unbelievable.

In the process of taking a picture, Max felt regretful that Nova did not configure a front fill light. Although Nova can achieve similar effects by instantaneously increasing the screen brightness similar to that of the iPhone, there are still many regrets. However, one thing to be commended is that the aperture with F2.0 is really much larger, and our photographer always accidentally enters the camera during shooting!

In terms of function, Nova provides the common "ten levels of skin beauty". The first five levels are relatively natural, and the latter ones are a little over repaired.

In terms of performance, Nova is Huawei's first model equipped with Snapdragon 625, which is Qualcomm's first SoC with a 14nm process. It is precisely because this excellent process makes the Snapdragon 625 slightly inferior to the Snapdragon 652 in performance, while its power consumption performance is the best in Qualcomm's family today. With a 5-inch small screen and a 3020mAh large battery, Nova's battery life is also excellent, and there is no problem after two days of moderate use.

Compared with the cool1 equipped with Snapdragon 652 on Max's hands, I didn't find much difference between the two during my own use, and I didn't feel too much pressure on the software during my daily use. Like the mainstream game Glory of the King, it can also run smoothly, and there will be no frame dropout during the group war. I believe that this SoC will become the first choice for the midrange models of major manufacturers in the second half of the year.

So much has been said before, can this Nova adapt to Huawei's demand for young people? The answer given by Max is yes. Nova, as the third midrange oriented product line after Mate series and P series, has excellent workmanship and user experience, and is more cost-effective than Mate and P series. I believe that offline channels will have a good market performance.

Compared with its competitors OPPO and VIVO, Huawei Nova has the advantage of a smaller five inch body. This difference is very marketable to many people who are worried about the size of mobile phones today. Huawei's first product with offline popularity gene skilfully avoids the mainstream big screen market and wants to win the first place in the small screen flagship market. However, there are many places that need to be supplemented. I hope the next generation will be more perfect!

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