We take our first look at the Huawei Nova 4!

Approximately a month after its announcement  Huawei Philippines has finally sent us a review unit of their new mid-range powerhouse the Nova 4. While that isn’t surprising in of itself, the fact that they sent over one to review at all when the company publicly said that they wouldn’t be offering it locally is.

While Huawei is free to decide on what phone to sell and not sell in the Philippines (plenty of other models don’t see release here in our country) they’d be making a mistake if they didn’t offer the Nova 4 locally. Armed with a solid set of specs, gorgeous color options, and a high-resolution rear camera, the Nova 4 will probably prove popular to the mid-range crowd who held off buying a new phone during the holidays.

Packaging and contents:

Huawei has been pretty consistent about the appearance of the packaging for its Nova family of smartphones, and the Nova 4 isn’t an exception.

The phone comes in a plain box, and inside you’ll find the phone, a silicone case, USB Type-C cables, along with a fast charger and a pair of headphones.

What is it?

The Nova 4 is the latest entry in the company’s mid-range lineup, which has included really strong and affordable smartphones like the Nova 3 and the Nova 3i. The Nova 4 is the first phone in Huawei’s main lineup that uses a hole punch display, which is basically just another way of saying that the selfie camera is tucked on the upper left side of the phone’s display, rather than being in the center which has traditionally been the case for notched phones.

How does it compare to traditional notched displays?

It certainly takes a little getting used to, which is basically the same thing that we said when we first encountered notched screens in Android phones a few years ago. The hole kinda disappears when you’re doing normal browsing in Facebook and Chrome, as it’s tucked away on the upper left side of the display where your eye isn’t focused most of the time.

The only time it really gets in the way is if you’re watching movies or YouTube clips and it covers important information, but that’s not happening all the time, obviously.

The display itself is pretty generous at 6.4-inches big, with a display resolution of 1080 x 2310 pixels.

How does the rest of the phone look?

Jamie said it best: it looks like the P20 Pro and the Nova 3 had a baby. It doesn’t look entirely that obvious with our black review unit but the Nova 4 has the same stunning colorway that the Nova 3 had, at least judging from hands-on photos that other people had of the blue variant.

The phone uses a metal frame which makes it sturdier and more premium, adding strength and rigidity to an already well-built device.

The rear of the phone will probably be the main focus of discussion, thanks to the three cameras that dot its surface. There’s two versions of the phone available: one with a 48-megapixel deal with an f/1.8 aperture with a secondary 16-megapixel sensor with an f/2.2 aperture, along with a 2-megapixel depth sensor with an f/2.4 aperture, and one with a slightly tamer 20-megapixel f/1.8 sensor paired with a 16-megapixel f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle lens and a 2-megapixel f/2.4 depth sensor. The review unit sent to us was the latter, though we’d love to see the former make an appearance in the Philippines.

Here’s a few snaps taken from the main and selfie camera:

The selfie camera is the same for both models, at 25-megapixels.

Internally, the Nova 4 runs Huawei’s home-grown Kirin 970 chipset which powered the company’s previous generation flagships, including the P20 Pro.

Adding to the powerful processor is the generous 8GB of RAM as well as the roomy 128GB of storage.

There’s also the fact that the Nova 4 has a pretty large battery for its class, coming in at 3750mAh. There’s also USB Type-C and fast charging, but no Supercharge like on Huawei’s other flagships.

Right now Huawei hasn’t confirmed yet if they’re selling the phone here in the Philippines, but the mere fact that they sent a review device over may be an indication that they’re gaging public interest before pulling the trigger. As for pricing, we can only guess: in Malaysia, the Nova 4 is RM 1899, which is roughly around 24.2K without taxes and duties factored in for the base 20-megapixel variant.

Huawei Nova 4 Specs

• 2.4GHz HiSilicon Kirin 970 octa-core processor
• Mali-G72 MP12 GPU
• 8GB of RAM
• 6.4-inch Full HD+ IPS LCD display; 1080 x 2310 resolution
• 128GB of expandable storage (up to 256GB via microSD)
• 48-megapixel f/1.8 + 16-megapixel f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle + 2-megapixel f/2.4 depth sensing triple rear cameras OR 20-megapixel f/1.8 + 16-megapixel f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle + 2-megapixel f/2.4 depth-sensing triple rear cameras with OIS, EIS, PDAF, LED Flash
• 25-megapixel f/2.0 front camera
• 4G, LTE (Dual SIM, Hybrid Tray)
• WiFi, Bluetooth
• GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS
• Fingerprint scanner
• Facial Recognition
• Android Pie 9 with EMUI 9.0.1
• 3750mAh Battery with Fast Charging