We stumble on Huawei’s new Nova 5 family in China

We’re still in Shenzen, China for Huawei’s 2019 Developer Conference, where we managed to stumble on one of the company’s many, many flagship experience stores scattered across the vast country.

This particular one was located in Cloud Park, and aside from carrying most of the phones and gadgets that you’d normally see in PH store, it also has plenty of other stuff that’s only sold in China, chief of which are Huawei’s newest members of its Nova 5 family: the Nova 5, 5 Pro and 5i.

This is the first time for us to actually see the phones in the flesh since they were announced a few months ago, since Huawei curates the phones they send to the Philippines, with plenty of models not seeing local release.

Beautiful holographic color effect

While gradient finishes have become all the rage in the past few months, Huawei is trying something new with their new Nova phones. Both the Nova 5 and Nova 5 Pro have this incredibly intense and mesmerizing holographic color effect on their glass backs that give you a sense of depth when light strikes them just the right way.

It’s an interesting way to present a smartphone for sure, and we’re in love with how the colors dance and react to the light depending on where the light source is.

The Nova 5 and Nova 5 Pro have flat backs and protruding camera modules, while the Nova 5i has a slightly more curved rear and a physical fingerprint scanner on the rear. Interestingly all three phones sport quad-camera modules, which is quite unique for mid-range phones.

Both the Nova 5 and Nova 5 Pro share the same 6.39-inch OLED full HD+ display, with a resolution of 1080 x 2340. Both phones have in-display fingerprint scanners. The Nova 5 Pro rocks Huawei’s flagship Kirin 980 chipset with 8GB of RAM and up to 256GB of storage, while the regular Nova 5 uses Huawei’s new Kirin 810 chipset with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.

The rear camera module that both phones share is impressive as well, sporting a 48-megapixel SONY IMX586 primary sensor, 16-megapixel wide-angle shooter, a 2-megapixel sensor for depth effects and a 2-megapixel macro shooter.

Both phones have a 3500mAh battery inside plus fast 40W fast charging as well.

The Nova 5i meanwhile is very similar to the P20 Lite (2019) that has popped up in Nordic countries. The phone has a quad-camera setup as well, with a 24-megapixel main shooter, 16-megapixel ultra-wide camera, 2-megapixel depth sensor plus a ToF camera.

Screen size is 6.4-inches using a full HD LCD panel with a punch-hole camera at the upper left corner.

Huawei’s Kirin 710 powers the Nova 5i, which is accompanied by 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. It has a larger 4000mAh battery.

While the Nova 5i is an incremental upgrade to what Huawei already has in PH stores, both the Nova 5 and Nova 5 Pro will probably sell really well if they’re sold in the country.

The 8GB/256GB variant of the Nova 5 Pro, for example, is priced at RMB 3,399, which comes out to just Php 25K, which makes it a great alternative to other phones in the same price point with a flagship processor that doesn’t have as much storage. The lower 128GB variant retails for even less, at RMB 2999 or Php 22K.

While the RMB 2,799 (Php 20.6K) price of the Nova 5 is slightly more challenging, it will probably still put up a good fight against the other phones in the same price range as well.

Huawei also needs to add more case options for consumers for their mid-range line, since we saw so many awesome cases in this particular store as well, along with cute gadgets like automated IP cameras, as well as speakers and other doodads.

Huawei Nova 5 Pro Specs

• 2.6GHz HiSilicon Kirin 980 octa-core processor
• Mali-G76 MP6 GPU
• 8GB of RAM
• 6.39-inch Full HD+ AMOLED LCD display; 1080 x 2310 resolution
• 128GB/256GB of expandable storage (up to 256GB via microSD)
• Quad rear cameras: 48-megapixel f/1.8 main camera; 16-megapixel f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle camera; 2-megapixel f/2.4 depth sensor; 2-megapixel macro camera; with OIS, EIS, PDAF, LED Flash
• 32-megapixel f/2.0 front camera
• 4G, LTE (Dual SIM, Hybrid Tray)
• WiFi, Bluetooth
• GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS
• In-display Fingerprint scanner, Facial Recognition, USB-C, GPU Turbo 2.0
• Android Pie 9 with EMUI 9.1
• 4000mAh Battery with 40W SuperCharge

Huawei Nova 5 Specs

• 2.27GHz HiSilicon Kirin 810 octa-core processor
• Mali-G52 MP6 GPU
• 8GB of RAM
• 6.39-inch Full HD+ AMOLED LCD display; 1080 x 2310 resolution
• 128GB of expandable storage (up to 256GB via microSD)
• Quad rear cameras: 48-megapixel f/1.8 main camera; 16-megapixel f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle camera; 2-megapixel f/2.4 depth sensor; 2-megapixel macro camera; with OIS, EIS, PDAF, LED Flash
• 32-megapixel f/2.0 front camera
• 4G, LTE (Dual SIM, Hybrid Tray)
• WiFi, Bluetooth
• GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS
• In-display Fingerprint scanner, Facial Recognition, USB-C, GPU Turbo 2.0
• Android Pie 9 with EMUI 9.1
• 4000mAh Battery with 40W SuperCharge

Huawei Nova 5i Specs

• 2.2GHz HiSilicon Kirin 710 octa-core processor
• Mali-G51 MP4 GPU
• 6GB/8GB of RAM
• 6.39-inch Full HD+ LCD display; 1080 x 2310 resolution
• 128GB/256GB of expandable storage (up to 256GB via microSD)
• Quad rear cameras: 24-megapixel f/1.8 main camera; 8-megapixel f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle camera; 2-megapixel f/2.4 depth sensor; 2-megapixel macro camera; with OIS, EIS, PDAF, LED Flash
• 32-megapixel f/2.0 front camera
• 4G, LTE (Dual SIM, Hybrid Tray)
• WiFi, Bluetooth
• GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS
• In-display Fingerprint scanner, Facial Recognition, USB-C, GPU Turbo 2.0
• Android Pie 9 with EMUI 9.1
• 4000mAh Battery with 18W Fast charging