We were just fresh from Huawei Mobile Philippines' official announcement of Huawei Nova 2i in the country earlier this morning and there were already a number of Huawei Experience stores that has a demo unit so I grabbed the chance for a hands-on article before it's official release in less than 2 weeks
Here is the upcoming Huawei Nova 2i in front view. By the way, I will not gonna elaborate that much on the specs sheet as you can see it in our previous article here . The 5.5 inch 18:9 FHD+ display is quite good from my first look. Huawei still managed to put their branding below. Not that visible in our pic but the dual front camera is there for that bokeh effects
The dual main camera system plus flash, fingerprint sensor that you can do other things including your shutter button for selfies and 3,430 mAh non-removable battery inside of it. Matte finish is present here with the straight antenna lines
The sides remind me of the set-up from Huawei GR5 2017. The left has hybrid dual nano SIM (SIM 2 can be used as micro SD slot) while the right has volume rocker and power/unlock button.
For some reason, I lost the top view pic but it has the 3.5 mm. audio jack. The bottom has single speaker and at the bottom, single speaker and (still) OTG-capable micro USB port if one of their sales persons was right.
The EMUI that I or you might loved from the likes of Huawei P10, Mate 9 or GR 2017 duo in Android Nougat continues here in Nova 2i so if you are coming from one of those Huawei phones that I mentioned, there's no learning curve. The app drawer can still be enabled, customizable pulldown menu and my personal fave 4G toggle button were also present on the Nova 2i
If you want to have an idea on it's size, it is a bit taller but narrower than the Huawei P10 Plus which has an 5.5 inch Quad HD display in 16:9 aspect ratio
The camera UI is also the same with the number of modes but there are some additional bits on the front camera (portrait mode) and pro mode (Nova 2i now has ISO 50 which before this, it was only present in Huawei P9, P10 and Mate 8, 9 series. Not on either GR3 or GR5 2017 as it has minimum ISO 100). I also tried the portrait selfie mode which you have an option for beutification (but I did not try). The main rear and selfie cameras have f/2.2 and f/2.0 apertures respectively. I may find that the output of Nova 2i's front cam worked better than on GR5 2017. On Nova 2i, you can have that watermark just like their P and Mate series do. Coolness! The image processing speeds were very good.
Huawei Nova 2i rear camera sample
Huawei Nova 2i front camera sample
Huawei Nova 2i portrait mode selfie camera sample (set at level 2)
I tried to squeeze some juicy info from one of their sales person related to the Nova 2i. There is a possibillity that the phone can be availed in 6 months installment on Home Credit. Inside the box, he said that there's a fast charger included (so I am expecting to be faster than the Huawei GR5 2017's 5V 2A output but not as fast as 4.5V 5A set-up of either Huawei P10 Plus or Mate 9) .
One concern for me on the phone is a bit thicker camera bump compared to Huawei GR5 2017 which as usual, it comes with a protective case (but I hope 3rd-party case maker brands will do something about it). Huawei Nova 2i will be available for Php 14,990 this October 21 in Huawei Experience Stores in SM MOA, North Edsa, Cebu, Bacolod & Ecoland Davao as well in Ayala Center Cebu. To add more value, it comes with a free JBL Flip 3 Bluetooth speaker but only available for those who will buy at it's first day of release
