Huawei Nova 3 was kind of a mixed bag in our perception (even before with the rise of Kirin 980) as you can have last year's Kirin 970 flagship processor in the said smartphone series which is known to high midrange line. Was it brought some charm for us? Here's our verdict on the Nova 3
On benchmarks, not surprising numbers for Nova 3 as we already seen these figures on Honor Play. No problem on those 7 out of 9 sensors working including the must-have gyro sensor
On battery, Nova 3 got it in 13 hours and 50 minutes in our video battery rundown test which is pretty acceptable for it's given battery capacity. Using it in mixed heavy usage with 25% brightness and 6 hours of screen-on-time can use the device between a full day to 1.25 days. The phone has Huawei Quick Charge support which topped up the device from 0 to 100% at around 1.5 hours.
The camera UI was a bit old but the almost full blown capacities of it as to the likes on their P20 duo were there. As to compare with Honor Play, it was definitely a lot better in overall camera quality and color accuracy. No random camera issues for us in almost all of the camera modes that we tried. It was also an under-the-radar selfie phone for us
On UI, there's nothing much to talk about on the appearance as it was still the same-same that we seen on EMUI 8.0 and 8.1. With the last year's flagship SoC at Kirin 970, the leap in terms of performance was very far even with the current high midrange chip, Kirin 710. Again, we missed the LTE toggle button on the camera menu
On connectivity, this one was the one why we chose to buy the Honor Play in the past as there are always better reception if you have spare money to invest in a high-end processor. Same story went in this Kirin 970-powered Nova 3 as we got excellent reception on LTE, WiFi and calls even we were on the tollway
On benchmarks, not surprising numbers for Nova 3 as we already seen these figures on Honor Play. No problem on those 7 out of 9 sensors working including the must-have gyro sensor
On battery, Nova 3 got it in 13 hours and 50 minutes in our video battery rundown test which is pretty acceptable for it's given battery capacity. Using it in mixed heavy usage with 25% brightness and 6 hours of screen-on-time can use the device between a full day to 1.25 days. The phone has Huawei Quick Charge support which topped up the device from 0 to 100% at around 1.5 hours.
The camera UI was a bit old but the almost full blown capacities of it as to the likes on their P20 duo were there. As to compare with Honor Play, it was definitely a lot better in overall camera quality and color accuracy. No random camera issues for us in almost all of the camera modes that we tried. It was also an under-the-radar selfie phone for us
Huawei Nova 3 rear camera samples
Huawei Nova 3 front camera sample
Extras: It is the only Nova device that does not have FM radio
Huawei PH recently brought the price down to Php . Even if you can tell that you are paying plus pesos for the better camera quality versus the Honor Play with the same processor, I think that the device was still a bit overpriced but looking at the most affordable and 2019 high-end chip Kirin 980 (hey, we are talking about the Huawei Mate 20), the price can be a-ok. Huawei Nova 3 advantages for us are the choice of processor, camera quality, connecitivy, quick charging support and looks. The price was still a bit of a downer for us (depending on the other smartphones that you need compare especially on the same Huawei camp) so it is 3.75 out of 5 for us on the Huawei Nova 3. It is still available in Huawei stores and other multi-brand dealers
