Four-eyed Wonder
2017 has been an exciting year for Huawei. From its latest P series to the latest Mate series, Huawei has not forgotten about its entry-level and mid-range consumers with its nova 2i. The first smartphone to carry four cameras, Huawei has pushed the boundaries of innovations over and over. Priced at only RM1,299, the nova 2i carries a very affordable price tag coupled with plenty of innovations from Huawei.
Silky Smooth
The near bezel-less display screen has been the main trend of 2017 and Huawei will not be the last brand to utilise it. The nova 2i is fitted with a 5.9-inch display and FHD+ resolution. On a day-to-day basis, the nova 2i does the job well of making the screen look brighter, clearer and obviously bigger.
While the FullView display does give you an 83% screen-to-body ratio, a lot of apps have yet to be calibrated for it. Sadly, YouTube is one of them as the video doesn’t fit into the full frame of the screen, leaving black edges at the top and bottom. On the other hand, Netflix fits into the full frame, which is a win in my book. Other popular apps like Facebook and Instagram also give you the choice of whether you want the app to fit into the frame or leave it as it is.
In terms of colour reproduction and overall quality of the screen, the nova 2i does well in this department. Colours are warm and vibrant and deep blacks are also prominent, making the nova 2i a worthy contender.
Quality vs Quantity
The age-old battle; which matters more: quality or quantity? In Huawei’s case, it looks like it’s leaning towards the latter with four cameras on the nova 2i. The rear camera carries a 16-megapixel lens with a 2-megapixel secondary while the front has 13-megapixels and a 2-megapixel secondary.
Both secondary cameras are on-site to capture a better depth of field, giving your pictures that oh-so desired bokeh effect that has been flooding your Instagram feed as of late. The rear camera does a pretty good job capturing great pictures with great colour accuracy and can perform admirably in low-lighting conditions. I didn’t really test out the front-facing camera because I’m not a narcissist that way, but I can attest that it is a formidable selfie camera.
It comes with soft light flash, a wide camera angle and even Snapchat-like effects like dog ears and such (no, I did not test that feature out and nor will I ever test it out.)
Not Everything Shines
Sure, the nova 2i comes with a FullView display and features four cameras, but it’s still stuck in the past in certain ways. One that irked me tirelessly was its USB 2.0 port. With the rest of the world already adopting USB 3.0, I can’t seem to understand why Huawei couldn’t implement today’s technology into the nova 2i. While it may not seem like a big discrepancy, it does mean you will have to carry around an extra cable, especially if you’re using two smartphones that requires different cables.
Another that somewhat annoyed me was the use of Bluetooth 4.2 instead of Bluetooth 5. But, this does offer some leeway as plenty of Bluetooth devices are still on 4.2 and have yet to integrate to Bluetooth 5.
Bang for Your Buck
At RM1,299, the nova 2i can be considered a steal as we see smartphone prices skyrocket this year alone. Running the Kirin 659 SoC with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of memory, the nova 2i didn’t display any sort of stutter or lag when running at full capacity. Swapping in-between apps didn’t slow it down nor does filling the home screen full of widgets. Quick and snappy, the nova 2i is a tough cookie that is constantly on its toes.
Powering it is a 3,340mAh Li-Ion battery that is capable of lasting at the very most a full half-day. If you were to leave it on standby mode, it can last so much longer than that. When used sparingly to snap pictures, scroll through Facebook and Instagram, pull up Google searches and running on Spotify, I manged to get a full 10 to 11 hours on it before it finally gave up. Not bad.
Verdict: One of the better and more affordable smartphones of 2017.
