Huawei Nova 3i review: Pricing | Features | Specs

Huawei's Nova 3i, also known as the Huawei P Smart in some markets, is the first phone to use Huawei's new Kirin 710 system-on-a-chip (SoC). It's a processor built for the mid-range market and is designed to replace the older Kirin 659 series as well as continue Huawei's stated mission of moving well away from existing Qualcomm or MediaTek processors.

Huawei's hype around the Nova 3i is that it delivers a premium experience at a mid-range price point. Given how aggressively Huawei typically prices its high-end handsets like the Huawei P20 Pro and the Huawei Mate 10 Pro, the Nova 3i has its work cut out for it to simply stand out.

Huawei Nova 3i: Design

• Large notched display screen
• Eye-catching design
• Somewhat slippery in the hand

If you weren't paying much attention, it's entirely feasible that somebody could swap out your brand new Huawei P20 Pro for a Nova 3i because they share the same design. With the Nova 3i, you're looking at a 6.3-inch 1080 x 2340 pixel LCD display in 18:9 ratio, with the typical "notch" at the top that most Android makers are opting for in 2018.

• Read more about the Huawei Nova 3i's design

  

  It's also because Huawei is producing the Nova 3i with the same glossy "twilight" styled design as the P20 Pro, although in the case of the Nova 3i, it's apparently called "Iris Purple". Huawei is also producing a more sedate Black variant. I tested with the Nova 3i in Iris Purple, and there's no doubt that it's an eye-catching design. If you're more introverted, or you don't like the look of fingerprints on purple, then the Black version would be a more sensible choice.

  The Huawei Nova 3i measures 157.6 x 75.2 x 7.6 mm with a carrying weight of 169g, which isn't excessive for a phone of this size. It's a somewhat slippery design in the hand, so a case is still an advisable addition.

  The left hand side of the Nova 3i houses the dual 4G SIM card slot, with the typical sharing of the second slot for microSD expansion if that suits your needs. On the right, you'll find standard volume and power buttons, while a ridged and round fingerprint sensor rests on the rear, a decent distance from the dual-lens camera array.

  2018 has seen a lot of budget phones step up with premium-looking designs, and this puts mid-range handsets like the Nova 3i in a difficult position. It's not quite as flashy as the P20 Pro, and what we've seen in leaks of the Mate 20 suggests it won't overshadow that either. At the same time, if all you wanted was that cascading colour effect in a Huawei phone, you could save yourself a few bucks and pick up the less powerful Nova 3e instead.

Huawei Nova 3i: Camera

• Four cameras gives you a lot of scope
• AI leads to punchy, often oversaturated shots
• The Qmoji animations are jittery and dumb

Huawei's Nova phones have stood out for offering more lens and camera options than many competing mid-range and budget handsets, and the Huawei Nova 3i is no exception to that rule.

• Read more about the Huawei Nova 3i's camera

  In total, you have four lenses to play with on the Nova 3i, with dual pairings front and back of 24MP/2MP and 16MP/2MP respectively. As with previous Nova phones, you don't actually have the option to shoot with the 2MP lenses. They're simply present to gather depth of field information in order to provide bokeh-style effects for your photos.

  

  What Huawei is pushing as special for the Nova 3i's implementation of this idea is that it's guided by AI to automatically improve your photos. Huawei's claim is that the Nova 3i can recognise more than 200 different scenarios, broken down across 8 different categories. Specifically, it has modes for Blue Sky, Beach, Plant, Night, Stage, Flower, Room and Snow shooting as long as it recognises that's what you're actually looking at.

  

  You don't have to shoot with AI enabled, although in my tests it was reasonably smart and quick at identifying subjects and applying mostly pleasing optimisations as a result. Scenes and shots can vary, but I did notice a slight tendency for it to opt to oversaturate colours if I chose AI optimisations for a given photo. That can have a striking effect on a photo, but it can also leave some images looking very artificial.

  

  The Huawei Nova 3i's rear camera performance is essentially good for its price range, but like many AI implementations, it's built for those who want punchy looking photos without delving more into the mechanics of photography.

  The twin selfie cameras have more of a fun tone to them, with the expected beauty modes on board, plus a few features that you'd probably expect on a more high-end handset. To be specific, you'd find them on an iPhone X because the Huawei Nova 3i features both Huawei's take on Animoji (dubbed Qmoji) and on portrait-lighting effects.

  Qmoji are sort of fun in the same way that Animoji are, although the 1:1 tracking is notably worse. You can save your Qmoji as either MP4s or animated GIFs, but after nearly a year, it's not as though they've arrived as some kind of social media phenomenon. Is Huawei's take going to make any difference?

  

  The front camera can take a decent selfie, although like most dual-lens selfies, the efficacy of its bokeh can appear a little artificial. It's more problematic when you play with the studio-lighting effects or at least it was for me. The Nova 3i could never quite decide if it wanted to add detail to my head that wasn't there or simply cut out a chunk that does exist.

  

  Neither result is what you really want.

Huawei Nova 3i: Performance

• Kirin 710 compares well to other mid-range processors
• Impressive 128GB of onboard storage
• Huawei's EMUI interface is still an acquired taste
• Lack of near-field communication (NFC) is a pain point
• Patchy Wi-Fi support

The Huawei Nova 3i sees the debut of Huawei's new Kirin 710 processor, pitching it directly against a range of phones typically using Qualcomm's Snapdragon 660 SoC.

• Read more about the Huawei Nova 3i's performance

  

  Huawei pairs the Kirin 710 in the Huawei Nova 3i with 4GB of RAM, typical for a mid-range Android handset in 2018. What's less typical is the inclusion of 128GB of onboard storage, of which around 108GB is actually user-accessible. You can supplement that with microSD storage if you're willing to sacrifice one of the two 4G-capable SIM slots, too.

  In benchmark terms, the Kirin 710 in the Huawei Nova 3i proves itself a competent performer in its price class. Here's how it compares using Geekbench 4's CPU test:

  The Oppo R15 Pro does overshadow it, but that's a more expensive handset that tilts up towards premium pricing, where the Huawei Nova 3i sits more comfortably in the true mid-range space.

  The Huawei Nova 3i doesn't compare quite as well in 3D benchmarking terms. Here's how it compares using 3DMark's Slingshot Extreme test:

  The Huawei Nova 3i is an Android 8.1 phone, but it's running with Huawei's EMUI overlay on top. I'm not a huge fan of EMUI, with its garish looks and reworking of some core Android logic, although at least being Android, you can reskin the visuals to something a little more sedate.

  That's on the software side, but there are some areas where Huawei's kept the costs down by skimping on hardware. NFC is notably absent, which means no Google Pay compatibility. The Huawei Nova 3i has no rated water resistance, and that's something we're seeing starting to creep into the mid-tier smartphone space.

  Then there's its Wi-Fi performance. The Huawei Nova 3i is rated as being 802.11 b/g/n compatible, which means that it's not going to work with any pure 802.11ac implementation or indeed any 5GHz Wi-Fi network. This became quickly apparent in the finder offices, where it simply couldn't see our standard work network at all! The realistic odds are that you're likely to be able to hook into a dual-band network running at 2.4Ghz, but that means slower throughput, and in some cases not seeing a network at all.

Huawei Nova 3i: Battery life

• Big battery capacity, but...
• Poor overall battery life.
• MicroUSB charging feels very old school.

At a specification level, the Huawei Nova 3i should have the goods to impress when it comes to power. That larger display screen is always going to suck up more juice than a smaller display, but Huawei appeared to have thought of that, with an impressive 3340mAh sealed battery on board.

• Read more about the Huawei Nova 3i's battery

  Unfortunately, it wasn't exactly enough. Using Geekbench 4's rather harsh battery test with screen dimming enabled, the Huawei Nova 3i doesn't compare well to its competition:

  That battery test is quite linear, and in more anecdotal day-to-day testing, the Nova 3i was acceptable for all-day battery usage. Still, for that size battery, I was left wanting more, and the same was true when it came time to charge the Huawei Nova 3i.

  In the budget space, it's not unusual to see phones that still use the older microUSB standard for charging, but it's fast becoming the norm for mid-range and premium handsets (outside of Apple) to offer USB C charging. It seems nobody told the Nova 3i team because it's stuck on the older microUSB plug. That means fiddly checking to ensure it's going in the right way every single time.

Huawei Nova 3i: Should you buy it?

• Good value overall
• Make sure you're happy with the style if you opt for purple

The Huawei Nova 3i is an interesting handset. It's not quite perfect, but nobody should expect that of a mid-range phone anyway. However, it does represent the kinds of value we're seeing in mid-range phones because the combination of its style, the power of the Kirin 710 processor and its generally impressive camera array gives it a lot of potential value. If you're looking for a mid-range handset to buy in 2018, it should definitely go on your comparison list.