Huawei Nova 3 128GB Brief Review, Ratings, Pros Cons, Specs, Cases & Covers

Huawei Nova 3 128GB Brief Review and Pros Cons:

Huawei, as has been seen lately, is more aggressive than ever to make itself count in one of the top smartphone manufacturers. With Huawei Nova 3, the company tries to compete in the budget flagship segment and with the likes on OnePlus 6, Asus Zenfone 5Z as it did by launching the Honor 10, Honor view 10 to compete with previous versions of OnePlus. Here we review the Huawei Nova 3 and discuss the specifications, features and ratings of this gorgeous smartphone.

Huawei Nova 3 has a 6.3-inch full view display with a notch and a Full HD Plus resolution. The aspect ratio stands at 19.5:9 and the display is amazing with its colour reproduction and viewing angle. The back has a glass design which is becoming a Huawei winning formulae as it looks super attractive with its blue and purple shades outputting amazing colours at different angles. The glass back though is a fingerprint magnet but having a transparent back case can save you which also comes bundled in the box.

Talking about the performance factor of this Nova 3. It comes powered with an in-house Kirin 970 processor as was seen in the other Huawei phones in under 30k range like the Honor View 10 and Honor 10. Kirin 970 is a powerful processor and Nova 3 scores a decent 174000 on the AnTuTu Benchmark which is at par with the Snapdragon 835 but not close to the Snapdragon 845 as seen in the similar budget smartphone of 30000 to 40000 like the OnePlus 6 and Zenfone 5Z. The Snapdragon 845 clocks around 270000 points on the AnTuTu benchmark. While checking on the performance and comparing it with the other phones in this range, the performance in day to day usage with decent multitasking, gaming may seem okay and equivalent but when it comes to a super high usage (which SD845 is meant for), the difference could be observed.

Nova 3 with the Kirin 970 gets a 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. This smartphone gets also gets a hybrid MicroSD Card slot through which you can expand the storage by up to 256GB, which you usually do not see in a Budget flagship or a flagship smartphone. For the enhancement in the gaming experience, the Nova 4 comes with GPU turbo that brings out best of the graphics and also consumes less power.

On the camera domain, which is one of the most important features from every user perspective, Nova 3 get a dual rear camera with a 16MP primary sensor and a 24MP monochrome sensor both having f/1.8 aperture. The images clicked by the camera are perfect in the daylight, the AI used in the camera auto-detects the objects to improvise on the colours but at times they can get over saturated. The camera application in the Nova 3 gives you an option to save the non-AI image if you do not like the modifications done by the AI. The 24MP monochrome sensor is used to click black and white images and works decently well and is also used as a depth sensor for clicking the images with bokeh effect. The portrait shots are perfect with proper edge detection and blurring.

Coming to the low light conditions, the camera struggles a bit due to the lack of Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) and you need to be extra cautious with stable hands to like a noise-free or low noise image.  Do note that the rear camera has a bump at the back and protrude outside. You can shoot video up to 4K which work fine in the daylight but the low light show noise and blur. Huawei has confirmed that the OIS would be rolled out pretty soon with a software update which would further output better pictures and video quality.

Talking about the front camera of Nova 3, which comes with a dual sensor here as well. Here the camera has a 24 MP primary sensor and a 2 MP depth sensor.  The images are sharp and bright with proper colours all around and the bokeh effects is super amazing. The camera poses an image assistant feature which uses AI, where you can click any image and Amazon assistant would guide you to a list similar products on Amazon. You can use this feature on any image in your phone by touching the image with two fingers.

The gaming performance is smooth and we did not face any lag or frame drops but some heating with the extended gaming. The battery has a 3750 mAh rating and could work enough for a day with medium type usage. The box includes a fast charger but takes about 110 minutes for a full charge, so it is not that fast as with the OnePlus 6. You also get an apple styled earphone in the box.

The software on the Nova 3, is the EMUI 8.2 build on the Android Oreo 8.1 and comes with some neat features that you will love. There are some bloatware apps but they can be removed. The notch also has the option to be removed and the phone to be used as a full view display smartphone.

Nova 3 comes with both fingerprint and face unlocking mechanism. The fingerprint sensor is located at the back and is easily accessible and works fine. The face unlock is done through the front camera but also has IR sensors that allow it to unlock even in low lighting conditions which the other face unlock devices expect the iPhone X fails. Though the face unlock is not as accurate compared to the iPhone X in the low light but does the job most of the time.

There is no IP rating on the phone so it should be protected from dust and water. Overall the phone is a decent piece of budget flagship with good hardware specifications but looks to not beat the likes of Onplus 6 either in performance or the camera quality.

In the launch offers, you can avail a discount of Rs 3000 when you buy Nova 3 using Amex card. You can check the other Nova 3 launch offers here.

User Reviews of Huawei Nova 3 128GB:

If you would like to read the reviews given by customers who bought Huawei Nova 3 128GB, check out the links below

Read Huawei Nova 3 128GB User Reviews on Amazon