Yet another entrant into the mid-range smartphone market well in time for Christmas, the Huawei Nova Plus is a big-screened Android phone that promises “powerful performance” and a “fantastic camera” — like every other Android phone, let’s be honest. The Nova Plus is temptingly cheap, though, and it looks quite nice, and it has a decent processor and relatively large battery
Looking like a cheaper version of Huawei’s P9 or Nexus 6P, the Chinese smartphone giant — did you know they’re one of the three largest phone manufacturers in the world? — says the Nova Plus has a class-leading 16-megapixel camera with built-in optical image stabilisation and 4K video recording. That’s not super common at this price point, so there’s a big tick in the Nova Plus’ favour.
It’s actually quite an attractive phone, too, looking like an iPhone 6 Plus met a Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ in a dark alley and did some unspeakable things after a few drinks. Like so many other smartphones in 2016 it has a ‘2.5D’ screen with slightly curved edges, not a bad look for its 5.5-inch 1080p LCD.
Round all that up with Qualcomm’s mid-range but very energy-efficient Snapdragon 625, a capacious 3340mAh battery capable of 2.2 days battery life according to Huawei’s own testing and a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor, and you’ve got what seems like a pretty decent smartphone for the asking price. What is that price, I hear you scream?
You’ll pay $549 for the Nova Plus, only available in Mystic Silver and with a 32GB internal storage capacity, if you buy it from Officeworks or Harvey Norman. That’s… not a bad deal at all. [Huawei]