Huawei is set to paint the town red pink come 14 February with a new superstar—the Huawei Nova 7i. Malaysia is the first market outside of China to offer the selfie-centric mid-range smartphone.
Since its debut, the Nova series has been all about pushing the price-performance envelope—big full-screen, bezel-less displays, big cameras, big memory and storage yet offered at a rival-killing price point. The 2017 nova 2i rose up the ranks as a segment leader thanks to its impressive specs including ground-breaking dual-selfie cameras. Its successor the nova 3i in 2018 more or less stuck to the same winning formula, with uprated specs and introducing GPU Turbo for enhanced gaming performance. Last year, we got the “baby P30” i.e nova 4e, another selfie-centric strong performer and subsequently witnessed the glitzy entry of the Huawei nova 5T—a stylish, power-packed device armed with an AI-powered quad-camera system.
Well, Huawei is about to take it up another notch. Again.
First, let’s get a couple of basic things out of the way. As pointed out by SoyaCincau, the Nova 7i is a global version of the Nova 6 SE in China, sharing similar underpinnings and design.
The “glasstic” curved body houses a 6.4-inch LTPS IPS LCD display that pushes Full HD+ resolution (1080×2310) and an 83.5 percent screen-to-body ratio. Like the nova 5T, the Nova 7i features a side-mounted fingerprint sensor. The Nova 7i will offer three colour options: Midnight Black, Sakura Pink and Crush Green.
Under the hood, the device packs the new octa-core 7nm Kirin 810 processor coupled with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of onboard storage (upgradable to 256GB via nano memory (NM) card).
Keeping thing juiced is a large 4,200mAh battery that supports 40W SuperCharge via USB-C. Huawei claims the Nova 7i will charge up to 70 percent in just 30 minutes.
The device retains a 3.5mm headphone jack and runs EMUI10 based on Android 10.
Now, here’s where it gets interesting.
The front-facing camera is an AI-assisted 16MP f/2.0 unit. Huawei has integrated some nifty features for selfie videos such as stickers, filters and effects, right in the stock camera app.
With the Nova 7i, Huawei is also introducing a brand new built-in video call feature called MeeTime. The feature is baked into the OS, so you don’t need to download a separate app to use the feature. Huawei promises great audio and video quality from the front camera even in low light conditions.
On the rear, the Nova 7i gets a versatile set of four intelligent cameras comprising a 48MP f/1.8 main camera, 8MP f/2.4 ultra-wide-camera, 2MP f/2.4 depth camera, and a 2MP f/2.4 macro camera. The main sensor is capable of handheld Super Night shots while the macro lens enables you to shoot objects as close as 4cm.
Due to the current US trade ban, this is the first Nova series smartphone to not ship with Google Mobile Services (GMS). Instead, it will be equipped with Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) and the Huawei AppGallery.
No pricing details yet, but based on Huawei’s pricing structure with the Nova series, I estimate the Nova 7i to be priced between MYR1,200-MYR1,299.
The Huawei Nova 7i is set for a 14 February launch but there are no details on availability as yet.
