Smartphone

Huawei Nova 5 Series Unveiled with New Kirin 810 Chip & Quad Camera System

Huawei just introduced three new smartphones under the Nova brand in China: the Huawei Nova 5, the Huawei Nova 5 Pro, and the Huawei Nova 5i. As usual, these Nova devices are mid-range smartphones, but in the case of the Pro model, it comes with Huawei’s fastest chipset yet, the Kirin 980.

Out of the three smartphones, however, the Nova 5 is arguably the most interesting one. Not only does it sit at a lower price point, it also debuts Huawei’s new Kirin 810 chipset.

With that in mind, let’s break down the Nova 5 first. Much like the higher-end Kirin 980, the Kirin 810 powering this phone is also built on a 7nm process. Basically, you will get better power efficiency with this smartphone, which translates to longer battery life.

Besides its 7nm size, the Kirin 810 comes with a Mali-G52 GPU, two 2.27Ghz Cortex-A76 cores, and six Cortex-A55 cores clocked at 1.88GHz. We can’t say for sure exactly how this would translate to real world performance, but chances are, it should be more than capable to provide a good level of performance.

Interestingly, the Kirin 810 also comes with Huawei’s Neural Processing Unit (NPU), making it the first mid-range processor from Huawei to come with that feature.

Beyond the Kirin 810, other specifications of the Nova 5 include a 6.39-inch 1080p OLED display (with a notch, unfortunately), 8GB of RAM, 128GB of internal storage, an in-screen fingerprint sensor, and a 3,500mAh battery.

In the camera department, it has a quad camera configuration. The primary sensor is a 48MP f/1.8 shooter, and it’s paired with a 16MP f/2.2 wide angle camera, a 2MP f/2.4 macro lens, and a 2MP f/2.4 depth sensor. The selfie camera, on the other hand, is a 32MP shooter.

Moving up the range is the Nova 5 Pro, and…it’s not all that different from the standard Nova 5. The biggest difference here is the chipset under the hood of the Nova 5 Pro, which is a flagship-class Kirin 980 SoC. On top of that, it can also be configured with up to 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

Last but definitely not least is the most affordable device in the series, the Nova 5i. Interestingly, it has a 6.4-inch 1080 IPS screen with a hole-punch cutout instead of the other phones’ notched displays, and it also comes with a larger 4,000mAh cell.

But the Nova 5i’s hardware are definitely more modest. It has a Kirin 710 chipset, either 6GB or 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of internal storage. It also has a quad camera system, but it’s a simpler 24MP (primary) + 8MP (wide angle) + 2MP (macro) + 2MP (depth) configuration. As for the selfie shooter, it’s a 24MP camera.

For the Chinese market, the Huawei Nova 5 Pro retails from 2,999 Chinese yuan (about RM1,810), while the Nova 5 and Nova 5i start from 2,799 yuan (approximately RM1,690) and 1,999 yuan (around RM1,205) respectively. These prices are not particularly competitive, but they’re not too exorbitant either.

For the time being, the Huawei Nova 5 series is only available in China, and it remains to be seen when – or if – these smartphones will make it to other markets, including Malaysia.

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