News, Smartphone

Huawei Nova 5i Pro Introduced with Kirin 810 & 2,199 Yuan Price Tag

Meet the fourth member of the Huawei Nova 5 series, the Nova 5i Pro. Believed to be marketed as the Huawei Mate 30 Lite in certain markets (the camera design certainly reflects that), the 5i Pro is…sort of like a combination of the standard Nova 5 and Nova 5i.

Powered by Huawei’s newly released Kirin 810 chipset, the Nova 5i Pro is quite the interesting mid-ranger. More importantly, it is priced competitively too – let’s see what it has to offer, shall we?

Much like the Nova 5, the Nova 5i Pro comes with a Kirin 810 chipset. What makes this SoC particularly impressive is the fact that it’s built on a 7nm process, just like the higher-end Kirin 980 chip. Not only is this the only 7nm chip in the mid-range segment, the smaller size also means better power efficiency, which translates to better battery life.

Even when compared to its closest competition, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 730 chipset, early benchmarks have shown that the Kirin 810 is superior. Needless to say, this is a very respectable mid-range SoC. Did we mention it’s also the only 7nm chip in this segment? Yeah, it’s that big – or rather, small – of a deal.

Chipset aside, the Nova 5i Pro also takes cue from the Nova 5i’s hole-punch design. In our opinion, it looks a lot sleeker and modern than the notched displays of the higher-end Nova 5 and Nova 5 Pro. The hole-punch cutout just doesn’t take up as much space.

But similar to the Nova 5i, there is no fingerprint sensor under the 6.26-inch 1080p LTPS display of the Nova 5i Pro. Instead, there’s a sensor on the back of the phone. Depending on your personal preference, this could be a plus point: conventional capacitive fingerprint sensors are usually a lot more accurate and quicker than in-screen sensors.

On the back of the Nova 5i Pro is a square camera module that looks a lot like the Mate 20‘s camera arrangement. It’s made up of a 48MP f/1.8 primary shooter, an 8MP wide angle sensor, a 2MP macro lens, and a 2MP depth sensor. Just like the Nova 5 and Nova 5 Pro, there is no telephoto camera here.

Other specifications of the Nova 5i Pro include a 32MP f/2.0 front-facing shooter, a very generous 4,000mAh battery, 6GB or 8GB of RAM, two storage options (128GB or 256GB), a USB-C port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Unfortunately, this phone does not have a microSD card slot, but it does support the company’s ow proprietary NM cards for storage expansion.

The Huawei Nova 5i Pro is currently available only in China. There are three variants of the phone in the country: the 128GB model with 6GB RAM retails at 2,199 Chinese yuan (about RM1,315), while the 128GB + 8GB and 256GB + 8GB variants go for 2,499 yuan (approximately RM1,495) and 2,799 yuan (around RM1,675) respectively.

These are competitive price tags for a mid-range smartphone like the Nova 5i Pro. Given the fact that Huawei is bringing in the Nova 5 series to Malaysia, there is a chance the Nova 5i Pro will officially make it here. Rest assured, we will keep a close eye on the local availability of the Huawei Nova 5 series.

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