This Huawei Nova 4 smart phone is the first phone to be sold in Thailand with a "hole punch" screen instead of a notch. This gives a near full frontal screen for people to use, but for the tiny camera cut-out at the top left of the screen.
This small hole is barely noticeable and a lot less annoying than any kind of notch. It is the same hole punch style as Samsung's latest S10 phone and Huawei are beating Samsung to the punch by releasing the Nova 4 days before its rival.
The size of the phone, given the 6.4-inch screen size, is phenomenal. It's remarkably slim and light. However, there is no water resistance, so no underwater photos. The screen is LCD with a noticeably bluish tint.
Running games at the highest graphical setting is a breeze, though the phone can get pretty hot after 10 minutes or so. With 3,750mAh battery, gamers can rejoice; this phone will not let you down, allowing gaming to go on for a pretty good length of time.
I love how snappily the phone can be unlocked with face recognition or the fingerprint scanner on the back. No need to press any buttons. Either way takes less than a second. I'm not too sure how secure the face unlock is compared to other brands, but the faster the better in most cases, I think.
The 25MP frontal camera produces selfies that look better than real life, in just the way that Huawei is famous for. If you like uploading lots of pictures of your pretty face to Facebook, this is the phone for you.
The main rear tri-camera is perfect for well-lit scenes. Snapping photos is fast and AI assists you in adjusting the pics. However, pictures taken in low light can be a bit lacking. In addition to the 20MP camera is an ultrawide camera that allows you to take in a lot of the scene without backing away too much (like in small rooms) and a bokeh camera which is great for portrait photos. You can also take 4K videos as well, although the phone's memory will fill up fast, even with 128GB. Since it does not allow SD card expansion, you'll have to be aware of how much storage you have left when going on a photo spree.
Newer Huawei phones have a special photo mode called "light painting", which is an imaging technique that uses a moving light source to brighten up under-illuminated subjects in long-exposure photographs. Photos can be brought to life by painting with beams of light this way. For instance, you can take a photo of a Bangkok road at night and have the car headlights create streams of yellow lines along the road in front of you.
When comparing the photo file quality to Huawei's own flagship phones, like the P20, as well as those of other brands, the quality may be a bit lacking. But it's way more than adequate for any social media use.
This phone hates slopes. It will slide like a bar of soap on a wet bathroom surface, due to the light-reflective shiny back panel. Not even the camera hump can help it grip any surface. During my weeklong review period, I nearly dropped it twice. And the phone itself has suicidal tendencies, almost sliding off the table a couple of times.
I really like that many phone manufacturers are bundling polycarbonate cases with their phones in the box these days. It makes sense for a really slippery phone like this.
I personally don't like Huawei's launcher, which tries to imitate Apple's iOS a bit too much. But since this is running Android, I can simply install another launcher to suit my style. Problem solved.
For ones who want a really fast gaming phone that can also take good photos and last all day, this phone is a great choice.
SPECS
CPU: Kirin 970 Octa-Core (4 x Cortex-A73 Based 2.36GHz + 4 x Cortex-A53 Based 1.8GHz)
Screen: 6.4-inch LTPS LCD (2310 x 1080 resolution)
Camera: 25MP with F/2.0 (front), 20MP with F/1.8 + 16 MP with F/2.2 + 2MP with F/2.4 (rear)
Battery: 3,750mAh
Storage: 128GB
RAM: 8GB
OS: Android 9.0 with EMUI 9.0.1
Connectivity: Bluetooth 4.2, USB 2.0 via USB-C
Price: 16,900 baht
