Huawei nova review: Life of a Star

Life of a Star

GSMArena team, 3 October 2016.

Performance

The Huawei nova is powered by the mid-range Snapdragon 625 chip, which is the sole reason not to put the nova among the top-end smartphones. The SoC offers a total of eight Cortex-A53 cores, running at 2.0 GHz, and a rather new Adreno 506 GPU. There are 3GB of RAM available on the Nova.

The highlight of the chip is that it is manufactured using a 14nm process. It is the same fabrication process Qualcomm uses for its top-tier chips like the Snapdragon 820 and is still quite uncommon in mid-range chips. This should allow for less power consumption and lower running temperature than any other mid-range solution to date.

Huawei nova review

As usual, we kick off our routine with some CPU torture. In the single core test, it is not hard to see how any Cortex-A72 or Kryo unit performs a lot better than an isolated Cortex-A53.

GeekBench 3 (single-core)

Higher is better

  • OnePlus 3
    2383
  • Huawei Honor 8
    1831
  • Huawei P9
    1819
  • Samsung Galaxy S6
    1490
  • Sony Xperia X
    1367
  • Huawei nova
    941
  • Samsung Galaxy C7
    933
  • Huawei P9 Lite
    899
  • Xiaomi Redmi 3 Pro
    655

But when you put enough of them together on a multi-threaded load, the higher clock rate starts to add up and lowers the gap between the latest Kirin (P9) and Snapdragon (OnePlus 3). Sure, the difference is still big, but we are talking mid-range here, so the score is perfectly fine.

GeekBench 3 (multi-core)

Higher is better

  • Huawei P9
    6558
  • Huawei Honor 8
    6380
  • OnePlus 3
    5520
  • Samsung Galaxy S6
    5215
  • Samsung Galaxy C7
    5103
  • Huawei nova
    4911
  • Huawei P9 Lite
    3799
  • Sony Xperia X
    3796
  • Xiaomi Redmi 3 Pro
    2874

Looking at the all-round benchmarks, we clearly see the Huawei nova holds its ground among mid-rangers such as Galaxy C7 and Xperia X, both similarly priced and positioned. Of course, it is not exactly a fair performance fight when we pit it against flagships like the OnePlus 3, the Honor 8, or the Galaxy S6. However, the nova costs the same as those, so they need to be here.

AnTuTu 6

Higher is better

  • OnePlus 3
    141764
  • Huawei P9
    98069
  • Huawei Honor 8
    94892
  • Samsung Galaxy S6
    79038
  • Sony Xperia X
    77537
  • Huawei nova
    65021
  • Samsung Galaxy C7
    62818
  • Huawei P9 Lite
    52768
  • Xiaomi Redmi 3 Pro
    34937

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

  • OnePlus 3
    2365
  • Huawei Honor 8
    2099
  • Huawei P9
    2068
  • Sony Xperia X
    1714
  • Samsung Galaxy S6
    1674
  • Huawei P9 Lite
    1242
  • Samsung Galaxy C7
    1222
  • Huawei nova
    1218
  • Xiaomi Redmi 3 Pro
    262

Moving on to graphics, the Adreno 506 bundled with the Snapdragon 625 provides an adequate match to CPU performance. That said, we can't expect it to stand up to something like the Adreno 530 in the Snapdragon 820, but it is still more than adequate for almost every current Android game title in the Play Store.

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

  • OnePlus 3
    30
  • Huawei P9
    11
  • Huawei Honor 8
    11
  • Sony Xperia X
    10
  • Huawei nova
    6.5
  • Samsung Galaxy C7
    6.1
  • Huawei P9 Lite
    4.9

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

  • OnePlus 3
    18
  • Huawei P9
    7.1
  • Huawei Honor 8
    6.9
  • Sony Xperia X
    5.9
  • Huawei nova
    3.7
  • Samsung Galaxy C7
    3.4
  • Huawei P9 Lite
    3

Basemark X provides an even better overview of where the Huawei nova fits graphics-wise among its competitors.

Basemark X

Higher is better

  • OnePlus 3
    32715
  • Samsung Galaxy S6
    27169
  • Huawei P9
    16942
  • Huawei Honor 8
    16592
  • Sony Xperia X
    15087
  • Huawei nova
    10511
  • Samsung Galaxy C7
    10445
  • Huawei P9 Lite
    7681
  • Xiaomi Redmi 3 Pro
    5427

The Huawei nova may not have the top-tier specs to impress, but it won't let down even power users. The eight 2.0 GHz cores are snappy, and the 3GB of RAM are still perfectly adequate for as much multitasking as you desire. Modern games run smooth, there is no lag in Android OS, and the phone stays cool even when its hardware is 100% busy for a long time. And that's more than enough for a great mid-ranger by our books.

Reader comments

  • Anonymous
  • 08 Oct 2022
  • XKF

It's the best phone ever

  • Prtki
  • 09 Mar 2019
  • Yev

It says here that up to 256 GB of memory is allowed and in the support center they told me that it is allowed up to 128 GB. What is right?

  • Anonymous
  • 15 Sep 2018
  • MZJ

The Huawei Nova was the very first Hauwei I have used. I LOVE the device! It is smooth to operate and hasn't given my any hassles. I am definitely sticking to Huawei from here on out...