HoTWiReZ's DoMaiN

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<p align="center"></p><p><p>This week at IFA 2016, Huawei has announced another brand/line of smartphones. The NOVA brand, to counter the Mate line of devices and go up against its own honor brand, is aimed squarely at mid-range pricing and millennials. The Nova and Nova Plus will be the first two products in this line, differentiated by size, battery life and price, and using Qualcomm&rsquo;s Snapdragon S625 SoC, a mid-range 14nm part with 8xA53 at 2 GHz, but also an integrated X7 modem, capable of Category 9 LTE and carrier aggregation but also has the right licencing for CDMA in the US.</p>

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<p align="center"><div>Gallery: Nova<div></div></div></p>

<p>The Nova will launch as the main device, with a 5-inch Full HD (1920x1080) display. The devices will use USB Type-C, with Huawei&rsquo;s characteristic brushed metal finishes. For several years Huawei has been pushing a high screen-to device ratio, typically comparing it against smartphones with physical buttons, and while it was mentioned in the launch they surprisingly left out exact numbers. The display is rated at a supposed 1500:1 contrast ratio, with 85% &lsquo;high color gamut&rsquo;, which is likely DCI-P3. Battery for the Nova is at 3020 mAh, or rated for 5-hours of Pok&eacute;mon Go, and will have EMUI 4.1 (based on Android 6) out of the box.</p>

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<p>Cameras are a Sony 12MP F/2.2 with 1.25-micron pixels on the rear, with a Sony 8MP F/2.0 on the front. Pro shooting modes are supported, as well as Huawei&rsquo;s usual features of light painting, document readjustment and so on. PDAF focusing is rated at 0.3 seconds. One of the new features Huawei is promoting is the per-user beautify feature. This is the ability for the phone to recognize specific faces and use a separate pre-defined beautify profile for them. The concept being that in a group photo, with presets it can make you look better than your friends.</p>

<p>One of the newer features is the blue light reduction option. Similar to other devices with this feature, the software enables a separate look-up-table to reduce the effectiveness of the blue. We asked whether this was a per device/batch LUT to enable a better consistency with panel variability, or if the LUT was a fixed constant adjustment vs a gradient, but we weren&rsquo;t able to get an answer.</p>

<p>The Nova and Nova Plus will have three main colors: Mystic Silver, Titanium Grey and Prestige Gold. Rose Gold will be available in select regions only. Pricing is at 399 Euro (that&rsquo;s including tax) for a 3GB DRAM and 32GB storage model. Both phones will support dual nano-sim, with one slot capable of a microSD card. Both devices also have a &lsquo;level 4&rsquo; fingerprint sensor.</p>

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<p align="center"><div>Gallery: Nova Plus<div></div></div></p>

<p>The Nova Plus is the larger device, coming it at 5.5-inch with a Full HD display, but offers a few upgrades over the Nova. The battery is another 10% larger (3340 mAh), and the camera supports OIS. There is an upgraded audio codec in there, with a collaboration with harmon/kardon and DTS Headphone:X certification. Pricing is at 429 Euro (again, including tax in that price) for a 3/32 configuration.</p>

<p>I'll be disappointed if Huawei's next model isn't called the Supernova, or if the 4-inch model isn't called a White Dwarf or something similar. There are lots of names to choose from...</p>

<p><div>Gallery: Huawei Launches the NOVA Brand: Two Midrange Snapdragon 625 Smartphones<div></div></div></p>
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Source: AnandTech
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