Huawei announced the mid-range Nova and Nova Plus at IFA Berlin on September 1. The ‘Nova’ line is a new one from Huawei – each with the same design, but different sized displays and cameras. Now it seems as though Rogers, Virgin Mobile, and Fido will carry the Nova Plus and it looks it will be “as early as October 18.” Although, and as usual, no official date or price has been shared yet. Huawei has been cozying up with Canada for quite a while now after receiving a cold reception in the US prior to the release of the likes of the Huawei Nexus 6P and Huawei Watch.
The Nova Plus comes with the signature Huawei all-metal body, except for the top where the antenna is buried. It is a nice looking device with 2.5 glass on the display, so it slightly curves into the metal frame – not a Galaxy S7 Edge look, but it makes the Nova Plus look finished and more elegant. It also has DTS sound to help out listening through your earphones. The Huawei Nova Plus will sport a 5.5-inch IPS LCD FHD display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 with 401 pixels-per-inch (PPI.) A 64-bit Snapdragon 625 octa-core processor provides the brains with a quad-core clocked at 2.0. This processor is coupled with an Adreno 506 GPU for graphic capabilities. It packs 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal memory – expandable to 256GB with the help of a microSD card.
The primary camera in the Nova Plus is a 16-megapixel shooter with an aperture of f/2.0, phase detection autofocus (PDAF), a dual-tone flash, and OIS. It also has a nice sized 8-megapixel front-facing camera (FFC) with a f/2.0, for selfies and video chatting. It packs a 3,340 mAh non-removable battery that offers fast battery charging. It comes with a rear-facing fingerprint sensor to unlock your device and authorize mobile payments. It has the usual suspects including WiFi, Bluetooth v4.1, GPS, NFC, FM radio, and a new reversible USB Type-C port for charging and data transfer. The Huawei Nova Plus measures 151.8 x 75.7 x 7.3 mm, weighs in at 160 grams and will cost about €429, which works out to $480 USD and $633 CAD. It is available in Prestige Gold, Mystic Silver, or Titanium Gray. It will be running Android 6.0.1 (Marshmallow) with Huawei’s Emotion 4.1 UI running over the top. After the Nova Plus hits Canada, Spain, and Italy, it will eventually be available in over 50 countries, according to Huawei.