Hey guys.
Just wanted to share my experience with my latest purchase, a Huawei Nova Plus, if anyone is interested in this device or in Huawei in general.
Some of you guys might know that my previous phone was the S6. It might surprise some of you that I went from a flagship like the S6 to the mid-ranger Nova Plus, but I really don't need much more power in a phone. I wanted something as cheap as possible. I didn't want to speed 600€ or more again in a phone to last me just one year.
So why did the S6 last me just one year? Well, one of the reasons is my fault. I went with 32GB and that just isn't enough for me, specially because I record a lot of videos in 4K and download YouTube videos for offline viewing later. With 32GB on the S6 I was always having problems with storage. I couldn't even install some games or have my music stored internally.
The other reason is because of the screen. Just 8 months in I already had burn-in, an issue I've had with almost all of my Samsung phones (S3 and S5). Maybe it's my usage (I do have brightness high most of the time), but I was really tired of owning AMOLED screens. Having burn-in made it difficult to sell the phone.
Also, battery life was terrible. 3 hours SOT maximum.
Camera and speed were great otherwise, but the fingerprint sensor wasn't that great either, and I wanted microSD back and an IPS display on my next phone. I LOVE IPS displays. I prefer them way more than AMOLED. Never liked the saturation of colors and the burn-in was always a pain.
So after owning an iPhone 6S Plus I went back to my S6 and waited several months for a new phone. It needed to have 4K video recording, IPS display, microSD, on screen buttons if possible, a better fingerprint sensor than the one on the S6, good battery life and a nice UI.
So when the Nova and Nova Plus were announced I thought the Plus could be an option. Recently a friend of mine bought it and let me play with it. I really enjoyed using it. It was light and thin, despite having a beautiful 5.5" screen. The screen was really beautiful, and it was fast and fluid and the build quality is as good as on my previous S6. It even has way better cell reception where I live! That's a HUGE plus for me. I get signal where I couldn't before with the S6 in my house. Such great news!
And man, oh man, the battery!! It's even better than on the 6S Plus I had! On that one and on the LG G2 I had a few years back I managed to get 7 hours SOT max. Now... I'm able to get 8 hours every day and sometimes even 9 hours!! With almost 2 days total!!
I'm blown away! Specially because my cell reception isn't 100% perfect where I live. This is mostly with Wi-Fi. On 4G I can get 7 hours total.
So now I've got a screen that I really LOVE (which is also bigger, perfect for web browsing, playing games and watching videos. And all of this while still remaining manageable in the hand. It weights less than the 6S Plus and is MUCH MUCH more easily to use. I had to sell the 6S Plus because it was a pain to handle), ENORMOUS battery life (almost unbelievable), microSD again (right now with a 64GB card, but in the future I'll put in a 128GB one or 256GB if they get cheaper), on screen buttons (which I can rearrange to have the back button on the right, like on the S6, plus a button to bring down the notification panel), still got quick charge, much better cell reception, GREAT build quality (love the 2.5D glass), nice UI (reminds me of iOS, which I like just on appearance. I like it better than TouchWiz) and a much better fingerprint scanner (always on, always active. Just rest the finger on it and the screen turns on). Plus it has USB-C, better Wi-Fi signal also (or so it seems).
AND I don't have to worry again about burn-in!! Or I hope so. My 3 year old Nexus 7 2013 has still a perfect screen, with no visible defects. I hope this way I can stop changing phones every year. I really hope to keep this device 2 years minimum.
It cost me 49€!! Because I sold my S6 on 260€ on Carphone Warehouse (here it's called The Phone House). I went to a few shops and they told me they could only give me 170€ because it was in "used" condition (had some small marks), but there was this one shop that gave me 260€ because it was "like new" for them, so awesome! There was also an offer that gave me 50€ extra if I bought the Nova Plus, 80€ for the Axon 7 or Mate 9 and 100€ extra for the S7 and S7 edge.
I thought about all these options, but the Axon 7 has AMOLED screen (which for me was a PRIORITY to avoid) and terrible cell reception according to users in XDA, the Mate 9 is too big and I didn't want to own another Samsung Galaxy phone for the next years. It's always the same and I wanted a change.
The Axon would have cost me 64€, the Mate 9 280€ and the S7 299€ with this offer. Great deals, indeed, but like I said previously, I wanted to spend as little as possible also, so the Nova Plus for 49€ was a great deal.
Now the negative: the camera. Obviously, there's a huge difference coming from the S6. I knew that, but videos in 4K look way worse than on the S6. The audio recorded is TERRIBLE. I hope they fix this with an update, but I'm not holding my breath. Also picture quality is way behind the S6. So I've lost quite a bit with the camera, which I use a lot, but oh well, I can't have a perfect phone for 49€ obviously.
I really like the UI coming from TouchWiz. It's a nice change. I love having a 5.5" IPS screen with on screen buttons. Makes my perfect combo. And the battery....... Pfff. Amazing.
Also the update to Nougat + EMUI 5.0 is coming, bringing some nice changes to make it look more like stock Android, although I'm really liking how things are right now.
Hope this helps anyone. I was scared of Huawei phones, but right now I prefer them WAY more than Samsung.
Just wanted to share my experience with my latest purchase, a Huawei Nova Plus, if anyone is interested in this device or in Huawei in general.
Some of you guys might know that my previous phone was the S6. It might surprise some of you that I went from a flagship like the S6 to the mid-ranger Nova Plus, but I really don't need much more power in a phone. I wanted something as cheap as possible. I didn't want to speed 600€ or more again in a phone to last me just one year.
So why did the S6 last me just one year? Well, one of the reasons is my fault. I went with 32GB and that just isn't enough for me, specially because I record a lot of videos in 4K and download YouTube videos for offline viewing later. With 32GB on the S6 I was always having problems with storage. I couldn't even install some games or have my music stored internally.
The other reason is because of the screen. Just 8 months in I already had burn-in, an issue I've had with almost all of my Samsung phones (S3 and S5). Maybe it's my usage (I do have brightness high most of the time), but I was really tired of owning AMOLED screens. Having burn-in made it difficult to sell the phone.
Also, battery life was terrible. 3 hours SOT maximum.
Camera and speed were great otherwise, but the fingerprint sensor wasn't that great either, and I wanted microSD back and an IPS display on my next phone. I LOVE IPS displays. I prefer them way more than AMOLED. Never liked the saturation of colors and the burn-in was always a pain.
So after owning an iPhone 6S Plus I went back to my S6 and waited several months for a new phone. It needed to have 4K video recording, IPS display, microSD, on screen buttons if possible, a better fingerprint sensor than the one on the S6, good battery life and a nice UI.
So when the Nova and Nova Plus were announced I thought the Plus could be an option. Recently a friend of mine bought it and let me play with it. I really enjoyed using it. It was light and thin, despite having a beautiful 5.5" screen. The screen was really beautiful, and it was fast and fluid and the build quality is as good as on my previous S6. It even has way better cell reception where I live! That's a HUGE plus for me. I get signal where I couldn't before with the S6 in my house. Such great news!
And man, oh man, the battery!! It's even better than on the 6S Plus I had! On that one and on the LG G2 I had a few years back I managed to get 7 hours SOT max. Now... I'm able to get 8 hours every day and sometimes even 9 hours!! With almost 2 days total!!
I'm blown away! Specially because my cell reception isn't 100% perfect where I live. This is mostly with Wi-Fi. On 4G I can get 7 hours total.
So now I've got a screen that I really LOVE (which is also bigger, perfect for web browsing, playing games and watching videos. And all of this while still remaining manageable in the hand. It weights less than the 6S Plus and is MUCH MUCH more easily to use. I had to sell the 6S Plus because it was a pain to handle), ENORMOUS battery life (almost unbelievable), microSD again (right now with a 64GB card, but in the future I'll put in a 128GB one or 256GB if they get cheaper), on screen buttons (which I can rearrange to have the back button on the right, like on the S6, plus a button to bring down the notification panel), still got quick charge, much better cell reception, GREAT build quality (love the 2.5D glass), nice UI (reminds me of iOS, which I like just on appearance. I like it better than TouchWiz) and a much better fingerprint scanner (always on, always active. Just rest the finger on it and the screen turns on). Plus it has USB-C, better Wi-Fi signal also (or so it seems).
AND I don't have to worry again about burn-in!! Or I hope so. My 3 year old Nexus 7 2013 has still a perfect screen, with no visible defects. I hope this way I can stop changing phones every year. I really hope to keep this device 2 years minimum.
It cost me 49€!! Because I sold my S6 on 260€ on Carphone Warehouse (here it's called The Phone House). I went to a few shops and they told me they could only give me 170€ because it was in "used" condition (had some small marks), but there was this one shop that gave me 260€ because it was "like new" for them, so awesome! There was also an offer that gave me 50€ extra if I bought the Nova Plus, 80€ for the Axon 7 or Mate 9 and 100€ extra for the S7 and S7 edge.
I thought about all these options, but the Axon 7 has AMOLED screen (which for me was a PRIORITY to avoid) and terrible cell reception according to users in XDA, the Mate 9 is too big and I didn't want to own another Samsung Galaxy phone for the next years. It's always the same and I wanted a change.
The Axon would have cost me 64€, the Mate 9 280€ and the S7 299€ with this offer. Great deals, indeed, but like I said previously, I wanted to spend as little as possible also, so the Nova Plus for 49€ was a great deal.
Now the negative: the camera. Obviously, there's a huge difference coming from the S6. I knew that, but videos in 4K look way worse than on the S6. The audio recorded is TERRIBLE. I hope they fix this with an update, but I'm not holding my breath. Also picture quality is way behind the S6. So I've lost quite a bit with the camera, which I use a lot, but oh well, I can't have a perfect phone for 49€ obviously.
I really like the UI coming from TouchWiz. It's a nice change. I love having a 5.5" IPS screen with on screen buttons. Makes my perfect combo. And the battery....... Pfff. Amazing.
Also the update to Nougat + EMUI 5.0 is coming, bringing some nice changes to make it look more like stock Android, although I'm really liking how things are right now.
Hope this helps anyone. I was scared of Huawei phones, but right now I prefer them WAY more than Samsung.
