Following the US trade ban, Huawei saw its smartphone division take a massive decline in both sales and market share, not to mention Google taking down Play Services from the Chinese manufacturer, which only compounded the effects.
These massive setbacks however did not stop Huawei from making smartphones, although lacking Google Play Services makes their devices a tough sell to consumers who are deeply integrated into Google’s ecosystem from Gmail to Google Docs.
Huawei’s solution to this was the unveiling of Huawei Mobile Services, which aims to offer the same services you would normally receive from Google apps. In the past few years, Huawei has largely released smartphones for its domestic Chinese market and the neighbouring regions, with only a few getting international releases.
During this year’s IFA trade show held in Berlin, Germany, the company announced that the Nova 10 series, comprising the Nova 10 and Nova 10 Pro, will be finally making its way into the international market. The Nova 10 series is a camera-centric line-up that was first released in July for the Chinese market.
Just how much camera-centric are the two devices, you might ask? 60-megapixel ultrawide cameras at the front is the answer, with the Nova 10 Pro featuring an additional 8-megapixel sensor for selfie shots. Mind-boggling to say the least.
At the rear are equally impressive specs, with the Nova 10 featuring a 50MP f/1.9 primary shooter, an 8MP ultrawide camera, and a 2MP depth sensor. The Nova 10 Pro on the other hand features a nearly identical setup except for the primary shooter being 50 MP f/1.8.
The same story of the Nova 10 Pro boasting slightly better specs is also seen on the display with the base Nova 10 featuring a 6.67-inch 2400 x 1080 OLED screen while the Pro version gets a slightly better 6.78-inch OLED screen with a resolution of 2652 x 1200.
Under the hood, both versions of the Nova 10 series get the same chipset, the 6nm octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G with a single RAM option of 8GB but a choice of two internal storage sizes, 128GB or 256GB with no microSD card for bumping up the size should you need more space.
On matters of charging and battery, Nova 10 has a 4,000mAh brick with 66W fast wired charging and reverse charging support. The Nova 10 Pro on the other hand goes slightly higher with a 4,500mAh battery supporting 100W fast charging.
The main drawback as far as I can see is that the two devices are still running Android 10 out of the box, although Huawei’s custom skin, the EMUI 12 is coated on top of it.
Alongside the Nova 10 series, Huawei has also announced that the Watch D which debuted in China back in December 2021, is also finally making its way to the international market. The company, however, did not give further details on the watch’s pricing or availability.
For the Nova 10 series, the Nova 10 starts at €549 (Ksh 66,000) while the Pro version starts at €699 (Ksh 83,000) which positions them in the upper middle range category, and dangerously close to the high-end tier.
