Huawei Nova 15 Ultra Review: specs and features, camera quality test, gaming benchmark, user opinions and photos

Huawei nova 15 Ultra - When You Don't Quite Live Up to the Price Tag

The nova line of smartphones from the Chinese company Huawei has always enjoyed considerable popularity. The reason is simple: excellent price-quality ratio. However, the company often, but not always, manages to maintain this level of performance. Thus, the subject of today's review does not have this hallmark of successful models.

The appearance of the new model is more than impressive. Buyers will have access to a variety of stylish case colors, an original design of the photo module block with a matching design element, thin display bezels with an integrated fingerprint sensor, and a dual selfie camera with a monochrome module for improved face recognition. It's also hard not to praise the metal frame and IP68 water resistance. The 6.84-inch AMOLED panel delivers excellent visuals across the board thanks to its high 2856x1320 resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, and peak brightness of 3000+ nits. The manufacturer has also worked hard to ensure natural color reproduction.

The technical specifications, however, are nothing to write home about. The Kirin 9010s CPU, 12GB of RAM, and Maleoon GPU score a meager 1 million points in AnTuTu, so don't expect stunning performance with modern games. Furthermore, extended gaming sessions can lead to throttling. Ultimately, you'll have to use medium graphics settings in Genshin Impact, Zenless Zone Zero, and similarly resource-intensive games. At least the combination is energy efficient, so you can easily expect over 11-12 hours of screen-on time from the 6500mAh battery. In addition to 100W wired charging, there's also a 50W wireless option. Storage options range from 256GB to 1024GB, and there's no microSD card slot.

Perhaps the device's strongest point is its photography capabilities. The high-quality 50MP main sensor and 50MP telephoto lens with 4x optical zoom feature hybrid image stabilization, along with a decent wide-angle lens and a ToF sensor. Photos taken in low light or with lots of moving objects are virtually free of blur, noise, color errors, or other artifacts. NFC and 5G support, along with the increasingly optimized and refined HarmonyOS operating system, round out the list of advantages, but there are some unpleasant downsides, too. Of course, the lack of Google services and the not-so-affordable price tag are notable. Whether one can come to terms with all the device's shortcomings depends on the user's loyalty to the brand and its products.