Thirty Days with the Huawei Nova 2i: The Good and The Bad

Huawei Nova 2i is one of the best mid-range flagship smartphones in the market right now. It packs in performance, design, good build quality, and much more. I was fortunate enough to get my hands on this smartphone. During my time with the phone, I had so much fun testing, playing and overall using this device as my daily driver.

I tested the phone for a week before posting my full review (which you can read here). But the things are different here. I had this smartphone for a month. So, what do I feel about Huawei Nova 2i after using it every day for a month?

Huawei Nova 2i 30 Day Experience

Specifications

Let’s talk about Huawei Nova 2i specifications first. It comes with a 5.9-inch FHD+, Full View display with 1080×2160 resolution. Under the hood, Huawei Nova 2i is powered by HiSilicon Kirin 659 SoC. The device is coupled with 4GB RAM and Mali-T830 MP2 GPU. It comes with 64 GB of internal storage with expandable storage option via a microSD.

Talking about the camera, Huawei has a dual front camera with the main sensor being 13MP and the other at 2MP. Similarly, the dual rear camera setup at back consists of a 16MP main sensor and a 2MP support sensor. The Nova 2i runs on Android 7.0 (Nougat) with EMUI 5.1 on top. The sensors included in this phone are fingerprint (rear-mounted), accelerometer, proximity & compass.

The Good

Normally, a daily driver has to be an all-rounder. It should be durable in terms of power and efficiency. And it should definitely look good doing it. Huawei Nova 2i is one of those rare gems. It packs enough horsepower to perform any task with ease. HiSilicon Kirin 659 and 4GB RAM complement each other beautifully.

Onboard graphics Mali-T830 is decent and gets the job done. Each application opened without any delay, multitasking was definitely on point. There was an instance when I had various different apps running in the background. Switching between them was smooth as a butter. Plus, I got lag-free gaming experience on most demanding titles like Injustice 2 and Real Racing 3.

When it has now been over a month, and I haven’t noticed any dip in performance or gaming. Despite clustering the phone with different apps and files, the smartphone is still in top-notch condition. Huawei’s Phone Manager also helps to maintain and clean the smartphone from time to time.

Another thing I am still in love with; is the camera. It is still one of the best smartphones with the most advanced camera system. After a month, I still use it to capture those perfect moment. Modes, effects, and filters each perfect for every occasion. We did a separate article just because it packed with so many features. You can read it here.

There are many things I love about this phone. It’s packed with features that almost everyone will enjoy. After spending so much time with the device, I think I have explored all Nova 2i has to offer. We received the updates a week back, and we found the face unlock of Nova 2i, very fast and responsive whereas the AR Camera lens was very creative and fun to use. It shows Huawei actually cares about their customers, unlike some smartphone manufacturer.

The Bad

I have talked about how much I love this smartphone but it still lacks in some places. I wasn’t a big fan of the charging speed of the device. It took comparatively long time to get to its full capacity compared to smartphone having fast charging. Fast charging definitely should’ve been included. However, the duration of time which the battery lasts is impressive. To summarize, it balances each other out. Regardless of many gaming sessions, internet browsing and music playback; battery easily manages to last the whole day, and the amazing part is that this handset didn’t heat up at all compared to other brands’ smartphone of this range.

Finally, I feel Huawei Nova 2i need to improve the location of the speaker. The mono speaker’s loudness isn’t up to the point. Because of the placement I would accidentally block or cover the speaker. During my time with this phone, I preferred to use earphones over Nova 2i’s speaker most of the time.

Summary

To summarize my thirty days experience with Huawei Nova 2i in one sentence is difficult. It was fun, an exciting time where the device showed excellence in performance. Though, the smartphone missed few features. But those were easily overshadowed by its impressive design, build and hardware. I truly enjoyed every day using Huawei Nova 2i as my daily driver.