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Battery life
- Two day battery life with casual usage
- Fast to charge with the included charger
The Huawei Nova 2 Plus comes with a 3,340mAh battery that is identical in capacity to the original Huawei Nova Plus. And that's a good thing because the battery life on the original lasted almost two days. With general usage, you could expect the same on the Nova 2 Plus.
By general usage, I mean using your phone to listen some music, take some shots, browse the web and keep your social channels updated.
If you're planning on heavily using the camera or playing games, expect the battery life to drop. Even then, you should get one full day out of it easily.
Even when you're running low, Huawei has bundled a good fast charger with the Nova 2 Plus that is capable of charging the phone to almost 40% level in half an hour. With EMUI 5.1, Huawei also adds Smart Power Saving 5.0 that can scale back the performance and power requirements of the phone and give you a couple of extra hours.
Camera
- Disappointing dual back cameras without OIS
- Massive 20MP front camera for selfie lovers
The Huawei Nova 2 Plus features dual back cameras but not in the mono/color combination that Huawei is a leader in. Instead, the dual RGP lenses are made up of a wide angle 12MP and a long-focus 8MP.
Sadly, there is no Optical Image Stabilization on either which means that you need a fairly steady set of hands, especially under lower-lit conditions to get the best out of the Nova 2 Plus.
However, Huawei wants to focus more on the front camera with the Nova 2 Plus which features a 20MP camera along with Huawei's self developed ISP and a ten-grade beautification mode to give you a "natural, healthy and energetic look."
There are tons of camera modes and options to take play with when it comes to taking photos on the Nova 2 Plus. If you have used previous Huawei phones, they will be familiar to you.
These modes include Portrait Mode, Night Shot, HDR and Light Painting. The dual camera setup also allows for a hybrid optical zoom.
Unfortunately, the dual back camera setup on the Huawei Nova 2 Plus failed to impress us.
While it can take good "basic" shots when there is plenty of lighting, it doesn't do a great job when the lighting levels go down, or when you use features such as background blur or zoom.
The quality of photos, especially when viewed on larger screens such as your laptop isn't that great.
With background blurring, there is a small area on which the camera focuses and artificially blurs the rest of the photo which results in a very unnatural result. Zooming in also loses a lot of detail on the picture and, with the lack of OIS, makes it hard to get clear shots.
Rear camera samples gallery
Where the Nova 2 Plus scores well is with its front camera. We got better shots out of that than the dual-back cameras which make us wonder why Huawei didn't simply opt for a better single lens solution for the back camera.
The front camera also supports background blurring and isn't as aggressive resulting in a better picture. It also has beauty modes that smoothen your skin imperfections. There is a 3D mapping mode as well which we couldn't quite get to work.
Front camera samples gallery
