Huawei Nova 9 and Nova 9 Pro official: great cameras but no Android

Huawei Nova 9 and Nova 9 Pro are official in China: they arrive with great cameras and ultra-fast charging, but lack Google apps and services

A few days after the announcement of Huawei Nova 8i, Huawei presented in China two more new mid-range smartphones, Nova 9 and Nova 9 Pro. The two, like all recent Huawei smartphones, suffer from the absence of Android, Google services and apps, and the lack of 5G connectivity, which is why the company is first marketing them in China and then considering bringing them to other markets.

Among the two heavy absences in the West, Huawei Nova 9 and Nova 9 Pro find their main strength in the technology used for fast charging, which brings the second on the threshold of 100 watts of power, an incredible value. No less relevant is the offer in terms of cameras, where once again Nova 9 Pro stands out compared to its brother for the presence of a dual camera in the front surface: so you get a "traditional" camera and one instead with ultra wide-angle optics that is perfect for selfies with large groups of people. Huawei also included several software "goodies": vlog mode, audio zoom, and dual view video, to record simultaneously with rear and front camera.

Huawei Nova 9 and Nova 9 Pro, technical features

Many of the technical features of Huawei Nova 9 and Nova 9 Pro are shared, so it's worth treating them together and specify the differences from time to time. The two new smartphones from Huawei rely on a Snapdragon 778G chip lacking 5G connectivity (so with 4G LTE), an octa core made at 6 nanometers with a maximum frequency of 2.4 GHz. RAM memory of 8 GB and storage space of 128 or 256 GB.

Huawei Nova 9 has a 6.57-inch display, Nova 9 Pro 6.72-inch. However, both have Full HD+ resolution, built-in fingerprint reader, 120 Hz refresh rate and 300 Hz touch sampling to ensure maximum responsiveness to commands.

Huawei Nova 9 and Nova 9 Pro have the same rear cameras, which are four on both: a 50 MP f/1.9 main wide-angle sensor, an 8 MP f/2.2 ultra wide-angle sensor, a 2 MP f/2 macro sensor.4 and finally one for depth of field detection always 2 MP f/2.4.

On the front surface instead Nova 9 has a 32 MP f/2.0 camera while Nova 9 Pro has two cameras, one "traditional" 32 MP and the other, also 32 MP but ultra wide angle with 100 degree viewing angle.

On the connectivity front, as anticipated, 5G is absent but otherwise nothing is missing. Battery 4,300 mAh on Nova 9, 4,000 on Nova 9 Pro, with the former rechargeable up to 66 watts and the latter up to 100 watts. Both possess the HarmonyOS 2.0 operating system.

Huawei Nova 9 and Nova 9 Pro, availability and pricing

Huawei Nova 9 and Nova 9 Pro are already on pre-order in China where they will be available from September 29. No information, for the moment, about a commercialization outside the Chinese borders, so we don't know if they will arrive in Europe.

In China we start from the equivalent of 355 euros for Huawei Nova 9 in version with 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage and from the equivalent of 460 euros for Nova 9 Pro with the same amount of memories.