Huawei Nova 2i vs Oppo F5: Quad Camera vs The Selfie Expert

Launched in November 2017 Huawei Nova 2i has been very successful in establishing itself as Nepal’s best Mid-range flagship smartphone offering the likes and features of Hi-end phones at the most attractive price of Rs. 33,900 as of now.

During our time with Huawei Nova 2i, we compared it with other competing products having similar hardware specs with likes of F5 in each and every aspect that would matter to Nepali Smartphone Consumers, judging mainly by few main points: Design, Performance, Battery, and Camera.

We hope that after reading the entire article, it will help you clearly to choose the smartphone that best suits your needs. Before we start, let’s take a look at the specs.

Specification Outline

Huawei Nova 2i comes with a 5.9-inch Full HD+ display. Under the hood, the Huawei Nova 2i is powered by HiSilicon Kirin 659 SoC. It is coupled with 4GB RAM & Mali-T830 MP2 GPU. It comes with 64 GB of internal storage with expandable storage option via a microSD. Nova 2i runs on Android 7.0 (Nougat) with EMUI 5.1 on top. The entire device is powered by Li-Ion 3340 mAh battery.

The sensors included in both the phones are fingerprint (rear-mounted), accelerometer, proximity & compass.

Huawei Nova 2i Specifications

Display: 5.9 inches IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen
Resolution: 1080 x 2160 pixels (~409 PPI pixel density)
Chipset: HiSilicon Kirin 659
CPU: Octa-core (4×2.36 GHz Cortex-A53 & 4×1.7 GHz Cortex-A53)
GPU: Mali-T830 MP2
OS: Android 7.0 (Nougat) with EMUI OS
Memory: 64 GB, 4 GB RAM
Primary Camera: Dual (16 MP + 2 MP), phase detection autofocus, LED flash
Secondary Camera: Dual (13 MP, f/2.0 + 2 MP)
Battery: Non-removable Li-Ion 3340 mAh battery

Huawei Nova 2i Price in Nepal: Rs. 33,900

Oppo F5 comes with a 6-inch Full HD+ display. Under the hood, the Oppo F5 is powered by MediaTek MT6763T Helio P23 SoC. It is coupled with 4GB RAM & Mali-G71 MP2 GPU.

Unlike Huawei Nova 2i, the internal storage of Oppo F5 is only 32GB with expandable storage option via microSD. Oppo F5 runs on Android 7.1(Nougat) with ColorOS 3.2. The entire device is powered by Li-Ion 3200 mAh battery.

Oppo F5 Specifications

Display: 6.0 inches LTPS IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen
Resolution: 1080 x 2160 pixels (~402 PPI pixel density)
Chipset: MediaTek MT6763T Helio P23
CPU: Octa-core 2.5 GHz Cortex-A53
GPU: Mali-G71 MP2
OS: Android 7.1(Nougat) with ColorOS
Memory: 32 GB, 4 GB RAM
Primary Camera: 16 MP, f/1.8, phase detection autofocus, LED flash
Secondary Camera: 20 MP, f/2.0, 1/2.8″ sensor size
Battery: Non-removable Li-Ion 3200 mAh battery

Oppo F5 Price in Nepal: Rs. 33,990

Huawei Nova 2i Vs Oppo F5

Design

Huawei Nova 2i boasts a full metal unibody design giving the user with sturdy and premium feel Vs Oppo F5 feature Plastic body with a metallic feel. While comparing between these two smartphones in terms of Design-build, Huawei Nova 2i clearly edges out Oppo F5 giving more premium touch and feel during the usage. Another Key difference between them is the fingerprint reader. Huawei has a normal circle shape on the back, whereas Oppo has a weird oval ring-shaped. Sometimes, Oppo goes with strangest design choices.

Huawei Nova 2i has a more premium and exceptional feel thanks to its exceptional quad-camera design. And the metal body makes it more elegant than the cheap plastic on the Oppo F5. So, in terms of build quality, Huawei Nova 2i stays ahead of the Oppo F5.

Display

Both companies heavily advertised their smartphone for featuring 18:9 ratio Full View Display. They share similar IPS LCD panel at 1080 x 2160 resolution. Movies, games, or internet browsing experience is amazing in the Full HD+ screen of Huawei Nova 2i. Though Nova 2i’s screen is large but due to its sleek ergonomic design and 18:9 aspect ratio, handling this smartphone is a breeze. Though both technologies look alike of Nova 2i and F5, I particularly loved the contrast and darker display on Huawei. Compared to that, Oppo F5 display looks washed out and not quite up to match.

Keeping in mind that though both smartphones have similar aspect ratio display given the better contrast display with a very attractive price tag, I recommend Nova 2i over F5.

Performance

Huawei Nova 2i is powered by HiSilicon Kirin 659 with an octa-core processor. With intergraded Mali-T830 MP2 and 4GB RAM, performance is amazingly smooth. Switching between apps, playing games or multitasking does not suffer from any lag or delay. It runs on Huawei’s EMUI, which is nice. The phone is filled with little but very helpful-hidden features like eye comfort, multiscreen, pedometer, app twin, etc. All these features make the smartphone feel more user-friendly.

Oppo F5 is powered by MediaTek MT6763T with an octa-core processor. With intergraded Mali-G71 MP2 and 4GB RAM,. Though every little workload was smooth and lag free the biggest let down is ColorOS which is similar to iOS, why does Oppo need to imitate IOS?. Unlike its competitors, Oppo’s software is more focused on the camera whereas Huawei has focused not only on software level but also in hardware level in the camera department. Though both of the phones share somewhat similar specification, the Huawei Nova 2i is ahead of the Oppo F5 when it comes to overall performance and it’s customized OS skin EMUI 5.1.

Battery

Huawei Nova 2i boasts a larger sized Li-Ion 3340 mAh battery, compared to Oppo’s 3200 mAh. There are few points of interest. Larger sized battery means more playtime with your smartphone. Nevertheless, smartphone’s runtime depends on more than just battery size.

Discharge time on both devices is alike. The device lasts an entire day with normal use. At heavy use, you will get an average of 6 – 8 hours usage. I do have a problem with the charging time in both the smartphone. They take a lot longer to charge, which does affect productivity. Also, MediaTek processor in Oppo F5 is a bit let down in battery department as Mediatek Processor aren’t that power efficient. It would have sweetened the deal if both have included include Quick Charge.

Camera

Let’s talk about the camera! Both smartphones feature one of the Best Smartphone Camera in the midrange market. This was definitely a tough one to choose. On one side, you have a “Selfie Expert” while another features Nepal’s first Quad-camera setup with overall best performance.

The selfie camera in Huawei Nova 2i is the first camera featuring a quad camera; the front camera being 13MP + 2MP with the dual rear camera being 16MP + 2MP. The camera app on this phone is really prominent and we are very happy to see that Huawei has incorporated so many camera features including PRO mode targeting hardcore mobile photographers. There are many different settings, effects, modes the user can easily use. Through various settings and tweaks, you can get that perfect click. Huawei offers a portrait mode for selfies which is great for a phone offered in the current price tag. Not to forget, the Soft Light feature on the Huawei Nova 2i is really cool and well thought. It helps for achieving some good looking portrait selfies. I love that Huawei invested a lot in the camera both selfie and rear. This certainly is one of the best camera phones in mid-range market in Nepal.

The selfie cam in Oppo F5 is a 20MP shooter with f/2.0 aperture. The rear camera is a 16MP sensor with phase detection autofocus and LED Flash. There is the various mode, setting in here as well. At the center of attention is the AI-powered beautification app. It automatically chooses the level of beautification based on a person’s facial feature, however, we found both cameras look & perform well. They share some similarity but the F5 uses AI beautification mode whereas the Nova 2i flaunts its quad cameras.

Speaking of Oppo F5, AI beautification mode is subtle and not that obvious and also most of the time you tend to get overly beautified selfies (Artificial to be precise). Oppo F5 gives off bright colored beautified picture compared to the detail-driven picture in Huawei Nova 2i. Oppo F5 is tagged as a selfie expert but Huawei Nova 2i’s front dual camera feels more complete than the Oppo F5’s selfie camera. Mostly the soft-light feature on the Huawei Nova 2i lets users take awesome portrait mode photos. Also, Colors on the selfie from Oppo F5 are not as vivid as the colors on the Huawei Nova 2i. The selfies look much more vivid and vibrant in the Nova 2i whereas the selfies look a bit dull and over beautified on the Oppo F5 giving somewhat artificial selfies.

Most of the phones fail when it comes to low-light performance. Since both of these phones are mid-range phones we cannot expect exceptional low light performance. But, in comparison, Huawei Nova 2i has much better low light performance than the Oppo F5. The dynamic range on the Nova 2i is better than the Oppo F5 and the colors are much more accurate as well on the Nova 2i.

So it seems Huawei Nova 2i’s Quad Camera beats Oppo F5 when it comes to overall camera performance. I tend to prefer images that have much more dark, detailed and vibrant colors. Therefore, I like the camera on the Huawei Nova 2i much more than the Oppo F5.

Final Thoughts

It is difficult to say which one is “the perfect one”. In terms of performance, battery and camera; both devices are decent. But Huawei Nova 2i is better than the Oppo F5 especially in departments like Camera, Performance, Build, Design, and overall experience. Not to forget, Huawei Nova 2i also has a much better performance to price ratio as Huawei Nova 2i is best priced than the Oppo F5.

So, if you ask me I would rather go for the Huawei Nova 2i than the Oppo F5.

You do have to sacrifice very few features on both phones. Personally, I loved Huawei Nova 2i. It has everything you want from a smartphone; powerful camera, superior design, and good hardware. You will most definitely won’t regret going with the Huawei Nova 2i!