Last night Huawei South Africa announced that the company’s latest midranger, the Nova 9, will make its way to the country at a retail price of R13,000. The Nova 9 has been available in China and other select territories for some time. It’s also the fourth device in the Nova lineup to launch here in just four months.
You know Nova
The Nova 8 launched back in August, followed by the lower-budget Nova 8i and Nova Y60 devices. The Nova 9 is technically the successor of the Nova 8 (which we reviewed here), and features similar specs. Slightly better, of course. And before you ask — they’re still missing Google services.
It’s powered by the same SoC as the Honor 50, which recently also launched in SA — the Qualcomm Snapdragon 778 4G chip. Supporting it, you’ve got 8GB of RAM and just 128GB of internal storage in the South African variant.
Up front, it sports a curved 6.57in OLED display, capable of 120Hz refresh rate and 300Hz touch-sampling rate.
Turn your attention to the rear camera, and you’ll find a 50MP main sensor, 8MP wide-angle sensor, 2MP macro and 2MP ultra-wide. Around front you’ll find a 32MP selfie cam. While this is an area where Huawei generally performs well, we find these camera specs to be lacking in this price range. On paper, anyway.
In addition to the Nova 9 device, Huawei also launched a gaming-focused monitor, the MateView GT in SA. It’s a curved 34in 165Hz HDR 10 display, fitted with an onboard soundbar (for some reason). This one’ll retail for R14,000.
