Huawei Nova 10 Pro

Technical specifications

First of all, the phone takes really great photos. A 60 MP dual front camera with very good AF, beautiful saturated colors. The battery also lasts a long time.

A very good phone, it takes great photos, the system works quickly and smoothly, without any problems. The battery also lasts a very long time for my usage. I had concerns due to the lack of support, but Gspace provided help and I do not feel any difference.

Probably my last Huawei. Purchased in September 2023 at an official store and it no longer even has security updates, which is absurd. It is a fact that it was already a year and a half old model at the time and on sale, but two years of support and one system update (EMUI 12->13) is still a shame for such an expensive phone. Huawei promised EMUI 14 but the subject has gone quiet. It is still better than my MatePad 11.5, which was released in mid-2023 and received its last patch in November 2024.

Be that as it may, the phone was really nice at first. The lack of Google services was bypassed with microG services and a Google Play alternative, so there was no problem there. The battery still lasts me all day with the hotspot on and according to the system, it has a 94% health - unthinkable after such a time with an iPhone :)

The camera would probably be the only asset of this phone, but... The phone takes really nice photos, although sometimes they are too beautified. For example, night scenes are brightened to such an extent that they look like daytime and lose their charm. Post-processing cannot be turned off in the options - one must use the pro mode. The wide-angle lens is not very clear and while post-processing fixes this in photos, grain remains in videos.

Videos are a different matter anyway. Sometimes they stutter, especially when recording from the lock screen. The sound quality is DREADFUL! And I do not mean weak microphones here, but the unacceptable compression used by the system; probably 96kb/s AAC. Speech has an unpleasant hiss due to aggressive noise removal and something like a concert simply struggles at such a low bitrate. Regarding audio, the same can be said about the voice recorder. I have not had such a problem with any other phone.

Comparing it to my previous phone - the Samsung Note 10+, I would often choose that camera. Not to mention the legendary LG G5, which I still miss.

The system has many strange bugs. For example, headphones through any USB-C adapter simply play too quietly. As if the phone had some non-disableable limiter. The same headphones and adapters play very loudly on every other phone... except for the Huawei tablet :) This means it is a manufacturer issue. Enabling SMS delivery reports results in blocking half of the keyboard for the duration of the report display. In EMUI 12 there was no problem with this, but in 13 some system bubbles block touch in their area. The system naturally does not support RCS. When text is selected, half of the menu with options like "copy, paste" goes off the screen. There are probably many other quirks that I have simply become accustomed to.

The processor was already old on the day of the premiere, not to mention the lack of 5G, which does not concern me much, and when I bought it, there were others available with better parameters for the same price, although I did not pay attention to it then and still do not, because in such cases one usually pays for something else instead.

On a positive note... The phone has a beautiful design, especially the version with the white back. It was probably one of the last Huawei phones with a curved screen. The 120Hz OLED display, as an OLED, has vivid colors and becomes quite bright. It supposedly supports HDR, but I have never checked that. And the glass is strong - despite many falls, it has not broken. The 100 W turbo charging is indeed fast and can charge the phone in 20 minutes. And... I think I have already said everything.

If this phone had cost me at least 400 PLN less (and it cost 2000), I would be able to forgive it for everything I complained about above. I cannot imagine buying it for 3000 PLN around its premiere. It is simply not the price range where mistakes like stuttering recordings or a useless USB-C audio output are acceptable. In short -- Huawei makes good phones, but they are too expensive. At least it did when I bought this model. Now the nova pro series has been canceled, and it looks like the basic Pura 70 has taken this position. Perhaps they have improved the details by now.

The phone looks nice, it is quite narrow so it fits well in the hand, but it is a bit heavy. It works smoothly. The only downside is the lack of Google services; applications are missing and those that are available do not receive updates. With Google, the phone updated something every day, while here there is one update per week. I search for updates in APK files myself (funny, but true). I would not buy a phone without Google a second time and I do not recommend such a purchase.