Huawei nova 11 Pro review – Powerfully Appointed Vlogger’s Delight Goes Green

There are a veritable horde of midrange phones in the market that aim to blend as much performance as possible for cost but the new Huawei nova 11 series phones aim to offer a unique take on the concept with an emphasis on better front over rear cameras to make them ‘portrait phones’ for vloggers and TikTokers.

We managed to get a test unit of their highest end variant and put it to the test over the course of the last couple of weeks. Here’s our Huawei nova 11 Pro review where we see if it’s really worth your money…

Huawei nova 11 Pro review – Build and Design

Rather than the plain old slabs of glass, metal or polycarbonate festooning the market, the Huawei nova 11 Pro breaks new ground with a completely different look that involves a faux leather backplate that comes in your choice of either a muted green or posher matte black colourway.

Our Huawei nova 11 Pro review sample comes in the latter colourway with the nova monogram debossed and repeated across the entirety of the faux leather backplate save for a raised subtle gold Huawei nova monogram at the centre-lower quadrant and its chrome lined camera housing in the upper left corner. 

The textured backplate gives it quite a bit of tactility, makes it look and feel premium and also makes it easier to grip too with much less chance of slipping than a traditional glass or metal finished backplate. In broad daylight, the faux black leather finish is distinctive looking indeed – save for a few other phones, of which the majority are from Huawei – few have the nova 11 Pro’s distinctive look. If you’re looking for something more eye-catching, you can opt for the green colourway variant though it looks rather gaudy up close.

Unusual backplate aside, our Huawei nova 11 Pro review unit adheres to their usual design doctrine with a USB-C port at the base for charging and docking duties that surprisingly offers fast 100W SuperCharge charging, a dual nano SIM card tray and one of a matching pair of speakers to form a stereo pair. 

The top of the phone is otherwise bare along with the left with the right side hosting a metal-hewn power button and volume rocker that feels pleasantly premium. 

Up front is the main draw to the Huawei nova 11 Pro – its curved 6.78-inch OLED FHD+ display that gently curves around the sides to meet the frame while the top and bottom edges remain relatively flat.

On paper, the OLED display has a 120Hz dynamic refresh rate and a 300Hz touch sample rate. While it isn’t officially stated, the display does support 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut which means faithful colour reproduction along with HDR10 support. 

Emplaced in the upper left quadrant of the display is a pill-shaped cutout that offers the second most appealing feature on the phone – it’s dual selfie camera array that interestingly enough has 2x optical zoom, making it more powerful than all but a select number of specialised flagship phones for front-facing videos and photos.

Of note is that the display is protected by Huaweo’s latest drop-resistant Kunlun glass. We’ve seen it first deployed on the Mate50 Pro and it has been proven to easily shrug off casual drops face down to the floor like a boss.

Overall build quality for our Huawei nova 11 Pro review unit is excellent with a premium build quality and flagship-grade design all around, enhanced by its unusual looking faux leather backplate with the rounded sides and edges making it easy to wield one-handed. Unfortunately, the phone lacks any dust or water resistance which means care needs to be taken with the phone when outdoors.

Design aside, the Huawei nova 11 Pro has quite a generous array of kit bundled with the phone including a pre-applied screen protector on the display, a fast 100W UK-style charger for local Malaysian plug points, a USB-C cable and a soft TPU protective casing which enhances the overall value of the phone.

Huawei nova 11 Pro – Specifications

Under the hood, our Huawei nova 11 Pro review sample sports a fairly eclectic array of hardware. You get a modest Snapdragon 778G processor paired with a 4G modem and Adreno 642L graphics.

While it’s a solid Qualcomm CPU that does a fine job for midrange phones, it’s a bit long in the tooth as it was first deployed circa-2021. While it originally had a 5G modem, the version available with the phone is relegated to 4G LTE connectivity. Fortunately, the phone retains fast WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2.

Paired with the Snapdragon 778G is 8GB RAM and for Malaysia, 256GB of non-expandable storage. What has been enhanced though is its cooling as Huawei has added in a large slab of graphene to vent heat away from the CPU  as well as what they claim to be a ‘breathing’ liquid cooling system for better sustained performance though without dismantling and examining its interior, it’s somewhat hard to say if there is the presence of a vapour chamber.

Keeping it charged is a generously sized 4,500mAh battery that surprisingly hosts blazing fast 100W charging which is rated to juice up the phone in a blazing fast 20 minutes with the screen off or get a 50% charge in 15 minutes with the screen on.

Compared to last year’s nova 10 which we reviewed, the nova 11 Pro weighs the same though it is a bit larger in exchange for a slightly bigger display, packs a larger battery with faster charging and an improved front-facing dual selfie camera setup with autofocus and 2x optical zoom.

Here’s how our Huawei nova 11 Pro stacks up on paper:

Price	RM2,599
Display	6.78-inch OLED FHD+ (2,652 x 1,200 pixels), 120Hz refresh rate, 300Hz touch sampling rate
Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G 4G octacore 2.4GHz
OS	EMUI 13 w/ Lighthouse app GMS support
Memory	8GB RAM / 256GB storage
Camera	50MP F/1.9 Ultra Vision camera + 8MP F/2.2 Ultra Wide Macro camera (rear) / 60MP F/2.4 Ultra Wide Autofocus camera w/ 2x optical zoom + 8MP F/2.2 Portrait camera (front)
Battery	4,500mAh w/ 100W SuperCharge fast charging
Size/Weight	164.24 x 74.35 x 7.88mm / 168g

Running under the hood of the Huawei nova 11 Pro is their own EMUI 13 firmware with apps sourced off the Huawei AppGallery. At this point in time, the most likely question you’ll have, dear reader, is if it runs Google apps. In a word, yes. It does. Here’s how…

Huawei nova 11 Pro – Does it run Google?

As you’d likely surmise, the Huawei nova 11 Pro does not have native Google apps support out of the box with its EMUI 13 firmware but sometime last year, a group of enterprising if anonymous developers have managed a stable workaround called Lighthouse. This is effectively an application that you can download off the Huawei AppGallery and which you then install and run on the Huawei nova 11 Pro and which then allows full access to Google’s suite of apps from Gmail to Google Maps all the way to YouTube.

Once the Lighthouse app is installed, you’re in business and can then input your Google accounts – it accepts multiple Google accounts simultaneously on the phone. From there, you’ll have to install the various Google apps that you’ll need which can be sourced off the AppGallery. Once that’s sorted, you’re able to run all the Google apps you desire on the Huawei nova 11 Pro. At present, we’ve tested and managed to run the following without issue with Lighthouse installed on our Huawei nova 11 Pro review unit – 

-Gmail

-YouTube

-Google Maps

-Google Chrome

-Google Translate

-Google Photos

-Google Drive

-Google Calendar

-Google Docs

-Google Slides

-Google Sheets

-Google Classroom

-Google Earth

Huawei nova 11 Pro review- Performance and Benchmarks

The Huawei nova 11 Pro runs on their own EMUI 13 firmware with apps off the Huawei AppGallery. In terms of functionality, EMUI 13 doesn’t have support for virtual RAM unlike the majority of other competing Android smartphones out there running Android 12 and up of late but has fairly aggressive memory management to make the use of its existing 8GB RAM.

It also features a Performance mode and a power efficient Power Saving mode in lieu of standard settings. On normal stock settings, we yielded the following benchmarks

3D Mark Wild Life	2,495
3D Mark Wild Life ULTD	2,495
3D Mark Wild Life Extreme	694
3D Mark Wild Life Extreme ULTD	688
Geekbench 6 single core	1,014
Geekbench 6 multicore	2,434
Geekbench 6 OpenCL	2.127
Geekbench 6 Vulkan	2,342
PCMark Work 3.0	10,751
PCMark Battery Life	10 hours 15 mins

We’ve previously tested several other phones that also have a Snapdragon 778G 4G processor like last year’s nova 10 smartphone though it was tested with the older Geekbench 5 benchmark which doesn’t heavily factor in the use of AI related tasks for the score so it would be a somewhat unfair comparison. 

While the CPU used is somewhat dated, it does get the job done with adequate performance for day to day use. Web browsing is relatively nippy and EMUI 13 multitasks in a competent fashion with app swapping accomplished with minimal lag.

The requisite Google applications required of almost any smartphone in service today like Google Docs, Sheets and Gmail ran without issue. It also runs CapCut in a relatively smooth fashion to edit 1080p video without keeling over and manages to tackle games like Call of Duty Mobile and Genshin Impact on standard settings without trouble.

The 120Hz OLED display proved to be excellent with beautifully deep blacks and lush colours onscreen with sufficient brightness for daylight use. Of note is that the phone is one of the first midrange models in Huawei’s stable that have tough drop resistant Kunlun glass protecting the display which significantly increases its survivability in day to day use.

The phone also has paired stereo speakers that allow for louder and potentially richer audio though the nova 11 Pro retains the classic issue of the bottom speaker being louder than the top one, resulting in somewhat uneven sound though it is more than adequate for watching a TikTok or running a Spotify track for a workout in a pinch. The lack of 5G is a bit of a sore point in 2023 seeing the increased 5G network coverage in Malaysia but it’s still a minor quibble for now.

In terms of battery life, the efficient Snapdragon 778G 4G processor and EMUI 13 managed to get a modest 10 hours and 15 minutes of battery life which is adequate for a full day of moderately heavy usage though the provision of fast 100W charging means that you can run at full tilt for the day, charge it in the time it takes for a 20 minute power nap and be back in the game in a jiffy. The omission of wireless charging in exchange for faster wired charging is a fair trade-off and improves its practicality significantly.

Huawei nova 11 Pro review – Cameras

The Huawei nova 11 Pro is part of an elusively small range of smartphone designs which are optimised for TikTokers and influencers with the front-facing camera being more powerful than the rear one.

On the rear of our Huawei nova 11 Pro review unit is a 50MP F/1.9 Ultra Vision camera and an 8MP F/2.2 ultra wide angle camera that can also double as a macro camera. There’s no optical zoom on the rear dual camera setup though much like its predecessor the nova 10, the phone does have electronic image stabilisation (EIS) for 12.5MP stills and the ability to capture up to 4K@30fps and 1080p@60fps video.

The front camera is surprisingly more powerful than the rear with a 60MP F/2.4 autofocus camera that is paired with an 8MP F.2.2 portrait camera which has 2x optical zoom and up to 5x digital zoom for stills. The setup is somewhat quaint, with ultrawide and 1x zoom shots handled by the 60MP selfie camera and zoomed in 2X and 5X shots handled by the 8MP camera. This outguns the lone 13MP setup on even the flagship Huawei P60 Pro. 

Vloggers will appreciate the fact that the nova 11 Pro has a host of camera modes that combine the feed from both the front and rear cameras ranging from a ‘picture-in-picture’ mode to a ‘half-and-half’ mode for multiple creative options.

Adding optical zoom to a front-facing camera seems like somewhat of an odd design choice seeing as most of the time you’d be shooting at arm’s length though you can shoot 4K@30fps video or stabilised 1080p@60fps video off the front-facing 60MP camera. Like the rear cameras, there’s no OIS but you can take advantage of EIS for more stable snaps and video. 

Additional refinements by Huawei include their XD Portrait algorithm that leverages AI to improve selfies, deftly remove blemishes, improve skin tones and generally make mug shots look much better. For selfies in low light, the phone leverages the front display as a white fill light which ensures that you can still get a mugshot even in pitch black conditions.

Mugshots taken with our Huawei nova 11 Pro’s review sample’s front facing dual camera are among the best on test. With excellent skin tone rendition and detail in daylight as well as in challenging backlit conditions.

While shots in pitch black are a bit on the dim side due to the lack of a dedicated flash, it’s still better than many cameras out there and otherwise normal urban conditions after dark look fantastic on the phone. It also has a surprisingly competent beauty mode that offers a restrained but effective means to clean up blemishes, eyebags and the like without it looking overly obvious in shots.

The rear camera array heavily leverages AI to yield better quality images and lacks optical image stabilisation though it does make use of electronic image stabilisation by cropping the large main sensor to yield stable footage and stills.

Shots at 2X are lossless on account of the large 50MP rear sensor and the camera is capable of up to 10x digital zoom. Overall image quality at ultrawide all the way out to 2X looks great with Huawei’s computational photography offering good dynamic range though shots at 10x look somewhat soft.

Videos on both the rear and the front cameras look best at 1080p at 60fps in daylight conditions which offers some degree of stabilisation though you can risk going to 4K if you have a steady hand or a gimbal. 

Should you buy the Huawei nova 11 Pro?

The Huawei nova 11 Pro is a unique phone that straddles the line between flagship and midrange with a unique emphasis on high quality selfies and videos that can outgun even flagship phones while blending a quality OLED display and good overall performance.

If you’re an influencer or content creator that takes selfies and vlogs often, you’ll find the nova 11 Pro’s combination of features and its powerful front cameras a very appealing proposition and it still does a fair job as a unique looking  if somewhat pricey midrange phone. 

Huawei nova 11 Pro review sample courtesy of Huawei Malaysia. For more details and to purchase, please visit Huawei’s online store at https://consumer.huawei.com/my/phones/nova11-pro/