Huawei Nova 7i Review: Can You Survive Without Google on Huawei

Hi guys, in today's review we'll be taking a look at the Huawei Nova 7i. I want to make this review unique in the sense, that, I will try to give you my opinion as a person who has never owned a Huawei phone before and is heavily reliant on Google services. 

First, let's discuss the design... 

The Huawei Nova 7i comes in a plastic body which explains why this is lighter than your standard phones. It weighs around 186 grams and it's very comfortable using one-handed. It has a 6.4-inch Display and a Punch-Hole Camera on the upper left corner. 

At the bottom, you'll find a down-firing speaker, a USB type-c port, and a headphone jack and on the right side, you'll find a power button with an integrated fingerprint scanner. 

You can also find the volume rockers on the left side. It has a sim card slot as well as an expandable memory card slot. Do take note, however, that Huawei uses their proprietary memory card. So, your existing micro sd cards won't work here. 

You then have a plastic back panel with a Quad-Camera setup and it's available in three colorways you have the MidNight-Black Sakura Pink and the one that we have here is the Crush Green. 

Overall, the Nova 7i feels really good in the hand and I'm not in the heavier feels more premium crowd. So, I really like that this is relatively lightweight compared to most phones out in the market right now. 

Performance-wise the Nova 7i definitely sits in the middle of the phone hierarchy. If you rely on the kirin 810 processors and two-two benchmark. I initially got around 270,000 points right out of the box, but, after installing an update the benchmark points went up to 296000. Now, whether that translates to performance gain, I really couldn't tell either way my experience was smooth and I never had any issues with slow down slags or delays in apps opening. 

So, as a first time Huawei user, I was really impressed the apps were snappy the animations were smooth and I really didn't have much of a learning curve using the nova 7i's EMUI. But now, it's time to address the elephant in the room as I mentioned, we're gonna take a look at the Huawei Nova 7i as a first-time user that relies heavily on Google Services. 

If you haven't been paying attention to development in tech specifically with google and Huawei then you should know that Google Services do not work on Huawei phones starting with the Mate 30 Oro last year. 

Now, don't get interested Huawei still runs on android 10, but, they are no longer allowed to use google services. So, there's no more google play store on this phone. 

If you love your youtube app on your phone that's not gonna work here at all even if you install it using an apk file, you'll be forced to watch youtube on a browser, which to be honest really sucks as the experience is quite clunky and the youtube app is definitely100% more intuitive and if you're a Gmail app user you can't use that here as well. 

However, there is a very simple workaround and that is to integrate your Gmail account with Huawei's email app. 

So thank God for that Huawei boasts, that, it now has the third-largest app store in the world. 

However, apps like Facebook, Netflix, Call of duty, and other Filipino favorites are still nowhere to be found luckily. This can be easily resolved by installing apk pure or other third-party app installers. 

But if you're not a techie, this is just another unnecessary step to get basic apps anyway once you install those apps they do work just like they normally would. If you got them from the google play store. 

So, as a google services user would I be able to adjust to Huawei's google less ecosystem? 

well yes... 

But that's because I'm a power user so these small inconveniences are something that I can handle easily. However, if I'm a regular phone user or just a casual user, I would want my experience to be as smooth as possible and I wouldn't want to go through any unnecessary steps. 

Before I can fully enjoy my phone so if you're a regular consumer this is something that you should heavily consider now at 6.4 Inches the Nova 7i LCD Display is considered to be on the smaller size which is kind of crazy. Because this is actually still really big but it is a damn good display. Sure, it doesn't have the high contrast capability of an AMOLED screen but the colors are still punchy and vibrant and at full HD resolution images look sharp and motion looks fluid.

In addition, Huawei continues to use their LTPS or low-temperature polysilicon LCDs and what it does gives the nova 7i larger pixel densities and lower power consumption, and I honestly enjoyed the nova 7i's display during my time with it. 

So the current trend right now is that the phone should have at least a quiet camera setup and the nova 7i follows that trend. 

It has a 48 MegaPixel Main Camera, an 8 MegaPixel Ultra Wide Angle Lens, a 2 MegaPixel Macro Lens, that no one really asked for, and a 2-MegaPixel depth sensor. You also get a 16 MegaPixel Front Camera. 

I am really impressed with the nova 7i's main camera the images look really sharp especially when taking photos in well-lit areas. It also performs well during night time when using night mode but the results won't blow you away. When it comes to video unfortunately you're limited to only 1080p 30 Frames Per Second. 

The quality is decent but nothing to write home about plus in an age where we're slowly shifting to 4k. It would have been nice to have at least 4k 30 frames per second available on this in the camera menu or interface leaves a lot to be desired compared to other phone brands, that I've tested this probably has the clunkiest user interface. 

When it comes to the camera and it's a shame because I really like the camera on the Huawei nova 7i. The nova 7i is one of the best mid-range gaming phones that I've tested so far the kirin 810 processor is quite capable, and I had no issues playing PUBG Mobile, Legends Call of Duty and other popular games. The back panel did get slightly warm after prolonged yours of gaming. 

But it's pretty much your typical experience with most phones when playing games. The only minor problem that I had was with its slightly smaller display. I found myself mistakenly pressing the trigger buttons on several occasions when playing PUBG, as I've gotten used to playing games on phones with bigger screens. 

Now aside from that, I'm sure you'll enjoy playing games on the nova 7i surprisingly. Even though, the nova 7i only comes with the 4200 Milliamp-Hour Battery. It actually lasts a long time. I was able to get 8 to 9 hours of screen on time regularly and I guess the kirin 810 processor and the LTPS display helped a lot with its power efficiency. 

Now when you do need to recharge your battery you'll have the 40-Watt Charger available and it can supercharge your phone from single-digit to 100, in just a little over an hour. 

All right... 

So real talk I like the nova 7i it's a really good phone even though it's missing a vital part of what I need as a content creator, which is the google services, and that's the thing I'm looking at this phone as a google user. 

For example, as a heavy youtube user, I really missed having the app because I can't watch full-screen youtube videos on this. Now on top of that my home is also automated with google assistant so if you're in the same situation, it is really hard to consider the nova 7i. 

Now for those who can live without google services integrated with their phones, I am absolutely certain that you love everything that this phone can do for you, the performance, the good display, the long battery life, the sharp camera, and the overall build quality, will delight fans of Huawei's Nova series of phones. 

But again I must emphasize that if you're a Google user or if you rely heavily on Google Services this might not be the phone for you. 

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