HUAWEI launches Nova 4 with hole-punch display and 48MP rear camera

Huawei has launched the Nova 4, its first smartphone with a hole punch display, in China. HUAWEI detailed the handset on its China web portal earlier today, and it’s coming with some impressive screen and camera tech.

Despite its great looks, the Nova 4 isn’t an ultra-premium smartphone but an upper mid-tier device, packing the Kirin 970 chipset. This is found in last year’s HUAWEI Mate 10 series and this year’s Huawei’s P20 series, but it was recently succeeded by the more powerful Kirin 980 found in HUAWEI’s Mate 20 series.

The Nova 4 has much in common with the aforementioned P20 in terms of looks, though it trades its predecessor’s notch for a display hole — a feature which looks like it will trend in 2019. This hole houses the Nova 4’s 25MP front-facing camera, while the Nova 4’s rear comes with 48MP + 16MP + 2MP sensors (there’s also a model available with a 20MP + 16MP + 2MP setup). All of the cameras are backed by AI features.

The handset’s core specs include a 6.4-inch, Full-HD+ display at 2310 x 1080 resolution, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of internal storage space, while the battery comes in at 3750mAh. It’s running Android 9.0 Pie.

The Nova 4 price is set at 3,399 yuan (~$490) in China or 3,099 yuan (~$450) for the 20MP camera version. Seeing as the previous Nova 3 was released in wider Asia and Europe, we expect the Nova 4 will also be on sale in other territories in the future.

All told, it looks like a strong first foray into hole punch display territory for HUAWEI — give us your thoughts on the Nova 4 in the comments.