Huawei phones are in an odd spot at the moment. We have noted over the past two years that the impact of losing access to Google services has been tangible, as newer devices lacked some of the oomph that consumers desired.

With Huawei Mobile Services, the AppGallery and some workarounds now the norm for owning a new phone from the Chinese firm, it has very much become a case of hardware versus software, with the latter in particular proving divisive.

What then about the Huawei Nova Y9a, the latest mid-range device to be launched in South Africa?

With the amount of competition in the local mid-range space rather frenzied at the moment, can Huawei’s phone still compete given some of the shortcomings in terms of access to apps?

To answer these two crucial questions, as well as gauge the overall performance of the Huawei Nova Y9a, we spent the past two weeks reviewing the phone.

Here are our thoughts.

The Nova we’ve come to know

Starting with design and Huawei has quickly matched Samsung and Apple when it comes to the quality of its devices. While stylings are objective, in terms of actual build quality, you know precisely what you’re going to get from a Huawei phone these days, and that’s a good thing.

Like many of its Nova brethren before it, the Nova 9a looks as expected, with narrow bezels, an aluminium body, generously large display and equally substantial camera housing on the rear.

There is, however, one distinct difference in the form of the pop-up selfie camera of the Nova Y9a. While a nice little gimmick to impress onlookers, this feature also affords Huawei the opportunity to showcase a phone with a notch and punchole-less screen.

This means that the 6.63″ FullHD+ (2400×1800) display on offer is a tad more immersive than other Nova devices on the market. To be fair though, you only get a feel of what the notch-free screen means when consuming video as there is no unsightly elements cutting off part of the display.

It is by no means the sole reason to pick up this phone, but certainly something you immediately notice and appreciate.

As for the rest of the device, it is all fairly standard fare when it comes to Huawei. We should, however, mention that the circular camera housing does mean that the phone is less prone to wobbling or leaning thanks to the array being centrally placed. That said, the generic plastic back cover (in the box) means the slight jutting out of the housing is made flush once it is put on.

And put it on you must, not only to protect your newly purchased smartphone, but also to ensure no smudges or dust gets onto the back cover, which is like some mysterious magnet for mess.

Willing and able

Shifting to what Huawei has placed internally and the Nova Y9a has kept to the mid-range template. On that front an octa-core MediaTek Helio G80 processor is present, which is paired with 8GB RAM and 128 onboard storage.

That mix yields a device that is speedy when needed and did not show any signs of sluggishness while multitasking. Curiously though, the benchmarking produced some peculiar results.

To that end, the Nova Y9a just about pips the Vivo Y33s on Geekbench, with a single-core and multi-score of 353 and 1 318 respectively.

As such it may not have the numbers some consumers may be looking for, especially if you place a lot of value in phone benchmarking, but in hand, the Nova Y9a proves more than capable, which is what counts in our books.

Shifting to the aforementioned camera array and we were impressed by what’s on offer. The large 64MP primary lens captures rich detail, particularly in well lit environments and there is enough nuance to the 8MP ultra-wide angle, 2MP macro and 2MP depth sensing lenses to provide solid all-around shooting.

The only mark against the Y9a is its low light performance when doing a simple point and shoot, but those who know what they’re doing in the Pro mode can still get solid night photography done.

We also like the pageantry of the pop-up 16MP selfie camera, which delivers a motorised sound every time to appears and disappears from its slot on the top of the phone. The camera happens to yield solid selfies too and a slightly wider field of view, which is always a plus.

Unticked box

So far, so good right?

While the Nova Y9a delivers in terms of design, display, performance and camera, there is still one area that can frustrate – software.

Where this was once an area Huawei did not have to worry about, with HMS and the AppGallery at the wheel, there is a steep learning curve for newcomers to this ecosystem. It means unless you have ported selected apps from your old device via the Phone Clone system, you are starting a fresh without access to some important Google services.

Yes, Huawei has worked hard to add Gmail functionality, you can bookmark pages for Chrome and YouTube and sideloading of apps is always a possibility, but for the uninitiated, this experience can prove daunting.

It therefore means quite a bit of sacrifice to learn to be accustom to life sans Google services, which is a step that few consumers will feel compelled to make given the smorgasbord of other options in the mid-range space at the moment, all of which like to remind about their full affiliation with Google.

Devices like the Huawei Nova Y9a therefore become increasingly difficult to recommend to causal consumers who want a no frills, no fuss smartphone experience.

Final verdict 

Much like a Renaissance sculpture which looks beautiful from a distance, but slowly shows signs of wear or imperfection the closer you get to it, so does the Huawei Nova Y9a deliver on several fronts, but is found lacking in terms of software and functionality.

A great display, premium design, generous battery (4 300mAh) and great camera are seemingly all for nought when the software does not help to marry the experiences.

At R6 499 (RRP) there are expectations and the Nova Y9a delivers in terms of hardware and then some, but the shortcomings and sacrifices on the software side of things are difficult to live with long term.

Is it worth taking a risk on? Sure, but why risk it when there are safer bets from competitors at the same price.

The Nova Y9a is very much a case of what could have been.