Huawei Nova 11 Pro is a thoughtful upgrade of its ilk, Huawei Nova 10 Pro, primarily in terms of design and camera. Monogram Vegan Leather Green is a fresh and different option that makes it special in a busy market. In addition to offering a smoother handle and comfort, the material is also fingerprint-resistant so the phone will look freshly wiped all day long. Super Star Orbit ring surrounding the camera module offers a high-end metal texture that makes the phone’s premium feel even more luxurious.

Photographically, Huawei Nova 11 Pro 60MP Ultra Portrait Dual Camera is an upgrade towards portrait and selfie perfection. XD Portrait technology is bringing clarity and color accuracy, natural skin tones, and rich texture even in dull environments. The 8MP Close-up Portrait lens in the self-camera with 2x optical zoom and 5x digital zoom is unlocking creation possibilities in selfies, from wide-angle group portraits to close-ups. Makeup Restoration is a thoughtful touch, preserving makeup details without artificial smoothing, a bane many selfie cameras are plagued with.

You’ll see a large 6.78-inch OLED display that updates 120 times a second which gives you a smooth and enjoyable viewing experience. Thanks to its 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut and HDR10 support, it provides you with more colors and better contrast when watching movies or TV. When the auto-brightness setting is on, it can reach up to 700 nits of brightness which is good enough for outdoors and not the best. It is Kunlun Glass-based, and this makes it robust and features top-class drop defence that increases durability.

Performance is fueled by the Snapdragon 778G 4G chipset, paired with 8GB of RAM and UFS 3.1 storage. Multi-tasking and app opening are silky smooth under day-to-day usage with this combination. Missing 5G connectivity is a major disappointment in this year, however, since a number of competitors offer 5G in a standard. Gaming is fine so far as casual gaming is concerned but can be disappointing as far as graphically demanding gameplay is concerned with the mid-spec GPU.

Battery life is 4500mAh, a reasonable day’s usage but nothing class-leading in a test against some of the competition. The real hero of the package is 100W HUAWEI SuperCharge Turbo, however, that will get a flat phone charged to 60% in just 10 minutes and charged fully with the screen switched off in perhaps 20 minutes. Such quick charging is a boon to those needing speedy power boosts.

Stereo speakers serve audio output purposes, though while sound is well balanced in medium sound levels, it becomes slightly muffled and loses a bit of clarity at loud levels. BT codecs supported by the phone are SBC, AAC, and LDAC, but aptX is not supported, a feature that may potentially affect wireless audio quality in some cases.

On software, Huawei Nova 11 Pro uses HarmonyOS with Huawei’s own AppGallery as the central app store. Lack of support for Google Mobile Services is still a limitation for the users of Google’s environment, possibly even affecting app availability and useability.

In short, Huawei Nova 11 Pro excels in design innovation, portrait and selfie photography, and extremely fast charging. It lags behind in a lack of 5G, the absence of Google apps, and so-so battery life. Audio and gaming experience are also lacking in this smartphone. Despite all those weaknesses, however, Huawei Nova 11 Pro pairs form and function in a manner that will draw in those in search of both camera capabilities and extremely fast charging in an attractive form factor.