The Huawei Nova 5T is a mid-range smartphone featuring a quad rear camera with a 48-megapixel main optic, super wide-angle camera, macro camera and depth assist camera. There's a 32-megapixel hole-punch camera on the front, built into the 6.26-inch screen. Huawei encourages you to 'rethink your style with this smartphone - they say it features a uniquely colourful and reflective back. It's available in blue, purple or black for £429. 

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Huawei Nova 5T Features

The Huawei Nova 5T is a slim smartphone that feels fairly weighty in the hand. There are very thin bezels around the 6.26-inch screen, and there's a 32-megapixel f/2 hole-punch front-facing camera with a fixed focal length. The screen is FullHD (2340x1080) resolution. 

On the left-hand side, there's the SIM card drawer - this model is the dual-nano sim version. On the right-hand side, there's a power button with a fingerprint sensor on top of it, and above this, there's the volume rocker. On the bottom, there's the USB Type-C charging port. There's no headphone jack socket but in the box you to get a USB Type-C to 3.5mm converter. 

To the rear, you find the quad-camera setup - 3 of the lenses are raised above the body, along with the flash unit. These consist of the 16-megapixel f/2.2 Fixed Focus (FF) lens, 48-megapixel f/1.8 AF lens, and 2-megapixel f/2.4 FF depth assist camera. Next to these is the 2-megapixel f/2.4 FF Macro camera. 

The back is glass-clad, and even this black model we have for testing features a rainbow sheen when tilted towards the light. It's a subtle effect compared to the two coloured models, the blue and purple versions, which feature the word 'nova' printed in a pattern on the back. 

Inside, there's 6GB of RAM and 128GB of memory, a reasonable 3750 mAh battery, and a Kirin 980 Octa-core processor, which should give speedy operation. Huawei says the phone can charge fully in just 1.5 hours. 

The Huawei Nova 5T has the camera specification and build of a premium smartphone for a good price - as well as a top-of-the range processor and lots of memory.

The camera app features plenty of shooting modes, with AR lens, night, portrait, photo and video modes available through the scroll bar, with the following options available in the 'more' menu:

• Pro
• Slo-mo
• Panorama
• Aperture
• Light painting
• HDR
• Time-lapse
• Moving picture
• Filter
• Stickers
• Documents
• Super-macro

Video can be shot in 4K (16:9, 30fps), full screen 1080p (30 fps), 1080p (60fps), 1080p (30fps), and 720p (30 fps). Huawei state that beautification settings are only available at 720p.  

There are Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and NFC connectivity, as well as Huawei beam and Huawei Share options available. 

Key Features

• Quad rear camera (48/16/2/2 megapixels)
• 32-megapixel selfie camera
• 6GB RAM, 128GB storage
• 3750mAh battery
• Huawei Kirin 980 octa-core
• 6.26-inch FHD+ 2340x1080 screen
• 4K @ 30 fps, full-screen 1080p @ 30fps, 16:9 1080p @ 60/30 fps, 720p @ 30fps
• Gyro EIS front and rear
• 2x optical, 10x digital zoom
• Buy now on Amazon UK

Huawei Nova 5T Handling

The phone feels solidly built and sits well in the hand. The fingerprint scanner is ergonomically placed on the right-hand side of the phone.

The camera app is well laid out, with the ability to scroll across the options and select the mode of your choice. Pro mode offers you sliding scrollers for ISO, shutter speed, white balance and exposure compensation. 

Screen brightness and clarity are very good, with colours looking natural and crisp. 

The interface will be very familiar to those that shoot with smartphones regularly and is very straightforward and responsive in use. In fact, the smartphone scores an impressive 365,031 in AnTuTu's benchmark, and a Geekbench 5 score of 677 (single-core), and 2494 (multi-core). 

Despite all the rumours about Huawei, the phone still has access to Google's Play Store and all of the usual apps. 

Battery life - Battery life is rated at 3750mAh, which is about average for a new smartphone of this spec. It may leave you lacking in battery life if you shoot a lot of photos. Therefore, we'd recommend investing in a power bank to take out with you.