Huawei has started the marketing campaign for the launch of the Nova 3 in China, which should be released in the next few weeks. A teaser has been published on Weibo revealing a design very close to the P20 Lite.

For the past two years, Huawei has been running a new range of smartphones called Nova. Initially, these terminals were located in the same market segment as the best Honor models. But the latter have since been upgraded (notably with the Honor 10, very similar to the P20), leaving the Nova range a little more space in the brand’s catalogue. Today, the Nova range is competed in the Huawei group with mobiles such as the Lite versions of Px and Mate (Mate 10 Lite, P20 Lite) and by the lightened versions of Honor devices.

A mid-range strategy

However, the Nova is very important to understand Huawei’s mid-range strategy. In 2017, the Nova 2 and Nova 2 Plus were the first to integrate the Kirin 659, a chipset that was then used for half a dozen other models, including the Mate 10 Lite, the Honor 9 Lite, the P20 Lite, the P Smart, the Honor 9i, the Honor 7X or the Enjoy 8 Plus (which we know at home as the Y9). In other words, the Nova 2 was the precursor of a long range of smartphones. And according to recent leaks, his successor should also be entrusted with this task.

Indeed, Huawei is preparing a new mid-range chipset, the Kirin 710, whose goal is not only to compete with the recent Snapdragon 710, but also to replace the Kirin 659 which has been largely profitable. It would be equipped not only with Cortex-A53 cores, but also with more powerful cores (Cortex-A73 are quoted). It would be engraved in 12 nm at TSMC and would also integrate a neural coprocessor similar to that of the Kirin 970.

Launch in the coming weeks

The Kirin 710 should be official in July, at the same time as the first mobile it will animate. The name Nova 3 was already mentioned. The internal code name would be “Paris” (Huawei seems to like the French capital lately, after the worldwide launch of the P20 and P20 Pro at the Grand Palais). And today it seems to be verified “officially”. Indeed, Huawei has started the teasing campaign for the Nova 3 on Chinese social networks. His name is official.

It is not only the name that is official, since the Chinese muse of the Nova range, Jackson Yee (member of the TFBoys group) is back. In a visual published on Weibo and relayed by Mysmartprice, he is represented with a phone in his hand. A fingerprint reader is visible, as well as a photo block, equipped with two sensors and surmounted by an LED flash. This is very similar to the P20 Lite.