Huawei Nova 5T vs Samsung Galaxy A80: Head to head comparison

Can you compare apples with oranges?  The answer is simple yet vague when you dive in-depth. Similar is the case with two different phones and two different manufacturers. But when the devices are offered for a similar price, it is definitely worth it to jump into the mess and give you an insight. With Huawei Nova 5T and the Samsung Galaxy A80, it’s a similar story. Let’s put them side by side against each other and let’s see what comes out of it as a borderline value for money. Let’s begin.

Display and Design

Both the Samsung Galaxy A80 and the Huawei Nova 5T boast glass sandwich design and both of them actually look amazing and provide that premium in-hand feel. The A80 is not only the bigger of the two but also the heavier. The added heft of the A80 is something I personally prefer. But, regardless of which one you pick, you will not be disappointed by any of them when it comes to the build quality and the in-hand feel. Color options and designs are subjective choices, which I leave it for you to make out.

Moving on to the display, Samsung takes the lead with a larger 6.7-inch Super AMOLED panel fully stretched along with the chassis without any notch obstructing your vision, just the screen. With all the AMOLED goodness of inky blacks and punchy colors backed up by an optical in-display fingerprint scanner, an always-on display, and 85.8% screen to body ratio, the Galaxy A80 truly sets itself apart.

The Nova 5T, on the other hand, flaunts a 6.26-inch IPS LCD display with a hole punch and a side-mounted fingerprint scanner. And the display is really good over at the Nova front too. In fact, the Nova 5T’s IPS panel offers a slightly larger pixel density at 412 ppi as opposed to 393ppi over at Samsung. But it’s when you compare both of them side by side that you get to know why Samsung has been doing the displays right.

So the Samsung Galaxy A80 bags this one.

Software and Performance

Moving on to the software side of things, the Samsung Galaxy A80 runs on one UI built on top of Android 9.0 pie and the Huawei Nova 5T runs on EMUI 9.1 built on top of Android 9.0 Pie as well. It depends on your preference, either to go with the One UI on Samsung or EMUI on Huawei. Both these custom skins pack in a lot of features with different tricks up their sleeves. So, I’ll suggest you check them out side by side and pick it up on the basis of your liking.

Performance and optimization are really good on both of the devices. Day to day tasks and even gaming or some power-hungry apps, all run smooth and easy on both of the devices with ease but their experiences do differ. As it has always been a forte for the lite flagship Nova devices, it holds true for the Nova 5T as well. To put things into perspective, the Snapdragon 730 SoC on the A80 is an 8nm mid-tier chipset whereas the HiSilicon Kirin 980 on the Nova 5T is a 7nm flagship SoC.

Everything from the benchmark to the sheer performance, the Nova 5T tops it. Gaming with GPU Turbo on the Nova 5T also lands in to add to the whole experience of the device. With 6/8GB of RAM options, even running multiple apps is not an issue. If you’re into gaming and power-intensive apps, the Nova 5T is what you should be eyeing on.

Camera

When it comes to cameras, for someone like me who clicks a lot of pictures, it had never been tougher. To put things simply, the cameras on both of the devices are pretty darn amazing and no matter what you can guarantee a cool looking image out of both the devices.

Let’s firstly put specs out of the way, the Samsung Galaxy A80, the triple camera setup with a primary 48MP, f/2.0, 8MP, f/2.2 ultrawide and a TOF 3D f/1.2 camera. When it comes to photos via the primary camera, pictures turn out to be sharp and well detailed but just like every other Samsung device, saturation is cranked up which some of us prefer and some of us don’t. Wide-angle photos clicked on the Samsung Galaxy A80 are impressive too but they have a slightly reddish tint to them. Portrait mode shots or the live-focus shots are where the A80’s time of flight sensor shines with better depth mapping and edge detection.

It’s just the night mode that’s a little bit of a letdown and that’s when the Nova 5T takes the part, with better details and ISO control even in night mode. When it comes to selfies, the Galaxy A80’s rear camera doubles as a popup rotating front camera which makes possibilities endless and clicking selfies, even more, interesting with wide-angle, or the primary camera which is always better than a selfie camera.

Over at the Huawei front, there’s a quad-camera setup with a 48MP, f/1.8 primary; 16MP, f/2.2 ultrawide; a 2MP macro camera and a dedicated 2MP depth sensor. Basically, it’s an all-rounder camera phone and a versatile snapper, plus having that dedicated 2MP macro lens is just an added vantage point to capture the subjects. However, the 2MP sensor has its own caveats, as the images are not that crisp; but for posting on social media, it’s doable. For the flexible camera setup, built-in light painting modes, a better wide-angle lens with less distortion, and the capability to shoot RAW images, this one goes to the Huawei Nova 5T.

On selfie front, the Nova 5T falls a bit short with just a single 32MP f/2.0 lens, nothing to complain though, it’s just that you get spoiled by the A80. For selfies, definitely the A80 is what I prefer but for a good camera that I know it won’t disappoint me, it has to be the Huawei Nova 5T.

On the video front, both the cameras are equally capable. Both the Samsung Galaxy A80 and the Nova 5T can capture videos at 4k 30fps, 1080p at 36/60fps and slow-motion videos at 720p 480fps. EIS kicks in only at 1080p on both of the phones. Therefore, on the video front, it’s a tie.

Regardless of which one you go for, they are equally good and really capable shooters.

Battery

A 3,700mAh battery on the Samsung Galaxy A80, as opposed to 3,750mAh on the Nova 5T; it’s a small margin comparing the numbers. With the power-efficient Kirin 980 SoC on board though, the Nova edges over the Galaxy A80 with quite a significant margin. When it comes to charging, both of these devices charge via USB-C and both of them support fast charging. Charging speeds are slightly better on the Samsung Galaxy A80, all thanks to the 25Watt fast charging capable of juicing up the A80 from 0-50 in 22 minutes; on the other hand, the Huawei Nova 5T takes 24 minutes to get from 0-50 with 22.5Watt fast charging. Let’s call this one a tie.

Verdict

With the mid-tier SoCs getting more powerful and better day by day and definitely value for money offerings, it’s no doubt that the Samsung Galaxy A80 gets this close to the Huawei Nova 5T. But, should you actually need to pay extra for the Samsung Galaxy A80 which is priced at NPR 64,990? With a popup rotating camera and a better display; it’s a novelty to have but for everything else that resembles flagship without burning a hole in your pocket, the Nova 5T at NPR 53,900 is a steal.

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