Together with its design, one of the biggest USP of Huawei Nova 3i is its camera setup. It still has four cameras like Huawei Nova 2i but it's now more powerful and comes with extra features. Phone has a rear dual camera setup consisting of 16MP + 2MP sensors with an f/2.2 aperture, and dual 24MP + 2MP front facing cameras with an f/2.0 aperture. Like Huawei Nova 2i, 2MP secondary sensors are there to aid in bokeh effects.
It has got plenty of features like Pro, Slow-Mo, Night, Panorama, Light painting, HDR, Time-lapse, 3D Panorama, Document scan, Beauty, Aperture, Portrait, and AR Lens. It also has an AI scene recognition which can detect up to 22 different scenes. One of its coolest features is the AR Lens. Aside from "stickers" that are found in other mid-range smartphones, it has "3D Qmoji" which works similar to the Apple iPhone X's Animoji. You can pick from multiple characters like chameleon, puffer fish, wolf, cat, rabbit, robot, penguin, and cherry and can also record a video with animated character or turn it into a GIF. Another one is "Backgrounds" which adds animations to your background with matching sound effects. It's cute, and like the 3D Qmoji, you can record a video or turn it into a GIF. And since this device supports Google ARCore, it also has "3D Objects" feature which is jointly developed by Baidu AR and Huawei. It adds an animated character in Augmented Reality and lets you record a video of it. Sadly, it only has five penguin effects at the moment.
In terms of quality, both rear and front cameras can produce images that are sharp, have accurate colors and good contrast but mostly when shooting in bright conditions. It's still capable when shooting in dim environments but images come out soft, perhaps, in its attempt to suppress noise. Performance is poor in low-light as it is very smudgy and peppered with noise. Since Nova series is targeted towards youngsters, Huawei also put in extra effort to the front camera system on Huawei Nova 3i. In fact, this phone is the first ever smartphone to have AI capabilities enabled on front camera system. Similar to rear cameras, front camera system also comes with a 2MP and 24MP camera. 2MP sensor mainly captures information about depth of field, while the 24MP camera captures image data. For example, it was able to detect that I was taking selfie photos in a room and edited photo to better suit environment. Huawei also mentioned that they have a beautification algorithm that tries to understand and recognize user based on gender, age and skin tone. This beautification mode works pretty well, but just make sure that you adjust beautification level to a level which you are comfortable with.
When it comes to its AI capabilities, it has a toggle called AI camera which is also found in Honor devices. Different scenes mean different adjustments to get the perfect shot and these cameras can intelligently detect scenes and automatically improve your photos. Also, it's not only rear cameras with this technology, selfie cameras also have AI capabilities and an improved AI beauty mode. What it does is, it automatically enhances images you shoot and while most of its enhancements are pleasing, there are times that it's just too aggressive. It seemed like it just boosted saturation and HDR effects, leaving images looking artificial at times. The AI engine did a much better job when it came to photos taken in low light scenarios. Comparing photos taken with and without AI, ones taken with AI showed more details. Generally, AI mode does improve picture quality and rule of thumb is that you should always take photos with AI mode on. This is because AI post-processes photos after actual capture of subject which means that you can still revert back to original photo taken from Huawei Nova 3i even with AI mode turned on.
Talking about video, Huawei Nova 3i can shoot videos up to Full HD at 60fps. Quality is not that impressive as footage lacks details and sharpness. Colors and dynamic range are okay, but it doesn't have Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) or Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS) which makes it prone to shakes. End product is a video which doesn't look too impressive, but again, at this price point, I did not expect this phone to deliver outstanding video shots.
Overall camera experience on Huawei Nova 3i is rather impressive, one of the better ones available at this price point. Huawei fans will definitely be delighted, and other users will surely be impressed with these AI capable cameras.