The Huawei Nova 4 is a camera phone with a 48MP monster lens and hole punch display

It's official, the Huawei Nova 4 is one camera phone to look out for - a 48MP shooter that has one of the most innovative screens around. 

The Huawei Nova 4 is the latest handset to try for the best camera phone top spot and it joins what will be a long range of 48MP camera phones in 2019. It's also packing a screen with no notch whatsoever - that's because it has a hole-punch camera that takes up only a tiny part of the screen. 

This 'hole punch' houses a 25MP selfie camera but it's what you flip the handset over that things get really interesting. 

The 48MP lens camera means that Huawei is using Sony's recently made camera sensor. Alongside this lens is a 16MP wide-angle and 2MP depth sensor. 

The back of this phone looks a lot like the Huawei P20 Pro but the lenses are different and there isn't any Leica love here. 

Champagne super Nova? Not quite

While the headline specs are indeed impressive, the rest of the phone is a little middle of the range. That display may be notch free but it's not the greatest, at 6.4-inch 1080p (2310x1080, 398ppi) LCD. 

It does have a Kirin 970 chip but the Huawei Mate 20 Pro houses a more powerful Kirin 980 chip. Storage is decent, though, at 128GB and so is RAM (8GB) and battery, at 3,750mAh.

The other official 48MP camera phone is the Honor View 20, but it's thought that the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S10 and a new Xiaomi handset will go with a 48MP sensor. 

One of 2019's biggest launches, however, will not. The Huawei P30 Pro will have 38MP if reports are correct but the sensor it is using will be larger than anything else currently found in a smartphone. 

Marc Chacksfield

A technology journalist who has been in the industry for 17 years, Marc is the former editor-in-chief of TechRadar and has also steered the ship for technology brands including T3, Tom's Hardware and Tom's Guide, and is currently the director of Shortlist Media and co-owner of Shortlist.com. 

An expert in the field of camera phones and mobile tech, Marc has been a long-time specialist when it comes to phone reviews, hands-on coverage, reviews and rumors. As a frequent visitor to big trade shows like CES, he has also had boots on the ground for the latest camera announcements and breaking developments in fields such as 8K video.