Huawei could find itself in hot water with advertising standards regulators after it was apparently caught using a DSLR camera to capture promotional shots supposedly taken with the Nova 3 smartphone’s selfie camera.
In ads in the Middle East for the Nova 3 it is heavily implied – if not implicitly stated – that the image above is taken with the handset’s front facing camera. However, a picture posted by a Reddit user appears to prove the shot was staged and the picture was taken with a high-end DSLR camera.
The male model is even pretending to hold the phone in front of a lens wielded by a professional photographer within the backstage image appearing online. Tut, tut.
We’ve often suspected that some companies aren’t on the level in this regard, but they do a better job than Huawei of covering their tracks. To be honest, the overt airbrushing in the image about should have been a dead giveaway too, but we could understand if the original had actually been taken with the Nova 3.
You can see the commercial below, with the offending snap occurring around half with through:
Android Police (via The Verge) points out this isn’t the first time Huawei has been caught out in marketing materials. The EXIF data for a shot it claimed was from the P9 revealed it was actually taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark III – a £1,000 camera. Elsewhere, the company was previously busted for photoshopping the bezels from the P8 smartphone.
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While there’s no overt statement that this particular shot was captured using the Nova 3, consumers often user marketing materials as a reference point for what they could expect from their smartphone.
If this isn’t outright deceptive, it’s a pretty bad faith move from a company that needs as much good will from consumers as it could possibly get. Some governments in the west would rather Huawei phones disappear from sale completely amid ongoing national security concerns.
Have you purchased a recent Huawei phone? Does the camera live up to its billing? Drop us a line @TrustedReviews on Twitter.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
