Huawei is in hot water yet again, if recent reports are anything to go by.
The company has already faced firm opposition from the US when it comes to operating in the country – Huawei's deals with AT&T and Verizon were both effectively blocked by the government – and its been lambasted for dishonest marketing practices in the past.
For example, 9to5Google discovered that the company had been "soliciting" 5-star reviews from Mate 10 Pro "beta testers," some of which had allegedly never tried the devices they were reviewing.
Now, according to Android Police, Huawei is again using misleading marketing tactics to sell their new Nova 3 smartphone.
In a recent ad for the Nova 3, Huawei shows a man taking a selfie of himself and his significant other several times throughout the video.
In the ad, the captured pictures look pretty fantastic - maybe a little too fantastic.
The actress shown in the ad, Sarah Elshamy, posted photos of the ad's shooting set. The pictures reveal that at least one of the "selfie" shots displayed in the video were not taken by a Nova 3 at all, but a powerful DSLR camera.
The camera was positioned in such a way that, had you not seen Elshamy's pictures, you'd have no way of knowing it wasn't a real Nova 3 photo - granted, the pictures were clearly touched up quite a bit (some of them look almost-cartoonish), but not everybody will notice.
Indeed, as AP points out, a customer might simply see a phone that appears to be capable of taking exceptional photos and rush off to buy one, without doing any further research.
Update 9/22/2018: Huawei has reached out to us with the following statement:
The purpose of this advertisement is to demonstrate how consumers can use the features of the HUAWEI nova 3 and nova 3i. As stated in the disclaimer at the end of the video, the product shots are for reference only.