Although in recent years Huawei has tried its best to justify the label of "China's Apple" by flaunting gold-shining powerhouses with countless cameras in advertisements, the company's real horse has always been elsewhere. The once impressive sales were mostly made up of cheap "Lite" models with decent cameras and shameless parameters for ordinary Peter or John.
- Score 8.2
- Design 8
- Performance 8
- Camera 8
- Battery 9
- Screen 9
- Sound7
Advantages
- The design is eye-catching
- High-quality 90Hz screen
- 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal memory as standard
- Beats the competition in dark photography
- Insanely fast charging and reliable battery
Disadvantages
- The case feels cheap in the hand
- 120Hz frequency and the absence of an AMOLED matrix
- The processor is not one of the fastest
- Absence of Google services
Therefore, it is not at all surprising that the imposed sanctions and the situation with Google forced Huawei to wake up from the dream of flagships and offer something competitive at a lower price. Thus, at the end of last year, the Nova 9, a middle-class phone with the manners of a high society, was born, and its work in lowering the price bar was continued by the Nova 9 SE, which was presented a few days ago.
In this review, we'll find out if this €350 108MP camera-armed phone is Huawei's long-awaited return to its roots or just a failed attempt to recapture its former glory.
Design
Despite the fact that the Huawei Nova 9 SE shares a name with the more expensive Nova 9, their designs are connected practically only by a similar camera module. "SE" is slightly longer, more angular, and most importantly - noticeably heavier. Those extra 16 grams certainly won't turn you into a bodybuilder, but the Nova 9's weight of just 175g won't give you that relief from heavy and bulky modern phones. Also, the Nova 9 SE no longer looks so thin and smooth in the hand, and with its non-chic plastic feel, it is somewhat reminiscent of Realme or Xiaomi phones.
The appearance of the back also contributes to this. This time, Huawei abandoned the currently fashionable matte finish and chose a "mirror" that changes shades in the light like a chameleon. The Crystal Blue I have can look blue, purple or even a soft gold depending on the lighting. The competitors of the company I mentioned have already tried something similar, but Huawei somehow managed to make that glow deeper and richer. I won't deny, the smartphone certainly looks sleek and even luxurious, but I'd still trade this finish for a matte finish any second because of the sheer feel. At least it's good that if the light show on the back of the phone is not to your taste, you can choose a more restrained black shade of the case.
I have no major comments from the ergonomic side. Traditionally, the heavily protruding camera module makes the smartphone wobble when we put it on the table and try to type, while the plastic sides and back are quite slippery and beg to be slipped into the case included in the box. On the other hand, the power button on the right side is in a very comfortable position, and the integrated fingerprint scanner still works faster than the ones under the screen. Of course, considering the price of the phone, you can forget about the water resistance certificate, but the rubber ring around the SIM card at least allows you to hope that the Nova 9 SE will not melt after another rain.
Be that as it may, at the end of the day, the Nova 9 SE is just a plastic phone for 350 euros, so expecting a breakthrough in the design category would be rather naive.
Screen
When Xiaomi's satellites Redmi and Poco joined Samsung last year and used the AMOLED technology screens reserved for flagships in their mid-range models, I thought that IPS matrices were doomed to remain only in the lowest layers of phones. But where are you - here is the average "Nova 9 SE" with IPS. However, to my surprise, the display of this smartphone far exceeded my expectations. I'll tell you why right now.
First of all, the Nova 9 SE screen frames were an unexpected surprise. They are so thin that their minimalism surpasses not only their direct competitors - Galaxy A53 and Redmi Note 11 Pro, but even some flagships. Of course, I'm only talking about the top and both side bezels, you inevitably see that IPS chin at the bottom, but it's very easy to live with. The front camera hole is also pleasantly small, so watching funny YouTube or TikTok videos about the "coolness" of the Russian army on the very spacious, even 6.8-inch screen of the Nova 9 SE is a pleasant experience.
But let's get down to the point - why am I getting into lapels for that IPS? Over the past 5 years, AMOLED technology screens have improved and become cheaper, so that they can delight us with their perfectly deep black color and rich shades in almost every phone. Especially since a significant part of users liked the dark theme of the system and applications, where "AMOLED" feels like a fish in water. At that time, IPS cannot guarantee neither such rich colors nor such functions as "Always on screen".
The good news is that although Huawei has spared money on the AMOLED matrix, it has at least installed a top-class FullHD+ resolution IPS on the Nova 9 SE. This means that the red and green shades are not so far behind in their brightness, and the white color even has that soft, pleasant blue shade characteristic of IPS. And anyway, IPS screens offer slightly better image sharpness, which is especially noticeable when reading. Only, as I mentioned, the deeper black color is traditionally missing, which is more dark gray here. Well, maybe more brightness - it is possible to see the image outside, but an additional burst of light would not hurt. Literally, if there was a choice, I would choose "AMOLED", but in this case, the "Nova 9 SE" really doesn't get it right.
Another debatable point after IPS is the 90Hz refresh rate. A couple of years ago, these would have been very commendable numbers, but now both the Redmi Note 11 Pro and the slightly more expensive Galaxy A53 already offer flagship-level 120Hz. For the average person, this is a rather clear advantage, because a higher refresh rate provides more fluidity and thus visually masks a chip that does not think so fast. Of course, the battery consumption increases accordingly, so Huawei apparently chose the golden mean. By the way, the company does not disclose what kind of scratch-resistant glass the Nova 9 SE used, so I recommend not to peel off the factory-applied protective film.
Performance
I probably won't be surprised if I say that Huawei Nova 9 SE is not hiding some impressive engine with many cylinders, oh, processor, but rather a new diesel engine . That's what I would call the Snapdragon 680 chip, which allows you to not get bored in daily driving , but shines more in fuel consumption than in maximum speed.
Since recently I had to test practically only the most expensive flagships, after loading the applications I use into the Nova 9 SE and trying to use it at a normal pace, I had to reduce the revolutions a little. Apps don't open as quickly as I'm used to, and larger files or photos in the gallery take a few moments longer to load . I think it's not even the CPU's fault, but the slower internal UFS 2.1 internal cache. Well, at least you get a lot of memory here - 128GB internal, which you can expand with "NM" type cards, and 8GB of RAM would not shame even a flagship. Thumbs up.
The good news is that I got used to the operation of the Nova 9 SE within a few hours and the performance stopped being a hindrance. The routine route of Instagram, Spotify, Messenger, Twitter, Brave, Waze, Outlook and several other apps did not cause any discomfort, not only because of the large amount of RAM, but also because of the very good optimized EMUI 12 interfaces based on Android 11 operating system. Smooth animations, practically zero crashes and errors, and a fresh design - what more do you need? Well, maybe another 120Hz screen, which would further increase the visual smoothness of control.
Unfortunately, good software and optimizations will still not hide the fact that this phone is not very suitable for gamers. Let's take the popular Call of Duty: Mobile game - the phone allows you to set either "very high" graphics and "medium" fps settings, or alternatively - "high" fps and "low" graphics. In the first option, minimal stuttering is felt, and in the second, there is a lack of visual satisfaction. The middle ground would be to reduce the graphics and fps to "average", which is good enough if you're not a die-hard gamer and just want to throw in a match with your afternoon coffee, but not ideal. Of course, unlike the flagships, the body of the Nova 9 SE heats up very little, but its direct rivals offer a slightly better gaming experience.
What haven't I mentioned yet? Communications. Nova 9 SE has one fat and one sweeter minus in this line. Fat would be the lack of support for the faster Wi-Fi 6 standard, which has rapidly become popular, and the other - the absence of 5G. The latter is to blame for the draconian US sanctions, which deprive Nova of one trump card against its direct competitors from the Samsung and Xiaomi tents, but in this price category it is still tolerable, especially when 5G in Lithuania is still not officially available to consumers. Other than that, everything is fine. Wi-Fi and 4G speeds are a bit behind the flagships, but work reliably, as do GPS and Bluetooth. The Nova 9 SE also features NFC for mobile payments.
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