We've recently gotten a chance to take a look at the new HUAWEI Nova 9 SE; a midrange smartphone from Huawei. After playing around with it for a couple of weeks, we’d have thoughts that we'd like to share about this device. Importantly, whether or not you should consider it as your next smartphone, what we see for its future and such.
Watch our video editor's take on the phone here!
What’s in the Box?
- SIM card ejector
- Clear case
- 66W Huawei Supercharge Brick
- USB-C cable
Build and Design
Our unit was the ‘Crystal Blue’ model. It looks especially attractive as the back reflects light in a way that makes the phone seem like there is a ray of light pointing outwards from the rear camera. However, the back's material is an easy fingerprint magnet, so it might be a good idea to put that included clear case to use.
On the bottom, you can find the USB-C port and a single bottom-firing speaker, whereas there's a power button, which doubles as a fingerprint reader, located on the right side of the device. In our opinion, it isn’t the fastest fingerprint reader we’ve tested but it is decent enough.
The volume button is located just above the power button, whereas on the top you can find a Dual Nano-SIM card slot.
Display
The HUAWEI Nova 9 SE sports an FHD 6.78 inch IPS LCD, running at a 90hz refresh rate. It has an 89% screen to body ratio with a pixel density of around 387 PPI.
For an IPS display, it's decent, but you really can’t expect much out of an IPS panel these days. You’ll still be more than happy to use the display whether you’re on YouTube, Netflix, or gaming. A 90Hz refresh rate could be considered a plus, but with how often you can find it in smartphones now, it's becoming less of an advantage and more of a new standard.
A big weakness to the display is when it comes to its performance outdoors or in bright conditions. We found that it simply isn’t bright enough for you to be able to read or navigate the phone comfortably when you’re under direct sunlight.
But overall, it’s a decent display that does its job, whether you’re consuming media or playing the latest games.
Camera Performance
The HUAWEI Nova 9 SE has a total of five cameras surrounding its body:
- Rear: 108MP f/1.9 Main camera
- Rear: 8MP f/2.2 Ultrawide camera
- Rear: 2MP f/2.4 Macro camera
- Rear: 2MP f/2.4 Depth camera
- Front: 16MP f/2.2 Selfie camera
HUAWEI has surprisingly great photo processing installed onto this phone, making your images look better than you would expect. Its colours are vibrant and rich, and there’s a great amount of detail within your shots.
However, the front camera was a little lacklustre even when accounting for the price range the phone occupies. Photos look bland and lack any considerable detail. The lack of HDR also meant that we weren’t able to get multiple depths of exposure. On a lighter note, the 8MP ultrawide camera is more than serviceable and is definitely inferior when compared to the 108MP main camera which produced good images alongside Huawei's post-image processing technology.
The HUAWEI Nova 9 SE only shoots up to 1080p video, which although disappointing, is of satisfactory quality. Plus, we’d rather have decent 1080p video over bad 4K recordings (which was satisfactory!). There’s also the creative vlog experience that HUAWEI previously mentioned about its phone. Here, you can shoot footage with both the front and back camera simultaneously, which worked pretty well for our testing.
Gaming and Performance
The phone is powered by a 6nm Snapdragon 680 processor and comes with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. For gaming, we tested the phone with a few rounds of Call of Duty Mobile and found the experience to be playable.
Naturally, we opted for the ‘High’ frame rate but to do so, we were forced to downgrade the graphics to ‘Low’. All in all, the gaming experience wasn’t the best but for its price range, it's certainly impressive.
Likewise, we had no problems with multitasking, being able to run multiple apps in the background and shuffling between them easily without lag. What’s most surprising was the phone’s thermals, as it rarely heats up to unbearable temperatures, even after hours of constant gaming. Now, this is a feat even amongst the generic smartphone market.
Software and UI
A small setback; the phone is running EMUI 12 as its operating system, instead of our favourite Harmony OS. It’s a disappointing choice for sure, but then again EMUI isn’t that bad in itself. To refresh your mind, the Nova 9 SE runs on Android 11 and has great customization options, allowing you to make the phone truly yours. The interface also feels fast and snappy.
And for those asking about Google Play services, we were able to install apps like YouTube and G-Mail through G-Space, and they worked well without a problem.
Battery Performance
While all is well with the HUAWEI Nova 9 SE, we regret to say that this part here is the phone’s biggest weakness. In our opinion that is, it only holds a 4000 mAh battery, which means it will at most last you a day but doesn't promise any decent battery optimisation should you choose to constantly use the phone.
However, the included 66W charger is able to charge the phone from zero to 70% in just 20 minutes, so you wouldn’t have to worry about forgetting to charge your phone before you go to sleep. But if you’re gonna be using the phone rather intensively, be sure to bring a power bank.
Overall, a small defeat, but nonetheless subject to the user's smartphone habits anyway.
Final Thoughts
Our rating: 7/10
The HUAWEI Nova 9 SE is probably not the best smartphone within its price range, but it's certainly a strong contender. We like the design of the phone’s chassis, with photography being one of its best features as the photo processing is a lot better than we initially expected. Another highlight would be that the HUAWEI Nova 9 SE performed decently at gaming and multitasking, impressively with good thermal optimisation.
We did not, however, like the single bottom-firing speaker, especially when so many of its competitors have dual stereo speakers. The battery life is also a weak spot, but it is offset by the 66W super-fast charging.
All in all, we consider the HUAWEI Nova 9 SE to be a solid phone worth your consideration.
Interested Malaysian customers can head over to HUAWEI Malaysia to get the phone or shop for it below:
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