HUAWEI nova 12 SE detailed review in Romanian (Mobilissimo Evaluation)

In the middle of spring those from HUAWEI have brought to the local market a series of new mid-range terminals, among which HUAWEI nova 12 SE – affordable model that is part of a family of no more than 7 phones. This SE version is aimed at young people who want a thin and light smartphone with a camera to take on holiday and a large screen with narrow bezels.

There’s also an emphasis on design here, with a matte back, figure-8-shaped cameras as we’re used to from the manufacturer, and slim bezels on the front panel, thinner than other rivals in the segment. It’s clearly a phone for multimedia consumption, especially since you’ll benefit from the generous AMOLED screen and large battery with fast charging.

HUAWEI nova 12 SE it is also good on the selfie side, having a high-resolution camera, and related to the target audience, young people – they also receive emoticons that they can bring in the background or Live View, which is meant to be a multitasking system like on the iPhone in that Dynamic Island cutout.

It also gets you a lot of storage from the start, and for a smartphone in this price category, rivaling the Galaxy A35, things are interesting. At its debut, it also had a special offer with a gift voucher of 250 lei. Let’s see how it does in our tests!

A smartphone for young people, good-looking and light

HUAWEI nova 12 SE is a phone aimed at young people, with a modern and good-looking design, so you enjoy the flexibility of an easy-to-handle and slim terminal. It just has 7.4 mm thickness and only 186 grams, and these figures are of course helped by the polycarbonate construction, material used both for the frame of the case and for the back panel.

We have here variants in black, green or white, the latter shade being the one that arrived on the Mobilissimo test table. It has an interesting purse-like pattern, and the matte finish is excellent not only to the touch, but also to keep away fingerprints. The rear cameras have glass protection and here you have to be careful about fingerprints, because the marks can spoil the quality of the resulting photo.

The phone has a secondary microphone at the top, and on the right side we find the physical volume buttons and the power/unlock button that also houses the fingerprint scanner. This is a bit “buried” in the frame and seems harder to press at first to unlock, but using the fingerprint you don’t have to press anymore because the unlock happens instantly.

At the base we also find the SIM slot, the USB Type-C 2.0 connector, the microphone for calls and the speaker grill. I would have expected that in this equipment segment we would also see an audio jack, but unfortunately this is not the case. There is no IP certification either. All in all an attractive design, which despite the large diagonal remains maneuverable and you can grasp it with your hand from one end to the other even if you have a small hand.

A good-looking, OLED and bright screen

HUAWEI nova 12 SE it comes with a big and good-looking screen on board, a panel OLED with diagonal of 6.67 inches, Full HD+ resolution of 2400 x 1080 pixels and with 395 ppi density. It has narrow edges on 3 sides and a small chin at the base, and if you’re curious about the body-to-screen ratio, it reaches a generous percentage of 87.6%. We also have a 90Hz refresh rate.

Let’s move on to the results of the brightness test where the supplied lux meter showed 724 LUX maximum brightness, a score that places the phone in 66th place in our ranking, 1000 LUX below what the leader Google Pixel 8 Pro can do. We are above realme 10 4G, Galaxy A35 and even past flagships like iPhone 13 Pro.

In the area of ​​rivals, Galaxy A55 (928 LUX), Honor Magic5 Lite (744 LUX) and realme 12 Pro+ surpass us. Great results I would say, and the large diagonal makes it suitable for multimedia consumption. Something I like is that it comes factory equipped with a matte plastic screen protector. The viewing angles are wide, and the body-to-display ratio really has to be appreciated for a phone in this price segment.

⚡-50 lei from the price on Flip.ro if you use the coupon: MBL50