Huawei nova 10 SE Review

The Huawei nova 10 SE is an interesting release under the company's nova lineup with its refreshing design and color options. On top of that, the handset carries the Snapdragon 680G 4G chipset and a whopping 108MP camera which is a rare gem in this segment.

Huawei nova 10 SE Review

With its solid spec sheet, the phone is quite promising to those who wanted to have a fresh take on their devices. Join us in this review and see if the phone is worthy of your attention.

{getToc} $title={Table of Contents} $count={Boolean} $expanded={Boolean}

Design

  • Mint Green colorway
  • Star Orbit Ring design
  • 7.39-mm thin body

The Huawei nova 10 SE comes with a very compelling design; you'll easily get captivated by it once you take it out of the box. We got the Mint Green colorway for our review unit, while other color options include the Starry Silver and Starry Black. I have to say, I like the youthful appeal of the Mint Green variant which is a stand-out when you rock it in the wild. Gen Zs are sure to love this attractive colorway at first glance.

Huawei nova 10 SE Review

The rear panel is made of high-grade plastic that features a sand-blasted design which shimmers when light reflects upon it. It also has a shiny, smooth finish but negates fingerprints with its crystal-like and matte effect. What I love about the nova 10 SE is that it looks so classy with minimal elements that are effectively laid out.

Huawei nova 10 SE Design Review

The enthralling oval-shaped camera module features the Start Orbit Ring design with two sizeable circular segments for the camera sensors. Make no mistake, this is a triple camera setup, with the top circle housing the main camera sensor while the bottom one houses two sensors - ultrawide and macro.  Aligned with the module to its right side is the dual LED flash and a tiny inscription describing this setup as an "AI Triple Camera." At the lower portion of the back panel is Huawei's logo which matches the rear's design.

Ports and buttons come in no-nonsense placements. Volume rocker and power button that doubles as a fingerprint scanner are located on the right side; SIM tray with dual SIM slots, primary microphone, USB-C port, and speaker grille are situated on the bottom side; lastly, the top side has the secondary microphone. There's no 3.5mm audio jack here.

Huawei nova 10 SE Review: Design

The front panel is supported by tiny bezels offering generous amount of screen space with its 91.85% screen-to-body ratio. It features a punch-hole provisioned for the selfie camera sensor; it's situated on the top center portion of the display. The 2.5D glass material facilitates a flat display design with a contoured edge for the nova 10 SE. We also have flat silver-colored railings to frame the handset.

Huawei nova 10 SE Review: Design

The ergonomic body design makes it easy to use with one hand; buttons are easily accessible, body is slender with only 7.39-mm in thickness, and it also does not feel heavy at all with its 184-gram weight despite the fact that the phone comes with a fairly large 4500 mAh battery.

Huawei nova 10 SE Review: Display

Display

  • FHD+ OLED panel, 1.07B colors
  • 90Hz refresh rate

The Huawei nova 10 SE sports an FHD+ OLED panel that gives accurate colors, great details, and good viewing angles. It comes with a high 90Hz refresh rate, matched with 270Hz touch sampling rate, which makes graphics, animations, scrolling apps or navigating thru the UI smooth and speedy. It also has a dynamic refresh rate feature to keep the balance of smoothness and battery life, depending on your current usage. The panel supports up to 1.07B colors which enables rich, color-accurate, and expressive visuals unfold on the screen.

The display's brightness suffice in outdoor settings, even in broad daylight. The large and vivid display makes it very ideal in consuming content. I'm actually quite surprised how good it is given that it's priced only below Php 20k.

Huawei nova 10 SE Review: Display

It also comes with an Always-on-Display feature which can easily be customized. You can choose between presets or make something from scratch.

Hardware and Performance

  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 680G 4G
  • 8GB RAM + 256GB ROM

The nova 10 SE is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 680G 4G which is designed for midrange devices. It is supported by GPU Turbo for enhanced graphics processing performance, together with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of built-in storage. It's worth noting that the handset does not come with storage expansion via microSD card support.

Huawei nova 10 SE Review: Gaming

The SoC is powerful in its own right and can handle basic tasks with ease. The smartphone also performed well when we talk about gaming. Mobile Legends: Bang Bang is very much playable with its respective default graphics setting; it defaults to high graphics and high refresh rate. Ultra graphics is also supported, but if you want to conserve battery and data with no frame drops, I suggest you use Smooth to Medium graphics only. Some GPU-demanding games like Asphalt 9 are surprisingly smooth with this handset.

The Huawei nova 10 SE's loudspeaker sounded good despite being a single-firing mono speaker. The phone supports Bluetooth 5.0 and NFC. The latter allows seamless file transfer to other Huawei devices via Huawei Share and Multi-screen Collaboration.

Unfortunately, the nova 10 SE does not come with 5G support, but the 4G LTE support is still reliable for user's internet connectivity needs, especially here in the Philippines. The phone is also fast enough to unlock using the user's face or fingerprint information.

If you're keen on synthetic benchmarks, the nova 10 SE scored 227911 in AnTuTu and 6445 in PCMark Work 3.0 Performance Test.

Camera

  • 108MP triple rear camera
  • 16MP front camera

The Huawei nova 10 SE features a very solid camera system in the mid-range space. It boasts a whopping 108MP f/1.9 camera as its primary sensor. It is then supported by an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide depth camera and a 2MP f/2.4 macro sensor. The main sensor allows users to take high quality photos with good amount of details, color accuracy, and saturation. I found the photos to be on the warmer side with just enough contrast and dynamic range. 

On the other hand, photos taken from the ultrawide-angle camera has enough details; however, color reproduction needs a little improvement. But this sensor is always a welcome feature for users who love to take landscape shots. You can also take portrait shots with the rear camera which technically uses artificial algorithm to separate the subject from the background. To compete the setup, the macro sensor, a fixed-focused sensor, produces good close up shots.

Huawei nova 10 SE: Camera Review

The native camera app has a Night Mode which is quite exceptional, although the camera is slow to take that needed shot. This feature efficiently recovers shadowy areas without overblowing the highlight and the saturation. In terms of videos, the camera has EIS and is capable of recording 1080p@30fps videos.

Huawei nova 10 SE Review: Selfie Camera

Lastly, the front camera is a 16MP sensor which is quite fast in taking snaps with good texture and details. Check out our sample photos below:

Huawei nova 10 SE Sample Photo

Huawei nova 10 SE Sample Photo

Huawei nova 10 SE Sample Photo

Huawei nova 10 SE Sample Photo

Huawei nova 10 SE Sample Photo

Huawei nova 10 SE Sample Photo

Huawei nova 10 SE Sample Photo

Huawei nova 10 SE Sample Photos
Main Camera Shot & Night Mode Shot (L-R)

Huawei nova 10 SE Sample Photos
Main Camera Shot & Night Mode Shot (L-R)

Huawei nova 10 SE Sample Photos
Main Camera Shot & Ultrawide-angle Camera (L-R)

Super Macro Camera Shots

Huawei nova 10 SE Selfie Camera Shot
Selfie Camera Shot

Software and Battery

  • EMUI 12
  • 4500 mAh battery w/ 66W fast charging

On the software front, the Huawei nova 10 SE runs on EMUI 12. Just like recent releases from the company, the nova 10 SE does not support Google Play Services.

I think it has always been a struggle for the company in terms of enticing developers to building apps into the Huawei ecosystem, but we've also seen a rise in the number of popular apps that are now available in the AppGallery. Users can download popular apps in the App Gallery or sideload apps from popular third-party app markets using the Petal Search.

As for the battery, we've tested the nova 10 SE using the PCMark Work 3.0 battery life test and it scored 13 hours and 12 minutes. The phone supports 66-watt fast charging; in our charging test, we were able to charge the handset from 0 to 100% in 40 minutes.

Huawei nova 10 SE Review

Verdict: Should You Buy The Huawei nova 10 SE?

The Huawei nova 10 SE is a good performing and good-looking mid-range device. The handset exudes class with its functional yet stylish design; and the use of Snapdragon 680G also makes it one of the efficient workers in its class. However, what I love about the handset are the camera capability and the flagship-grade feature of 66-watt fast charging. These particular features push the phone to a different level above its competitors.

The handset is priced at Php 17,999 and it hits a sweet spot for being a well-balanced smartphone. If you're into the Huawei ecosystem, this phone is definitely worth the upgrade.

Previous Post Next Post