Huawei Nova 12s review – Taking Style Forward

Here comes the Huawei nova 12s, and to be honest, I am kind of looking forward towards this ever since it was announce, for reasons that Huawei is not just releasing the nova 12s only, but a few nova 12 lineups across several regions. So for the Malaysian/SEA markets, there is three models, nova 12s, nova 12i and nova 12 SE. All three phones were released in various specs but all of it are powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon SOC while the ones in China under different nova 12 models were released in their own Kirin SOC, with 5G.

With that said, this review will only cover the nova 12s specifically as this model uses several different hardware internals that differentiates from the other two.

Design

The design of the Huawei nova 12s pretty much a lite version of the Huawei P60 series, where we see the first premium Star Orbit Ring is there located as the camera island area. Putting the phone number bright light or the sun will reveal it’s shimmers over the ring area, basically taking the inspiration from luxury watches. Besides the beauty of the phone, it is relatively slim and light too, with thickness measuring at 6.88 mm and just weighted at 168 grams, this makes the Huawei nova 12s easy to held on and use with ease, even with one hand for a quick tap and swipe over the display.

The Huawei nova 12s comes in three colors, Blue, Black and White, with similar color accent and style across the design of the whole phone.

Display & Audio

The phone still puts in some good looking display there, that is with a FHD+ 120Hz OLED Dynamic refresh rate screen over 6.7 inch size, which is still quite big on the screen size and suitable for day and night viewing, since it is also properly equipped with PWM dimming at 1440Hz. Generally speaking, most of the viewing from videos to gaming and general tasks works very well with accurate colors so far and surprisingly the nova 12s also supports Widevine L1 for DRM verified streaming apps such as Netflix. For gamers that is concerned over the taps and touches, the phone supports up to 300 Hz touch sampling rate for all your accurate movement over slides and taps needs. Other than that it supports HDR10 with DCI-P3 color Gamut.

Over to the audio, the Huawei nova 12s comes with dual firing stereo speakers with all handled by Huawei Histen audio tuning, however based on the software, if you are listening without the headphone or TWS, Histen handles everything automatically so there is no settings for that, unless if you are on a headphone or TWS, the options will only allows you to customised or selecting the predefined audio environments. Listening via the built in speakers alone can be quite enjoyable actually, even in it’s non configurable state with acceptable range of sound when listening via small rooms.

Camera

Huawei does focus quite a lot over the camera, although it is still a mid range device with some minor changes when compared to it’s previous generation. Lets start with the rear camera, a 50MP wide laser AF sensor along with a 8MP wide angle macro camera. The main sensor camera came with RGGB Colour Filter Array and able to provide better focus on most common environment with easy to snap and forget in many situations. The 10-Channel Colour Temperature Sensor as well as the available filters within the camera app. Our experience with the rear camera is there is just many options to play around and even with the defaulted settings, during day time everything came out as expected, good dynamic range during day time and accurate colors, with good zoom in results there. Night Time wise, the night mode has good separation in objects and subjects but loses out in certain details and contrast, while colors remains accurate.

Huawei kept the 60MP Ultra-Wide Autofocus Front Camera but eliminated the portrait lens on the front camera. Despite this, users can still capture good quality wide angle shots with filters and AI post processing, maintaining high resolution and quality.

We were able to record a brief demonstration of the rear video quality to give you an idea, showcasing a daytime sample for evaluation. I find it suitable for most short to medium video shoots due to its compact, lightweight design, making it enjoyable to hold while filming without causing fatigue. And if you were wondering, it can handle up to 4K at 30FPS. In my opinion, filming in 4K 30FPS results in clear and decent footage, but it’s important to avoid moving too quickly to prevent the focus from stuttering. Overall, I am content with the audio quality.

Performance, Experience, Benchmarks

This may be a downside to some that the processor included is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G along with 8GB of RAM and 256GB internal storage. As we all know, the combination of the internal hardware is dated by two years at least but it is still somehow able to run most of the common apps and games.

Towards the gaming side, you still can play some of the latest titles listed, like Genshin Impact or CODM but you will have to set it to low mix with some medium setting while trying to hold the 60FPS mark at least, average frames will get you around 45FPS which is still a standard should you need playable gaming experience there. Common eSports titles like Mobile Legends will get you by just fine and smooth without a hitch. While the lacking of SD card expansion, well you still can backup to any cloud services. Security for locking an unlocking the phone can be done via classic password/pin or the under display optical fingerprint sensor.

With the similarly equipped 4500mAh battery capacity, in 2024, it is abit small for a mid range phone, but still it can last you for about 14 hours over a mix of work and play altogether. Putting it to power saving mode will get you an average usage of about 23 hours. If you are out of juice (as in your battery), a full charge from almost empty to full will just take less than 40 minutes with the supplied 66w PD charger.

UI and OS wise, the Huawei nova 12s came with EMUI 14 (HarmonyOS in some regions) and Android 12 that will receive frequent updates and enhancements to keep this device fresh. Notable features as part of EMUI 14 and Android will be the AI Privacy Protection that helps to remove sensitive information along with Multi Device Gallery, Super Device for multiple Huawei devices collaboration, Interactive Themes, Eye Comfort, updated customizable status bar, Widget Staking and more. CLICK here to know more about features of EMUI 14.

As usual, benchmarks as above for reference and honestly, it is still great for all multitasking and some gaming needs as compared with some of the competing devices we benchmarked

Technical Specifications

Verdict & Conclusion

The Huawei nova 12s is a smartphone that is trying real hard to put itself in a very tight competition against some of the similar pricing segment with some even boasting higher specifications, however it is certainly did not lose out in terms of optimisation and camera optics controls, and the fluid UI improvement. That being said, if you are relying much on the Huawei ecosystem and with some form of Google Apps support, one can still take this phone on and enjoy all the advantages it has, plus Huawei has proven that their security patches updates are quite frequent too when compared with other Google approved phones, therefore the peace of mind use is still there and I am pretty convince that they will keep this device supported and improve for a long while.

Availability & Pricing

The HUAWEI nova 12s is now available with the price tag of RM1999 and will be entitled for a free HUAWEI Watch GT 3 SE upon purchases made online

For more information on the nova 12s CLICK here to find out.