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GREAT VALUE THE NEW NORMAL

Author
glennzb,
Publish Date
Mon, 25 Jun 2018, 9:53AM

GREAT VALUE THE NEW NORMAL

Author
glennzb,
Publish Date
Mon, 25 Jun 2018, 9:53AM

So your teen has dropped their phone. Again. Now the camera's not working properly. Or the screen's cracked. Or they did it on purpose to try and get a new one.

 

They don't deserve a $1000+ replacement.

 

But maybe there's an alternative that'll keep everyone happy...

 

 

Seems like mid-range phones are now offering so many premium features, calling them mid-range is kind of insulting.

 

The Huawei nova 3e is a classic example.

 

Technically, this phone is the P20 Lite - but I suspect it's such a good phone, the powers-that-be have decided to re-name it because there's nothing much "lite" about it.

 

First up, the nova 3e is a really eye-catching device, especially in Klein Blue (also available in Midnight Black) It has metal edges but a glass-covered back which catches the light in the most dazzling way. This mesmerising effect even worked after I fitted the transparent case included in the box.

 

Although the display is 5.84 inches, which is getting up there, it certainly doesn't feel like a large phone in your hand, due mostly to the narrow bezels and lack of physical buttons on the front. This all results in a very good screen to body ratio, enhanced further by the increasingly popular "notch" design at the top of the display.

 

This is the first time I've encountered the notch on a phone in this price range, but it seems to be becoming the norm. I didn't love it at first, but I have to concede you may as well stick your notification bar up there so you can use the rest of your screen for more interesting things. Like some (but not all) other phones with notches, you can choose to blank it out if it's not for you.

 

The nova 3e sports 64GB of built-in storage, which again is quite unusual for a sub-$500 handset. This is expandable up to 256GB with the addition of a microSD card. While we're talking numbers, the 4GB of RAM seems to keep things ticking along nicely and although the Kirin 659 processor isn't the most powerful Huawei has to offer, overall my user experience was pretty smooth. Things started to get a little clunky if I was really pushing the envelope - for example, streaming video while downloading other files, but nothing like the freezes and crashes I've endured on other "lite" versions of flagship phones I've reviewed in the past.

 

While there are few mid-range phones with fingerprint sensors, the nova 3e is the first one I've come across with facial recognition. What's more, it works and it works fast. Just like the much higher-priced P20, the face unlock even functions in landscape, which is great for me because that's how I have it positioned in my car holder. One small hint for new users of this device - if you've activated facial recognition, the phone will hide the content of any notifications on your lock-screen. Don't panic, this can be changed in the face lock settings, although it took me a fair amount of Googling to figure out.

 

Other than that, the EMUI-over-Android 8.0 user interface will be pretty familiar to previous Huawei users, with a choice of an iPhone-style all icon home screen, or the more logical app-drawer configuration. As usual with Huawei, battery optimisation is pretty damn aggressive and you might find some apps you want to keep running in the background keep turning off automatically. Like the lock-screen notifications, there is a setting for this but again, it's not easy to find. Type "ignore battery" into the settings search box and you'll figure it out from there.

 

While this is a medium-sized handset with a medium-sized battery, I found there was still plenty of charge left by the end of the day and the more-modern Type-C USB charging cable is another bonus that sets the nova 3e apart from many other devices in the mid-range pack.

 

The camera configuration is yet another feature of the nova 3e that belies its price-tag. For starters, this time last year only top-of-the-line phones offered dual-lens rear-facing cameras. Even then, only a few did. Now this $499 device can take some seriously crisp shots from distance in relatively low light. Obviously we're not talking the market-leading, A.I. assisted performance of the tri-lensed P20 Pro, but I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the photos from this phone compared to any other I've tried in this price bracket. While some camera operations were a little slow to react, functions like the instant shot you can take by double-pressing the down volume key worked in under a second.

 

As for the selfie lens, you can't really ask for more than the nova 3e's 16MP camera, with plenty of portrait effects and filters on offer.

 

Not hard to understand why demand for phones like these is expanding exponentially - Spark tells me the mid-range market has doubled in size over the last four months alone.

 

If you're part of that growing crowd, make sure you take a good look at the Huawei nova 3e - there aren't many high-end features missing but there are certainly many hundreds missing off the price.

 

 

Click here for more information and pricing on the Huawei nova 3e

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