Huawei Nova 7 SE review: An almost-excellent, mid-range, 5G-capable phone

At a price of S$528, is Huawei’s Nova 7 SE able to deliver a flagship-like experience at a more accessible price point to consumers? We find out!

By Liu Hongzuo - 25 Jul 2020

A Special Nova

The mid-range Nova series have generally been regarded well by folks who bought and used them. It may not be the fanciest piece of Huawei phone tech you can get your hands on, but most users don't really need anything beyond what a mid-range Nova phone can deliver.

Enter the Huawei Nova 7 SE, the latest and most powerful Nova device. It's a 5G-capable smartphone with an octa-core Kirin 820 chipset, which Huawei claimed that it could deliver a 21% overall performance increase when compared to the preceding chipset of its tier.

Other headlining features include an AI-based quad-camera system on the rear, with its primary lens being a 64MP shooter capable of 4-in-1 pixel binning. It also has 40W fast-charging for its 4,000mAh battery, when its peers usually come with slower charging speeds or no fast-charging at all.

Of course, we can't address a Huawei phone without bringing up how their newer releases are powered using Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) instead of Google Mobile Services (GMS).

On the whole, Huawei thinks that the Nova 7 SE is a decent compromise that doesn't skimp out on little things, like a phone's camera quality, display sharpness, battery uptime, and general performance. Where it saves money on (for both Huawei and the user) are the brand-name partnerships and fancy-than-needed components. At S$528, is Huawei's Nova 7 SE able to deliver a flagship-like experience at a more accessible price point to consumers? Let's find out, but first, here's what you get in the box:-

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ERWXZSZurE4

(Take note that the Nova 7 SE is not the same as the lower-priced Nova 7i with a different camera subsystem, processing platform and a less sophisticated finish.)

Design and Handling

As the design is fundamentally similar to a P40 device, the Nova 7 SE also handles as nicely as its flagship brethren. Perks and flaws are alike - from its grippy sides (good) to its raised camera housing (not so good). The one difference is the bezels around the display, which is slightly less refined than the P40's, but it also cuts down on accidental touch input. So yes, bezels do have a practical use.

Our Space Silver version of the Nova 7 SE is quite pleasant to look at, mostly because of its gentle iridescent appearance. The finishing on these phones is achieved via a nine-layered nano-coating process to give them their refractive appearance. We'd say they'd nearly gotten the appearance right if not for the odd occasion where the Nova 7 SE looks like a piece of store-bought aluminium foil. Fortunately, the metallic appearance was balanced out with a gentle, pinkish gradient that graduates towards the lower half of the phone. With such a glossy-looking phone, surprisingly the rear which feels plastic to the touch, is quite smudge-free if you compare it to P40 devices.

Functionally, the phone offers no handling issues, unless you want to count the power button placement as 'too perfect'. It's placed where my right hand's thumb usually rests at, so it triggers an unlock when I don't intend to (e.g. checking the time when lifting my device).

Display and Audio

The Huawei Nova 7 SE packs a 6.5-inch LTPS LCD display at 2,400 x 1,080 pixels resolution, working out to a pixel density of about 404 PPI. The screen being capable of displaying 16.7 million colours is a given, but take note that is said to have 96% coverage of NTSC Wide Colour Gamut colour space. The display also has HDR10 support, making it compatible with some HDR videos. It offers good colourisation and sharpness, with no compromise to contrast or details. From the test image, you can see that the Nova 7 SE can match the Vivo V19 in display quality.

The single-firing speaker located at the bottom of the Nova 7 SE is decent, with a slightly tinny sound signature that doesn't blow out the bass. If you're not a fan of this sound profile, you could always plug in your preferred headphones thanks the presence of a 3.5mm audio jack. Thanks to the audio jack, you don't have to rely only on expensive wireless headsets and earbuds.

User Interface

We've covered the usability, versatility, and concerns of using a phone powered by only Huawei Mobile Services (HMS). We've also covered in great detail on the easy ways you can work around replacing GMS-centric apps. To cut to the chase, we'll leave you with a few useful resource links to get more insights:-

Instead of repeating our opinions on how well the AppGallery app store is shaping up, and how certain functionalities pan out differently without GMS (which is applicable for an HMS device at this stage), we'll go ahead to highlight the Nova 7 SE's general user experience and ease of use instead.

Single SIM slot with Huawei's Nano Memory slot on the card tray.

The device is an Android 10 smartphone that's cloaked beneath Huawei's reskin, EMUI 10.1 interface. That's the same interface as its flagship brethren, so little things like Gestures to control navigation and the juvenile-looking colour palettes are all par for the course on the Nova 7 SE as well.

But wait, didn't we just say the phone doesn't have Google Mobile Services, but it's still an Android phone? Well that's because the Huawei EMUI interface is designed off Android's Open Source Project (AOSP), and so it's technically an Android phone and supports Android apps in the market, but without the core Google Mobile Services (GMS) that has been replaced with Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) such as Huawei's AppGallery for a Goole Play Store alternative. Yes, it's slightly complicated and thus the resource links above to get you up to speed on what's happening.

What stood out is the near-flagship like smoothness and fluidity of using the Nova 7 SE. Besides gaming, nearly every other conceivable activity on the phone felt as smooth as a regular flagship phone. It's a little odd considering mid-range devices tend to have minor delays or differences that are not noticeable unless you're gunning to expose them. The Nova 7 SE, however, has none of those hangups. If we weren't told it's a mid-range device, we certainly would not be able to tell from its handling. That is until we tried loading games to play.

An essential part of the user experience is the seamlessness of checking the time and unlocking the phone. The Huawei Nova 7 SE aces in these two areas with its lift-to-wake display and nearly flawless fingerprint unlock and facial recognition unlocking. Even in a dark room with no lights, the facial recognition feature has no issues granting access. Despite the thin fingerprint slate doubling as the power button, it also had no problems granting access when the correct finger was applied, no matter the orientation or usage scenario. We had to highlight this in light with our sub-par experience on the Sony Xperia 10 II.

If you can look past its user interface and the lack of GMS, the Nova 7 SE is relatively fuss-free to use compared to many other devices out there - not just mid-range rivals.

Cameras and Imaging Performance

A headlining feature of the Nova 7 SE is generous imaging capabilities for its tier. The device’s AI Quad Camera System offers up to four rear cameras at the back, starting with a 64MP main lens with f/1.8 aperture.

It’s accompanied by an 8MP ultra-wide-angle lens at f/2.4 aperture, a 2MP bokeh lens at f/2.4 aperture, and a 2MP macro lens at f/2.4 aperture. Effectively, this covers nearly all shooting scenarios, except for long-range shooting. Even without a dedicated telephoto lens, the primary camera still offers up to 10x digital zoom.

Based on our test image, the main camera offers surprisingly high-quality performance. It may not have the best contrast handling, but it aces in capturing colour and details, with very little noise even under the shade. Then again, it’s also likely because other mid-range smartphones in its comparison tier don’t squeeze a 64MP main lens as a part of their components, plus Huawei has the imaging software expertise that helped make their P series phones so popular as well.

Ultra-wide-angle shot from the dedicated lens, same position.

10x digital zoom on the main camera from the same position.

The same can’t be said for its ultra-wide-angle lens. It’s still good at taking sharp images, but the level of detail isn’t as high nor are the colours as vibrant. It’s still better than an average ultra-wide-angle camera on other mid-range devices. Understandably, the weakest imaging performance was in its 10x digital zoom, since the Nova 7 SE wasn’t equipped with a lens to match. Details aren’t as meticulous at this distance, while the noise and jitter also play against its great colourisation.

The same subject, at the same distance, now using the Super Macro mode using the dedicated macro lens.

We also found the macro lens to be rather excellent, even if it’s not easily accessible from the camera’s user interface (you have to find ‘Super Macro’ in the ‘More’ tab). There are some artifacts on the image (look around the flower petals), but it still retains excellent colourisation and detailing.

Ultra-wide-angle shot using the dedicated camera.

Even without the fancy software-based features on the P40 series’ cameras, the Nova 7 SE has good imagining performance for its price point, with the primary camera being the star of the quad-camera configuration. The other lenses are nice to have, but we’d use as much of the primary lens before resorting to the other options on the phone.

Benchmark Performance

Powering the Huawei Nova 7 SE is an upper mid-tier Kirin 820 octa-core processor with a clock rate of up to 2.36GHz. At its unveiling announcement, Huawei said it has 21% better overall performance than its preceding chipset, which was the Kirin 810 on phones like the lower-endHuawei Nova 5 and 7 series. A noteworthy feature is the chipset's 5G support, making it one of the first mid-range 5G phones released this year.

Naturally, this pits the Nova 7 SE against 2020 mid-range devices like the Vivo V19 and Sony Xperia 10 II, which we've reviewed previously. We'll also throw in 2019 mid-range phones for comparison's sake. To round off the measurements, we also include flagship devices like this year's OnePlus 8 Pro, Huawei's very own P40 Pro+, and an older Galaxy S10+ by Samsung.

JetStream 2

To benchmark the phone's web browsing performance, we used the JetStream 2 benchmark test on the Google Chrome web browser app. The test measures a phone's capabilities in handling a variety of advanced workloads and executing codes. JetStream 2 is an updated version of older benchmarks, such as the first JetStream and SunSpider.

While some phones come with custom-made web browsers, We always run this benchmark test on Chrome as it gives the best indication across devices, processors, and OS platforms - whether iOS or Android. Also, we would adjust the phone's display settings to ensure that the screen doesn't turn off mid-test since this would relegate the browser's thread(s) to background processing. Where necessary, we would run multiple test instances to get a more accurate reading of scores.

AnTuTu

Note: As of 9th March 2020, all AnTuTu benchmarks were removed from the Google Play Store. This move likely arose from Google's attempts to relieve the Play Store of apps that violate their policies. AnTuTu is working with Google to restore their app listing. For this review, we used the APK file that was available on AnTuTu's website.

AnTuTu is an all-in-one benchmark that tests CPU, GPU, memory, and storage. The CPU benchmark evaluates both integer and floating-point performance, and the GPU tests assess 2D and 3D performance, the memory test measures available memory bandwidth and latency, and the storage tests gauge the read and write speeds of a device's flash memory.

Geekbench 5

Geekbench CPU is a cross-platform processor benchmark that tests both single-core and multi-core performance with workloads that simulate real-world usage. Geekbench 5 scores are calibrated against a baseline score of 1000, which is the score of an Intel Core i3-8100.

The Geekbench benchmarking tool is why we couldn't refer to older benchmark scores of other mid-range devices. Geekbench 4 had a baseline score of 4000 (the performance of an Intel Core i7-6600U processor). As one the first mid-range phones we're testing using Geekbench 5, we'll have to build upon the list of devices as time goes by.

3DMark Sling Shot Extreme

3DMark Sling Shot is an advanced 3D graphics benchmark that tests the full range of OpenGL ES 3.1 and ES 3.0 API features including multiple render targets, instanced rendering, uniform buffers and transform feedback. The test also includes impressive volumetric lighting and post-processing effects. The test's Unlimited mode ignores screen resolutions.

Performance roundup and remarks

The Huawei Nova 7 SE is easily one of, if not the best performing mid-range smartphones that has made its debut this year. In fact, the benchmark scores are comparable to the Samsung Galaxy S10+, a flagship device from 2019. Chances are, the Nova 7 SE feels acceptable for your daily needs, assuming once you're done setting up the device with your favourite apps.

Battery Life Performance

Our standard battery test for mobile phones has the following parameters:

Looping a 720p video with screen brightness and volume at 100%
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity turned on
Constant data streaming through email

Huawei has included a reasonably generous 4,000mAh battery in the Nova 7 SE, giving us a reasonable 12+ hours of battery life in our testing. It's a tad lower than last year's older alternatives with smaller battery capacities like the Pixel 3A XL and Galaxy A80. We think it's fair given that it's performing quite close to flagship-tier phones with top-end processors. The Nova 7 SE's uptime duration puts it right in the middle of the pack, which should be comfortable for most users.

What we liked was the Nova 7 SE's support for fast-charging, dubbed 40W Huawei SuperCharge. The phone even comes with a compatible fast-charging adapter in the box. It took just 25 minutes to go from 0% to 50%, and slightly under 60 minutes to go from zero to a full battery charge!

Conclusion

Going by its technical capabilities, the Huawei Nova 7 SE is one of the best mid-range smartphones you can get - it has near-flagship tier performance, an acceptable display (still an LCD), an above-average primary camera, and respectably long battery life. Its price point of S$528 also gives it great value for money when you compare it to the Vivo V19 (S$599) and Sony Xperia 10 II (S$569). Both alternatives can't match the Nova 7 SE in benchmarks and camera performance while packing the essentials like a 3.5mm audio jack and expandable storage options (although the Huawei phone uses proprietary memory cards). It is also better priced, better featured and excels in performance over last year's Nova 5T that's still selling currently (but only because it doesn't suffer from the next point).

What makes this phone hard to judge was the same problem that plagues the Huawei P40 series - the lack of Google Mobile Services. At the flagship-tier, the difference between the Huawei P40 Pro+ and a Google-capable Oppo Find X2 Pro was approximately S$200, which is not too big of a difference to pay for the comfort and ease of GMS (I tend to use phones beyond the 12- to 18-month upgrade cycle, so the extra S$200 really spreads its value out over a longer period of time, and therefore, there's less strain on the purse strings).

Personally, it would have been a toss-up between the Huawei Nova 7 SE and the Vivo V19 since I am neutral towards their imaging performance and battery uptime. If we were to pick, the Huawei device does have a slight edge in imaging detail and handling a complicated main test shot that has both bright lighting and shade. Both devices share the same weakness of not having NFC though.

Unfortunately, the convenience of a GMS-enabled device for just S$70 dollars more would be why I'd pick the Vivo V19 instead. If the Nova 7 SE somehow were able to use all of GMS (legitimately or otherwise, without breaking any functionality or feature on the device), I'd easily buy the more affordable of the two and treat the imaging performance as a nice bonus to have.

Still, don't let my nitpicking stop you from getting the Nova 7 SE. If you're not too addicted to Google Maps or YouTube apps and you easily use access the same via the browser, it's seriously one of the best current-generation mid-range phones you could grab, features- and functionality-wise. Ease of use is the main detracting factor that you would have to weigh in and it would vary from person to person and the kinds of apps being used.

For those keen to check ongoing retailer prices, here are some relevant shopping links:-