Huawei Nova 12 Lite Smartphone Review – Huawei announced the Huawei Nova 12 Lite in December 2023 in China but the smartphone is yet to begin shipping to potential customers. Judging by Huawei’s previous track records, the smartphone will not launch outside of China. However, Chinese customers should start expecting the smartphone to begin shipping to them sometime in January 2024.
This is a premium mid-range smartphone and it’s designed with performance in mind. So, if you are looking for a superb performance with all-around capabilities, then this exquisite-looking smartphone could be the one for you. Let’s begin with a detailed review of the Huawei Nova 12 Lite smartphone and see if this smartphone is worth purchasing.
Table of Contents
Huawei Nova 12 Lite Smartphone Review
Highlights
- The Huawei Nova 12 Lite has a 6.7-inch OLED display with 120Hz high refresh rate support.
- The Huawei Nova 12 Lite has the 6nm Qualcomm SM7325 Snapdragon 778G 4G chipset with clock speeds capable of reaching up to 4×2.4GHz.
- The smartphone comes with HarmonyOS 4.0 for better user experience and ecosystem support.
- The main rear camera of the smartphone has a 50MP dual camera system with a 60MP ultrawide selfie camera at the front.
- The smartphone is powered by a 4500 mAh battery with a 66W wired fast charger support with 5W reverse wired charging.
Design and Display
For many performance-oriented smartphones, design is often an afterthought. In a bid to achieve the best performance possible, the design department gets seriously hit and what you end up getting is the same old boring design with similar yet slightly altered color choices. Huawei, on the other hand, did the opposite of that. They have put a significant emphasis on the design of the smartphone and it shows. It features a flat design but with a slightly chamfered edge to make your grip more comfortable on the smartphone.
As for the rear design, its unique patterns for each color that is bound to display a sense of passion for the art. It is available in three colors, White, Blue, and Black. The White and Blue color variants of Huawei Nova 12 Lite feature larger prints on the rear that give it a distinguished look but the Black color variant gets a simple frosted finish. On the front, you get the 6.7-inch OLED display with 120Hz high refresh rate support. This is a proper FHD+ display with HDR support. This is a color-corrected display, which is great for displaying any HDR content in all its glory. Speaking of colors, this is a 10-bit display, so it can display up to 1 billion colors.
Memory and Internal
The Huawei Nova 12 Lite comes equipped with 6nm Qualcomm SM7325 Snapdragon 778G 4G chipset. This is a relatively high-performance chipset that can deliver a clock speed of up to 4×2.4GHz. So, running your favorite programs on the smartphone will be a breeze, including video editing apps and games. It has a capable GPU that powers not only gaming but your content creation projects as well.
It has an Adreno 642L GPU, which has a record of providing higher graphical fidelity with smooth framerates. However, this is a 4G variant of the chipset as the name suggests, so there’s no 5G connectivity, which is indeed a bummer. Having 5G connectivity would decrease latency during multiplayer gaming periods and significantly boost your gaming process. However, the smartphone comes with HarmonyOS 4.0 which not only provides a great experience but also provides an excellent ecosystem experience in China. For storage, the smartphone can be purchased with 256GB or 512GB of internal storage.
Camera
The Huawei Nova 12 Lite comes with a very capable dual-camera system. Its main 50MP camera takes pictures that have good enough detail, higher dynamic range, and saturated colors that will look sharp even if you zoom in. The senor manages to preserve all that great accuracy. The 8MP ultra-wide camera takes some decent pictures but in many scenes, the detail level isn’t as high as the main camera and certainly not comparable to the performance of the main camera.
Night photography is much better than most other smartphone cameras in this price range. On the front of the Huawei Nova 12 Lite, you will find a 60MP sensor. This an excellent selfie camera that manages to capture plenty of details and even has support for portrait mode. As for video recording, the Huawei Nova 12 Lite can shoot at a maximum of 4K from both the rear and selfie cameras.
Battery and Others
The Huawei Nova 12 Lite has a 4500 mAh non-removable battery, which allows for 2 days or more days of battery backup with low to medium usage. The efficiency of the chipset also plays a big role here and consumes very little power, so the battery lasts longer. However, if you play a lot of games, then the battery will last less. But that is nothing to worry about as the smartphone supports 66W wired fast charging, which can fully recharge the battery around the 45-minute mark.
It also supports 5W reverse wired charging to quickly recharge your wireless earbuds. However, there’s no support for wireless charging of any sort. Apart from that, the phone also has Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, an under-display fingerprint scanner, GPS, NFC, and a USB Type-C port. The price of the smartphone starts at $360 (Rs 29,990 in India) approx.
Huawei Nova 12 Lite Pros and Cons
Huawei Nova 12 Lite Specifications Detail
Down below you can see the full specifications of the Huawei Nova 12 Lite smartphone.
| Specifications | Huawei Nova 12 Lite |
| Network | 2G, 3G, 4G |
| Announced | December 2023 |
| SIM | Dual SIM |
| Dimensions | 6.35 x 2.95 x 0.27 inches |
| Weight | 168 g |
| Size | 6.7 inches |
| Display | OLED 1B colors HDR 120Hz 20:9 ratio ~395 PPI density |
| Protection | No |
| Resolution | 1084 x 2412 pixels |
| OS | HarmonyOS 4.0 |
| Chipset | 6nm – Qualcomm SM7325 Snapdragon 778G 4G |
| CPU | Octa-core 4×2.4 GHz Kryo 670 4×1.8 GHz Kryo 670 |
| GPU | Adreno 642L |
| Card slot | No |
| RAM | N/A |
| Internal | 256GB, 512GB |
| Camera | 50 MP (wide), PDAF, Laser AF 8 MP (112Ëšultrawide), AF LED flash, panorama, HDR Max – 4K |
| Selfie | 60 MP (100Ëšultrawide) HDR, panorama Max – 4K@30fps |
| Loudspeaker | Yes |
| 3.5mm jack | No |
| WLAN | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct |
| Bluetooth | 5.2, A2DP, LE |
| GPS | GPS (L1+L5), GLONASS, BDS (B1I+B1c+B2a) GALILEO (E1+E5a), QZSS (L1+L5), NavIC |
| NFC | Yes; NFC-SIM, HCE |
| Infrared port | No |
| Radio | No |
| USB | USB Type-C 2.0, OTG |
| Sensors | Under display fingerprint, accelerometer, gyro compass, color spectrum Virtual proximity sensing |
| Battery | 4500 mAh 66W wired 5W reverse wired |
| Colors | Black, Blue, White |
| Expected Price | $360 (Rs 29,990 in India) approx |
Conclusion
The Huawei Nova 12 Lite seems to have all the right specs to make it a performance-oriented all-rounder. The smartphone relies heavily on the design and the performance aspect and they certainly pay off. The design is simply unbeatable at this price point and the performance is more than decent. The camera performance was also quite good, that is if you can ignore the secondary camera performance. There’s almost nothing to complain about except for 5G connectivity, which is not here. Even this would have been not much of a problem if the pricing was decent, which it isn’t. At this price, other smartphones are providing far better features than just 5G. Knowing that those smartphones exist, we cannot say that the pricing is good by any means.
The only reason we can recommend this smartphone is if you want this design and are willing to sacrifice 5G connectivity and several other upgrades that you will get with other smartphones. On top of that, the smartphone won’t be available globally. So, you will have trouble getting the smartphone outside of mainland China. But we have an alternative for you. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 13 Pro Plus is that smartphone. It offers far better specs in every area while also costing a lot less. However, the final decision is up to you, so it is better to choose a smartphone based on your requirements and needs.
