Hotwav Note 12 2024 Review: specs and features, camera quality test, gaming benchmark, user opinions and photos

HOTWAV Note 12 2024 - sudden deterioration

In most cases, smartphone manufacturers try to maintain sales of successful models by releasing slightly improved versions after a certain period of time. However, the Chinese company HOTWAV decided to stick to its own opinion about maintaining the popularity of successful devices. Unfortunately, we cannot agree that phones should be degraded a year after their release.

The appearance of the new product has changed significantly. The leather-styled back panel has become matte, the photo module block has been updated, and the colors of the cases have been changed. The side fingerprint scanner has remained in place, approximately the same thickness of the display frames has been preserved, as well as the modern location of the 16-megapixel selfie camera. The 6.8-inch IPS screen has acquired a 90-hertz refresh rate, which has a positive effect on its smoothness. The resolution of 1640x720 pixels will no longer be praised, because it is clearly not enough for the diagonal. The brightness reserve is small (550 nits), direct sunlight will force you to find the nearest shadow, because it will be problematic to see the content being played.

The technical characteristics are the UNISOC Tiger T606 CPU, 6 GB of RAM and the Mali G57MC1 video core. As you can see, there is less RAM, the number of simultaneously running applications will be reduced for this reason. However, this metamorphosis did not affect the performance of the Android 14 interface. The gaming capabilities are basic, really resource-intensive games like Genshin Impact run on minimum graphics settings with strong lags. The internal storage is 128 GB, for its expansion there is a hybrid slot for MicroSD cards. The battery capacity is now 5160 mAh, which negatively affected the autonomy. You will have to look for sockets every day and a half, the charging power is reduced to 10 W.

The photo capabilities have also undergone a slight downgrade. There is no macro camera, only the main 48-megapixel sensor and a useless 0.08-megapixel portrait module are responsible for photography. While daytime shots can still be praised for their detail, in low light, photos are full of noise, blur, and other artifacts. Stereo sound never appeared, but NFC contactless payments disappeared. Thus, it is much more logical to buy the predecessor of the device with better functionality.