Hotwav Note 13 Pro Review: specs and features, camera quality test, gaming benchmark, user opinions and photos

HOTWAV Note 13 Pro - worth the investment

Not every user can afford an expensive smartphone. Flagships are becoming more expensive every year, while the functionality of inexpensive models is expanding almost every minute. On the one hand, such progress allows the buyer to get an excellent mobile assistant for a reasonable price, on the other hand, the audience is becoming more and more demanding even towards representatives of the low price segment. This, of course, doesn’t make things any easier for developers. But it seems that the Chinese company HOTWAV was able to make an extremely balanced phone in terms of price-quality ratio, which will truly be the best purchase. And the name of this gadget is Note 13 Pro.

Brief specifications of HOTWAV Note 13 Pro:

• case materials: front panel - glass, back panel - plastic;
• screen: IPS technology, 6.6 inches diagonal, resolution 1612x720 pixels;
• processor: UNISOC Tiger T606, video chip: Mali-G57 MC1;
• RAM/ROM: 8GB / 256GB;
• operating system: Android 13;
• battery: 5160mAh, 20W charger;
• main camera: 50Mp;
• front camera: 16MP;
• sound: mono speaker;
• navigation: GPS/GLONASS/Beidou/Galileo;
• dimensions and weight: 166.2 x 76.5 x 8.9 mm, 236g.

Getting acquainted with the gadget begins with unpacking it. The kit is more than good for an inexpensive smartphone. In addition to the one made of thick red cardboard, it includes:

• protective glass for the display, dry and wet cloth for better installation;
• Silicone Case;
• SIM card tray clip;
• USB Type-C cable;
• 20W charger;
• user guide.

It’s surprising that the manufacturer did not forget to separately stick a protective film on the screen. Therefore, glass can be used after several months of using the phablet. Perhaps the only thing missing from the list are wired headphones, but they are a real rarity in modern phone sets, and there is no separate 3.5mm jack in the device.

The appearance of the new product also deserves compliments. The convenient shape of the case, the weight that is reasonable for the dimensions, the ergonomic side fingerprint sensor, the beautiful block of two photo modules and the original lilac matte texture of the rear panel leave a positive impression. Of course, the design of the selfie camera could be more relevant, and the lower frame of the display is narrower, but for the price category the available list of exterior advantages is more than wide.

For the screen, the developer used a 6.6-inch IPS panel with a resolution of 1612 x 720 pixels. These characteristics make it clear that the picture clarity is average; if you really want to, you can see individual pixels. Very small fonts are readable but appear slightly blurry. This is where the actual disadvantages of the display end. Firstly, there is a 90 Hz picture refresh rate. As a result, the displayed image is smooth, scrolling of menus and browser pages occurs without jerks that are unpleasant to the eye. Secondly, there is auto-brightness, it works quite correctly, except that indoors with artificial light lamps the brightness level is sometimes slightly lower than desired. In direct sunlight, the displayed content can be viewed, although visibility is noticeably reduced. Thirdly, the white balance is not the worst. The developer calibrated it in the warm direction, so the white color is slightly yellowish. But with prolonged use of the device, the eyes become less tired from this setting. Interesting fact: a number of existing reviews noted the balance turning blue. Apparently, software updates or new revisions of smartphones have greatly changed the situation.

The technical characteristics were the extremely popular UNISOC Tiger T606 processor today, accompanied by 8GB of RAM and a Mali G57MC1 video adapter. Thanks to the large amount of RAM, the full potential of the CPU is revealed. In everyday life, it is difficult to find fault with the performance of a mobile assistant. Applications like browsers and instant messengers usually work without visible stutters. As for synthetic tests, the chipset received the following results:

• 267174 points in the AnTuTu v10 benchmark;
• 377 points in Geekbench 6 single-threaded test, 1406 points in multi-threaded test.

Since this is far from an expensive flagship, we can’t expect incredible gaming performance from the HOTWAV Note 13 Pro. However, even the famously resource-intensive Genshin Impact launched on the device. When the graphics settings are set to the minimum, the gameplay can hardly be called a slideshow; freezes and stutters are observed only when loading new parts of locations and battles with an abundance of special effects.

PUBG Mobile has not lost its popularity over the years thanks to its truly thoughtful and interesting gameplay. The resource intensity of this project is not so high, so successful survival on a huge map is possible with medium graphic settings.

In addition to games released directly for the Android operating system, the user can plunge into the ocean of projects released for various game consoles. Thus, HOTWAV Note 13 Pro adequately copes with almost the entire library of games on the PSP portable console. The PPSSPP emulator allows you to enjoy hits such as Tekken 5 Dark Ressurection, Burnout Legends, Twisted Metal Head-On and others at twice the native resolution of the console. The frame rate is stable, it’s more than comfortable to play.

The size of the permanent memory was 256GB, and its format is UFS 2.1, which sets the phone apart from numerous opponents with slower eMMC 5.1 format memory. If necessary, one of the SIM cards can be replaced with a MicroSD card.

Autonomy is another advantage of the phone. HOTWAV Note 13 Pro has a capacious 5160mAh battery, which, thanks to an energy-efficient low-resolution display and an economical processor, allows you to achieve impressive results. The user can expect approximately two days of use with the device with 6-7 hours of active screen time. The PCMark Work 3.0 Battery Life benchmark showed a remarkable result of 14 hours 8 minutes. Below you will also see the results of battery discharge during various types of activity.

• YouTube WiFi 720p video - loss of 8% charge per hour;
• Surfing the Internet, WiFi, Google Chrome - loss of 8% charge per hour;
• Surfing the Internet, 3G/4G, Google Chrome - loss of 11% charge per hour;
• An hour of gameplay in the PPSSPP emulator - lost 11% charge per hour.

Charging with the included charger from 1% to 100% took just over two hours. The result is not a record, but not bad for a phone with a reasonable price tag.

Let's move on to the main cameras. In their place, the manufacturer has approved a 50-megapixel sensor and an 8-megapixel wide-angle lens. Let's start with the bad: it's very difficult to take good evening pictures with their help. Light sources are overexposed, distant details are blurred, and noise is visible. If an LED flash helps when shooting close up, then a larger photo shoot is unlikely to succeed. Daytime photographs raise fewer questions. Yes, sometimes you have to adjust the exposure manually, and autofocus does not work correctly, but most of the footage deserves a “good” rating. Below you can see photos taken in different lighting.

Daytime photos:

Evening photos:

The front 16-megapixel photo module is quite good. In daylight, the resulting selfies can be taken without major editing. Detailing is at an average, but not mediocre level, color reproduction is quite correct. The only negative is that in about 10-20% of cases, objects in the foreground may turn out to be out of focus. An example is given below.

HOTWAV Note 13 Pro runs on Android 13 operating system without any major skin changes. After several days of using the device, no critical bugs were detected. Interface slowdowns sometimes occur, but they are not frequent. They usually occur when closing a resource-intensive application or switching between similar processes. The interface is approximately 95% translated. Thus, in the “Settings” menu you can easily find phrases in English, but they are not numerous and do not have a serious impact on the comfort of using the smartphone. You can see screenshots of the interface design below. Also, while using the device, a software update arrived over the air.

GPS navigation was tested using the GPS Tester program. The results are average for the used UNISOC Tiger T606 chipset. It does not guarantee flagship accuracy, but there are no serious problems with determining coordinates. In the photo below you can find screenshots of HOTWAV Note 13 Pro indoor and outdoor tests.

Indoor navigation testing:

Testing navigation on the street (city, high-rise buildings):

The sound is provided by a single multimedia speaker located at the bottom of the case. The volume headroom of 88 dB (100 dB in peaks) is impressive, but there is little bass, there is a noticeable bias towards the upper-mid frequencies, and a lot of distortion. Thus, it is quite possible to watch videos with your favorite bloggers on YouTube, but listening to music from your phone is not recommended. There is no separate headphone jack, so the user will have to buy a special adapter cable or use wireless headphones. To test sound via BlueTooth, we chose Mifo O5 II Gen 2 TWS headphones. Unfortunately, the chipset used does not support aptX and LDAC codecs, so the full potential of the armature drivers will not be revealed. With SBC and AAC codecs, there is a noticeable simplification of the sound in the high frequency region, but the sound itself still cannot be called mediocre. The BlueTooth connection is stable and is not inferior to that of the Realme GT2 and OnePlus 9RT smartphones.

The device performs telephone functions adequately. The interlocutor's speech is heard clearly, the timbre is slightly muffled when compared with the voice transmission of more expensive phones, but it is easy to recognize the speaker. The connection was lost only in the elevator, but the reception was still somewhat weaker than that of devices in the mid-price segment. This fact is also manifested in the stability and speed of the Internet connection. Unfortunately, the gadget more often than analogues from Realme and OnePlus replaces 4G with 2G/3G. If this fact practically does not interfere with web surfing, then it is recommended to play online shooters or similar projects with a WiFi connection.

Let's list the main pros and cons of HOTWAV Note 13 Pro.

Advantages:

• good design for the price category;
• modern display with a refresh rate of 90 hertz;
• balanced UNISOC Tiger T606 processor with 8GB of RAM;
• 256GB of internal memory, expandable with MicroSD cards;
• loud speaker;
• decent quality of daytime photography for the price segment;
• capacious battery of 5160 mAh;
• NFC support.

Flaws:

• HD+ screen resolution is not enough for excellent picture clarity;
• evening photos are mediocre;
• The speaker is loud, but the sound can hardly be considered high quality;
• minor flaws in the exterior (outdated design of the front camera, large lower display frame);
• The Internet connection is less stable than that of phones in a higher price segment.

Thus, HOTWAV Note 13 Pro is an excellent representative of inexpensive smartphones with good functionality and decent battery life. This is a great option for people who need a spare phone or an introduction to Android smartphones. The device is devoid of critical shortcomings for its price segment and surpasses many opponents in terms of performance and operating time.

We would like to thank the HOTWAV Official Store for the smartphone provided.