Hotwav Note 18 GT Review: specs and features, camera quality test, gaming benchmark, user opinions and photos

HOTWAV Note 18 GT - just a big smartphone

It seems that the imagination of the Chinese company Hotwav has no limits. So, not the most famous and experienced, but ambitious developer decided to please its fans with an inexpensive device with a really huge display. However, a good idea was still far from ideally implemented.

The appearance of the new product is not bad, but still gives away the real price tag of the gadget. This is especially noticeable by the wide frames of the 7.2-inch screen. But the design of the camera block is stylish, beautiful colors of the cases please the eye, there is a side fingerprint scanner. Unfortunately, the installed IPS-display is frankly bad. The low resolution for the diagonal of 1560x720 pixels leads to blurry text fonts and small icons, the peak brightness of 450 nits is modest, which is not enough to work with the phablet in direct sunlight. There are also complaints about the smoothness of the content at the standard refresh rate of 120 Hz, and about the naturalness of color reproduction.

The technical characteristics include the UNISOC Tiger T615 CPU, 8 GB of RAM and the Mali G57MC1 video core. The bundle is enough to ensure the normal functionality of the Android 15 interface, although the launch of applications cannot be considered instantaneous. But the gaming capabilities are mediocre. The most resource-demanding projects like Honkai: Star Rail will slow down even with minimal graphics settings. But at least everything is fine with autonomy, because the 6200 mAh battery is responsible for it. You will have to search for the nearest sockets once every couple of days. The charging power of 20 W is not terrible for the cost segment. You will also be pleased with the ROM size of 256 GB with a slot for MicroSD cards.

The camera's photo capabilities are slightly higher than the basic ones due to the main 48-megapixel sensor from Omnivision. Of course, you can't count on stunning evening shots, but daytime artistic shots are often not devoid of detail. It's a pity that the only auxiliary module is a useless 0.3-megapixel depth sensor. There is no stereo sound, but for music lovers there is a jack for wired headphones. Among the additional advantages, we note contactless payment NFC. As a result, the device under review seriously disappoints with the quality of the IPS panel used, which the sophisticated audience simply cannot forgive it for.