Bucket Tech: HUAWEI Nova 9

So a few weeks back I attended the official launch of the HUAWEI Nova 9, the flagship device in the Nova range so far and while I did give you key product highlights of the phone I thought it would be a good idea to do a proper review, not so much an in-depth one as I would need to have one on test to do that. So what is the Nova 9 all about? Well it has a host of features but one that stands out the most is the flag-ship grade camera technology, one which will rival some of the best phones in the market. What makes it so special you may ask? Well it boasts a Quad lens camera system that features a powerful 50MP ultra-vision camera, as well as an ultra-wide angle camera, a macros camera and a depth camera. The camera system include a colour filter array and an XD Fusion Engine, which help you to capture impressive stills and videos, even in low-light settings, it also automatically enhances the images detail and quality. On the front end, the phones selfie camera is a 32MP high-resolution camera that supports 4K video recording with built-in AI image stablisation, enabling you to record high quality videos that would be perfect for Insta stories and TikToks without the use of a hand held gimbal or tripod. Thanks to continuous front/rear recording, you can also switch between the front and rear cameras, fluidly capturing your story in a single video file.

Huawei have always maintained that their Nova series has been focused on the youth, as it combines powerful performance and beautiful aesthetics at a reasonable price tag. That has been evident throughout the range and is no different with the Nova 9. The design is sublime, with a 6.57" curved display fitting onto a metal unibody and comes in an eye catching new colour, Starry Blue which adds a unique texture to the chassis. Apart form just looking good the device has a powerful chipset, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G 4G, the HUAWEI nova 9 also intelligently prioritises tasks and optimises performance for a seamless gaming experience. Its powerful processor is complemented by an equally powerful cooling system, which is designed to dissipate heat fast and efficiently. This means that your device can run at full throttle while staying cool to the touch – even after hours of gaming or streaming videos.

The 6.57-inch Original-Color Curved Display with a tapered surface that minimises the left and right bezels for a more immersive viewing experience. It can display over one billion colours and features a refresh rate of up to 120Hz and a touch sampling rate of 300Hz. Gamers will know exactly what these specs are all about. Every single one comes together to ensure a spectacular gaming experience with smooth visuals, vivid colours, incredible details and ultra-fast response times.

Buy the HUAWEI nova 9 now, priced at R12,999 and you’ll receive a HUAWEI FreeLace valued at R1,499. Ts and Cs apply.

Bucket Tech: Hisense H50 Zoom

Premium phones at stellar prices. That’s what you can expect from Hisense’s new Infinity H50 and H50 Zoom smartphones, now available in South Africa, and the H50 Lite, which will be in stores from May.

Hisense, China’s unsung hero, has quietly slipped into the playing field with its Infinity H50 range. The phones have been designed to satisfy different consumer needs with boosted-up or stripped-down derivatives, but the fundamental engine room across the range remains the same.

With its 91.26% screen-to-body ratio, the H50 base model, aptly named Infinity, seems like it wraps around the device. The H50 houses four separate cameras – a 64 MP HD main camera, an 8MP wide-angle camera, and an impressive multifunctional 2MP depth and macro-lens. 

The H50 also has a 32MP front camera, with a new Beauty Mode feature that identifies the light conditions and adjusts the aperture automatically so there are no substandard blurry images. 

The H50 Zoom has a first-of-its-kind party trick with a 16MP pop-up camera with flash. This signature piece allows you to capture impeccable selfies in portrait mode.

The power unit on the H50 and H50 Zoom comprises an Octa-Core processor supported by 6GB of RAM and 128GB storage to create a very smooth user interface on the Android II operating system. The H50 Lite is slightly smaller with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage space, yet still packs a punch, performing just as well as the rest of the H50 family in all departments. 

Hisense has also factored security features in the H50 series. The side-mounted fingerprint sensor and facial recognition technology mean these phones are basically impenetrable.

The H50 comes in Pine Green and Black Jade, while a carved 3D gradient that creates a colour-changing effect from different angles.

Overall this is an extremely great value for money offering from Hisense. All 3 devices are available in the country and you can go through the features, specs and pricing below. 

Bucket Tech: Huawei Y5p

With the "new norm" now being in full effect with everyone adjusting to working from home, and doing things differently, technology has played a big part in making this transition less problematic than normal. This unfortunately comes at a price, a high one most of the time but in the effort to get everyone being able to access such, Huawei has continued to its commitment of making technology more accessible to everyone with the launch of their Y5p, the most affordable phone yet. The new entry level device stems from the Y Series range has been designed to offer a large display, long-lasting battery and a good amount of storage for users. It has Huawei's EMUI's intuitive user experience, Huawei's high-quality product DNA, and their affordable pricing, the Huawei Y Series smartphones have been widely favoured by consumers around the world, including South Africa. 

Some of the key featured of the Y5p is the large 5.45  inch LCD FullView Display gives exceptional viewing experience, displays content in vibrant colours and has a screen-to-body ration of 81.2 percent. Memory wise, the Huawei Y5p comes with a standard 2GB RAM and 32GB of storage ensuring you have enough space for all your favourite apps, games and to store all the pictures and videos you will be capturing with it, speaking camera the device has an 8MP rear camera and a 5MP front facing selfie camera. The rear main camera supports HDR mode which will automatically adjust brightness when required. The battery life of the phone is quite decent as well with it featuring a 3020mAh battery which gives you an average of 17 hours of continuous video playback, or up to 21 hours of 4G calling. 

Overall, the Huawei Y5p is one of the best entry level devices on the market, powered by MediaTek's octa-core processort that includes eight Cortex-A53 cores which poweres Huawei's AI tech on the device, this all comes together to give the user a smooth and fast performing smartphone at a fraction of the price. You can purchase the Huawei Y5p for the RRP of just R1,899 from the Huawei online store of any of their partners. 

Bucket Tech: Hisense C30 Rock Lite

Earlier this year I reviewed the Hisense C30 Rock, which is a mid range smart device which also is pretty rugged with it being  IP68 rating and IK04 shock resistant, my verdict on that particular device was that it was a great all round device for the everyday person, with standard features and it gets the job done. A few weeks ago Hisense sent me another device to review, this time the smaller brother to the C30 Rock, the C30 Rock Lite. With recent times, a lot of smart phone manufactures have been releasing Lite versions of their premium phones, with it offering slightly less in specs than the main device. Most of the times, it uses tech from the older generation devices which was replaced but of recent, the market has gotten more competitive so manufacturers had to up their game. 

STYLING

Like the C30 Rock, the design is very similar, with round edges which are rubberised, a nice metal finish on the side and a rubber back. It's got a decent weight and feels good in hand. Being under the Rock name, this phone is already Shock resistant, IP67 water resistant and dust resistant. So it's a pretty hardy phone, and if you have to look at the current offerings in the market, not many brands have a device such as this available. The phone comes with a 5.0" IPS Display which we'll chat about a little later. It has that old iPhone look to it and it's quite a decent size, not being too bulky and doesn't feel uncomfortable in your pocket. 

DURABILITY

Unlike the C30 Rock which is IP68, the Lite is IP67 rated which is still a good rating for water resistance. I wouldn't necessarily take it swimming but I won't stress over if it does happen to fall into some water. However, I did take this for a swim but unfortunately for me, I didn't save the pictures before formatting the device when I sent it back. Rookie error on the part of us! The device is also shock and dust proof, so if you're the outdoors type of person who loves going running/ hiking, this would be the perfect phone for you. 

PROCESSING

With Lite devices, this is where the main talking point comes in, processing power. While the bigger phones need faster processes to perform the tasks on demands, buyers of these devices aren't going to be using the phone for running multiple apps, editing spreadsheets etc. With the Rock Lite, it comes with still a decent chipset, having the Quad-core 1.3GHz  processor and has 2GB of RAM which is sufficient for a phone of this nature and size. For memory, it has 16GB of on board memory and a memory card slot up to 128GB Micro SD which also doubles as a dual SIM slot. The phone is primarily 4G but the secondary SIM slot is 3G. 

CAMERA

The camera on the light is also slightly downgraded from to the 8MP camera with LED flash. Still capable of taking great quality pictures in proper lighting environments. It records in 1080 @ 30 frames per second and has an auto focus feature. The front facing camera is a 5MP, perfect for all your social media needs and you don't have to worry about your battery running out quickly as the device comes with a 3900mAh battery, which gives you about a day's worth of use. 

VERDICT

When looking at this phone, while it might not win any contest against other smartphones, it boils down to pricing. This phone is available at retailers for under R2,500. That is an absolute steal compared to what you can buy from the bigger name opposition. And with Hisense great product support locally, should you have any issues, best believe it will be resolved without a fuss. Serious value for money with this device and for someone who spends most of his time on a construction site, I wouldn't mind one for myself. 

Bucket Tech: Hisense C30 Rock

Many ask "what is the best phone on the market?" but often the answer to that is an over priced, smartphone of which 80% of the features you would never use. What about the other phones on offer then? Not the bottom end ones but like the mid range ones that are decently priced and are decent enough devices? Not much gets said about them and I often feel that they don't get as much attention as they deserve. One of those devices is the new Hisense C30 Rock and I had the opportunity to play around with one for the past three weeks and while it not be the best phone on the market it certainly did surprise me in many other aspects.

STYLING

Upon receiving the device, I was please that the box it came in was small and compact and not full of other junk that just ends up taking a lot of space. Unboxing the device was quick and easy and too my surprise the phone was much larger than I thought it would be. It looked great, with a rose goldish/ copper border and screws, rubber sides and what looked like a carbon fiber back (not sure if it was real carbon fiber or not). It gives the phone a real rugged but cool look, which is part of the image Hisense is trying to portray with the device seeing that it's one of the most durable and hardy phones on the market. 

DURABILITY

It's one of the only devices I know of that has an IP68 rating and IK04 shock resistant, so not only is it dust and waterproof but it can also withstand some heavy falls. Reading it on paper and testing it out for yourself is two different things, I was hesitant at first but as the tests went on I became more and more confident with the C30 Rock, where I went as far as pouring a glass of water over it at a crowded bar just to show people how waterproof it is. People we left amazed and so was I. There was a few drop test conducted as well, some purposely and some not so much on purpose, safe to say the C30 Rock didn't even get a scratch from any of them. So full marks on the durability tests and I agree 100% with them calling it "life-dimensional", where its ready to withstand whatever life throws at it. 

PROCESSING

While the device might be pretty impressive in terms of build quality and strength, one still has to remember that it still has to work. The phone has an impressive chipset with the efficient Qualcomm Snapdragon octa-core 64 bit processor at its heart. It has 3GB of RAM and 32GB of on-board storage, with it running Android OS, of which it is the latest version of Nougat, you have access to Google drive so your storage capacity could be endless depending on the size allocated to your account. The phone boasts a 3000mAh battery with quick charge. There's a lot you can do with this phone before the battery dies on you. It even has an automatic battery saving mode to ensure a prolonged battery life. While its not the fastest phone I've used, it still wasn't slow and coped with most of the tasks I used it for. 

DISPLAY

The C30 Rock does have a big screen, a 5.2" Full HD Display with 424 pixels per inch. Its a good screen but felt the quality of it did lack in brightness now and then but regardless, it was good quality to view on. The touch screen is extremely responsive with zero lag and the phone came with some handy tricks. For example, when watching a video, if my eyes for some reason deviate from watching the screen, the phone would pause the video and start playing it again when I focused on the screen again. 

CAMERA

The C30 Rock comes with a 16 megapixel Q-Shot primary camera with LED Flash and takes some decent quality pictures and videos of which I cannot show you none because my SD card that I had in it got corrupted... It's shutter speed isn't the fastest so make sure your hand is steady when taking pics and hold in place until after the picture is captured for perfect results. Pics in low light are decent quality as well. It has a host of modes and settings for you to play with to get the perfect snap.

VERDICT

For the overall product you getting and at the price you getting it at, the Hisense C30 Rock is an absolute steal. If you're not to bothered with too many features and want a good quality phone that does the job and not going to give you heart palpitations if it falls or gets liquid spilt on it, the C30 Rock is for you.