Huawei is one of the biggest names in the smartphones industry. That must mean that the smartphones the company produces are good, not just marketed very well. We recently got our hands on their latest mid-range smartphone, namely the Huawei P10 lite, and we were curious to see if it is an excellent choice for people who want a well-balanced smartphone at an affordable price. After using it for two weeks, we are now ready to share our findings with you, in this review:
Hardware specifications and packaging
The Huawei P10 lite smartphone comes in a white cardboard box with a simple design, which resembles the one used for Huawei's high-end device, the P10. The name of the smartphone is printed with glossy ink in the middle of the front side of the box, and essential information such as the model, IMEI and serial numbers of the device is found on the bottom of the box.
Slide the inner box within a box, and you'll find the smartphone, its power charger and a detachable Micro USB cable, a pair of wired headphones, a pin for ejecting the SIM tray, the warranty certificate and the quick start guide.
The Huawei P10 lite smartphone is available in four different colors: Platinum Gold, Graphite Black, Sapphire Blue and Pearl White. The model we tested was Sapphire Blue.
Huawei P10 lite has a 5.2-inch screen, with a Full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and a pixel density of 424 ppi. This screen benefits from IPS technology, meaning that its colors are close to natural and the viewing angles are very wide. Both the screen and the back of the smartphone are covered in 2.5D curved glass, which protects the smartphone from dust and small scratches. The edges are made of metal which should protect it from accidental hits and bumps.
To be able to compute, the Huawei P10 lite relies on a Kirin 658 octa-core processor, which has four cores running at 2.1 GHz and another four cores running 1.7 GHz. The graphics are handled by a Mali-T830MP2 video chip.
The Huawei P10 lite smartphone comes with 32GB of internal storage space out of which 18GB is free for you to use. It also has 3GB or 4GB of RAM, depending on the region you live in. The model with 4GB of RAM storage space is sold in the western states from the European Union, in Northern Africa, Southeast Asia and in countries from APAC (Asia-Pacific). No matter which version you buy, you can extend the internal storage space with a microSD card of up to 256GB. The Huawei P10 lite smartphone that we had tested came with 3GB of RAM.
The primary camera found on the Huawei P10 lite has 12 megapixels and a lens aperture of f2.2, while the front camera has 8 megapixels and an aperture of f2.0. The rear camera also benefits from a LED flash that's useful especially in low light conditions.
Regarding connectivity options, Huawei P10 lite offers a Micro USB 2.0 port for charging and data transfers, a Bluetooth 4.1 chip, and a wireless card that supports the 802.11 ac/a/b/g/n standards on 2.4GHz and 5GHz radio networks. This is true if you live in the Western European countries, Japan or Korea. If you reside anywhere else in the world, the Huawei P10 lite that's sold in your area supports only the 802.11 b/g/n standards on 2.4GHz frequency.
The Huawei P10 lite is a Dual SIM smartphone, which means that it can use two different SIM card simultaneously, from the same or different mobile operators. It works in Dual SIM Dual Standby, which means that your smartphone can have both SIM cards active at one time, but only as long as they are not used. As long as the SIM cards are both in Standby mode, you can make and receive calls on any of them. However, once you take a call on one SIM card, the other becomes inactive. The first SIM slot supports mobile 4G connections, and the secondary SIM slot supports only 2G networks. The secondary SIM slot can also be used to attach a Micro SD memory card to the smartphone instead of a second SIM card.
Huawei P10 lite has a variety of sensors built-in, such as an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a proximity sensor, a compass and a fingerprint reader on the back.
The smartphone is equipped with a non-removable Lithium-Polymer battery with a generous capacity of 3000 mAh. The battery should be able to keep the smartphone running for at least a day, even if you use it extensively.
Huawei P10 lite has 5.76 inches (146.5mm) in height, 2.83 inches (72mm) in width, and 0.28 inches (7.2mm) in depth. It weighs 5.15 ounces or 146 grams.
If you want to see all the official specifications of the Huawei P10 lite smartphone, visit its web page: Huawei P10 lite - Specifications.
The Huawei P10 lite offers a pleasant unboxing experience, and the hardware inside shows that we are dealing with an elegant, medium range device.
Design and build quality
The first thing that catches your eye on the Huawei P10 lite is the rounded glass used to cover both its screen and its back side. It looks stylish, but it also means that the smartphone is a fingerprint magnet and that you must take extra care when you put it down. The glass is slippery, and if you place the smartphone on a plane surface that is not well leveled, you could watch your smartphone slide across the table. 🙂 Other than that, if looks are what matters most to you, take our word for it, the Huawei P10 lite is one of those devices that turn heads when you take it out of your pockets or purse.
A good thing about the design and the materials used for making the Huawei P10 lite is the fact that its edges are made from metal. That gives you confidence that even if you hit or bump the smartphone occasionally, it can endure the mistreatment.
The front side of the smartphone is dominated by the 5.2-inch screen and the very thin left and right bezels. Under the display, you can see a Huawei silverish logo and nothing more, while the top of the screen is where the earpiece, the proximity sensor, and the 8-megapixel front camera are found.
On its right side, the Huawei P10 lite has the standard power button and volume rocker, towards the top. The volume rocker is made from a single metal piece, and it is a lot longer than the power button, and the power button also has a different texture, so it is easy to identify which is which, even if you don't look at the buttons.
The left edge of the smartphone holds only the SIM tray which you can eject using the pin bundled in the smartphone's box.
On the bottom edge, you can find the Micro USB port in the center, the microphone pinhole on its left, and the loudspeaker on its right.
The top edge of the smartphone is home only to the 3.5mm audio jack that is used for connecting the earphones.
On the back of the Huawei P10 lite, on the top left corner area, there is the main rear 12-megapixel camera and its flash. As you can see in the next photo, the camera lenses look very small. We will see later on if the camera does a good job or not.
In the top middle area of the smartphone's back, the Huawei P10 lite has its fingerprint sensor, slightly lowered inside the case. That makes it easy to identify and touch with your index finger even if you use the smartphone with only one hand. We must point out the fact that the fingerprint reader works very well and identifies fingerprints almost instantly. It is one of the best fingerprint sensors we have seen on a smartphone (among those we tested, of course).
The Huawei P10 lite is a beautiful smartphone with a traditional design. Everything from power button to volume rocker to the camera and fingerprint reader are in their usual places. It has become rather hard to innovate regarding new design for smartphones, but that is not a bad thing. Accommodating yourself to the Huawei P10 lite is a 10 minutes task.
The smartphone experience on the Huawei P10 lite
The Huawei P10 lite does an excellent job when it comes to its primary purpose of being a phone. Both the earpiece and the microphone are of high quality, and both you and the ones you speak to over the phone can understand each other easily.
We also appreciated the excellent signal reception that this smartphone delivers. During the time we used it, we did not encounter any radio signal drops.
The loudspeaker on the Huawei P10 lite is powerful, and we did not notice any sound distortions. However, we would not recommend that you rely on it when you want to watch a movie or listen to music. For that, the bundled earphones will do a better job.
As for the "smart" part of the smartphone experience, the Huawei P10 lite does great also. The eight cores of the processor and the 3GB or more of RAM are enough to give you a good multitasking experience. We did not see any stutters or lagging when we used the smartphone for browsing, watching videos, listening to music, scrolling on Facebook and other similar activities.
The Huawei P10 lite is a good smartphone, but it is not extraordinary when it comes to games. If you want to play new 3D games at high frame rates, you should probably look for a more expensive smartphone. The Huawei P10 lite smartphone can run all the latest games but not at highest graphics quality settings and certainly not at high frame rates.
The Huawei P10 lite managed to impress us with its battery. In average use that did not involve games, it managed to last us for a day and another couple of hours without needing to charge. On a day in which we played games roughly for an hour or so, and in a day when we also spent probably more than 2 hours on Facebook, the Huawei P10 lite smartphone asked to be charged in the evening. In any case, this is a device that will get you through the day without having to plug it into a power outlet.
The Huawei P10 lite is both a good phone and a good smartphone. It offers an excellent experience regarding phone calls sound quality and the radio signal reception is top-notch. We also appreciate the fluent experience in multitasking. The only downside of this smartphone is gaming, which doesn't compare with that of more expensive smartphones.
Read the next page of this review, and you will find out more about the camera experience, the software installed on the Huawei P10 lite, its performance in benchmarks and our final verdict.
The camera experience on the Huawei P10 lite
Huawei P10 lite has a 12-megapixel rear camera with an f2.2 lens aperture and an 8-megapixel front camera with an f2.0 aperture. The camera app is rich in options and includes photo modes such as HDR (High Dynamic Range), panorama, manual Pro mode, time-lapse, watermark, slow-motion, and others. There is also a range of color filters available and a beautification option which you can use to enhance the photos you take.
Unfortunately, Huawei P10 lite does not have any optical stabilization system, and that means that you must have steady hands not to blur your photos or videos. In general, we liked the quality of the photos we took with this smartphone, especially when we shot photos outdoors in bright light. Huawei P10 lite does a solid job in such conditions. The colors are natural, the photos are not grainy, and the HDR quality is quite good.
On the other hand, when the light is scarce, photos can have washed out colors and can be a bit grainy with a feeling of over processing, as if they have too high levels of contrast and sharpening applied. Here is a sample gallery to see for yourself:
The Huawei P10 lite can film videos at a maximum Full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. This is a medium range smartphone so, like many others in the category, it does not offer the option to shoot videos in 4K or an option to optically stabilize the videos you record. That means that videos are often shaky. Here is a sample we filmed, in which you can see what to expect from Huawei P10 lite in dynamic videos that involve a lot of movement:
Here is another video that we recorded with the Huawei P10 lite, in which you can see how the camera does when more static videos are recorded, with little movement involved.
Huawei P10 lite can also shoot videos in slow-motion. These videos are recorded at a VGA resolution of 640 x 480 pixels and up to 120 frames per second. Here is a sample to see what slow-motion videos look like:
The Huawei P10 lite offers a solid camera that can shoot beautiful photos when you have good lighting conditions. However, in low light environments, photos are not so great. As for the video part, it's worth appreciating the fact that you can film in slow motion. However, you must also be aware that you don't get optical image stabilization, so make sure your hands are steady when you record videos.
Android 7 Nougat, EMUI 5.1 and bundled apps
The Huawei P10 lite comes with Android 7.0 Nougat and Huawei's own EMUI 5.1, which is an acronym for Emotion User Interface. EMUI 5.1 feels a lot like Google's launcher, but it does differ in two essential aspects: EMUI is set by default not to use an applications drawer, and it has a slightly different way of organizing settings. However, if you miss the app drawer you were accustomed to in stock Android, you can configure EMUI 5.1 to use it too, which is great. 🙂
Besides the stock Android apps like Chrome, Gmail, Play Store, Maps, YouTube or Photos, Huawei also bundled a range of apps that might or might not be useful to you.
If you want to see them, here is the list:
- Asphalt Nitro - A fast paced car racing game that can be a delight for any speed junkie.
- Backup - Backups personal data such as contacts, messages, call logs, apps and also multimedia content. You can save backups to an SD card, on the internal storage space, on a USB storage device connected to the smartphone, or on a computer.
- Compass - A simple compass app that tells you the cardinal points.
- Email - An email client which you can use with Exchange, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo or other email services.
- Facebook - The app that lets you connect to the very popular social network with the same name, Facebook.
- Files - A file manager which you can use to see and access the files you have stored on your smartphone.
- Flashlight - A simple torch light app that turns on the smartphone's flash to help you see in the dark.
- FM Radio - Lets you listen to FM radio stations that broadcast in your area.
- Gallery - Can be used to see the photos you have taken with your smartphone's camera.
- HiCare - An app developed by Huawei which provides you with customer care services for your smartphone. You can use it to find information such as the nearest service center, read the warranty policy and check your warranty status, check the manuals and so on.
- HiGame - Is an app that lets you download games that Huawei selected for your smartphone.
- HuaweiHealth - Provides information about health activities such as the steps you have taken or the calories you have burned.
- Instagram - The official app for this social network.
- Kingdoms - A game about Mickey Mouse that is probably going to be loved by your child.
- Mirror - For when you want to see how awesome you look early in the morning. 🙂
- Music - Plays the songs you have stored on your smartphone.
- News Republic - Aggregates local news and international headlines from the world's most famous publishers such as CNN, Huffington Post, Fox News, and Quartz.
- Notepad - A simple app that lets you make notes.
- Phone Manager - Cleans your smartphone of junk files, cache, and malware, and shows you details about the mobile data you used, the app permissions you gave and so on. It is worth mentioning that Avast powers the antivirus.
- Recorder - Records sound using the smartphone's built-in microphone.
- Spider-Man: Ultimate Power - A game about… Spider-Man.
- Themes - Gives you access to a series of themes for your smartphone. There are only three pre-installed on the Huawei P10 lite, but using this app, you can download and use as many as you like.
- TOP GAMES - A web link that opens your web browser and takes you to a website with games that were developed by Gameloft and which you can buy, if you want.
- TripAdvisor - An app that helps you organize your travels, by checking on reviews and opinions shared by other travelers like you. It helps you find the lowest airfare, as well as the best hotels and good restaurants in your travels.
- Twitter - The app for the popular social network based on tweets.
- Videos - A simple tool that shows you the videos you have on your smartphone.
- Weather - Gives you the weather prognosis for your area or for the one you specify.
We appreciate the fact that the Huawei P10 lite comes with a modern Android operating system - Android 7 Nougat - and we like the EMUI user interface. However, we feel like a few of the apps bundled by Huawei are there just to fill storage instead of being useful. This smartphone would have benefited from a smaller number of preinstalled apps or at least let you uninstall most of them.
Performance in benchmarks
To get a better idea of the level of performance offered by the Huawei P10 lite, we also ran a few benchmarks on it. Here are the results we got:
The first benchmark app we ran was Vellamo, which is an app developed by Qualcomm. In the Multicore tests, which measures the speed of the processor when it runs multiple tasks simultaneously, Huawei P10 lite managed to get 2485 points, which means that it's as fast as an ASUS ZenFone 3, and a bit slower than a Samsung Galaxy S6. This is a good score.
Then we ran the Metal tests from Vellamo, which measure the speed of the processor when it runs a task using a single core. Huawei P10 lite obtained a score of 1597 points, which is also the score we measured for the ASUS ZenFone 3 and almost the same as the one you get from an older Motorola Nexus 6 too. It is a good score, but it does not impress.
Next came the gaming benchmarks, for which we used an app called GFXBench GL Benchmark. We recorded the results measured in the 1080p Car Chase Offscreen, 1080p Manhattan 3.1 Offscreen and 1080p T-Rex Offscreen tests. As you have noticed, we only used the 1080p tests - that is because the resolution is standardized at 1080p and that gives us results that can be compared easier with other smartphones, even if their screen resolutions differ.
Huawei P10 lite rendered 150.5 frames in the 1080p Car Chase Offscreen test. It is a score lower than what we expected and it shows that this smartphone is not the best choice you could make if what you want most is to play 3D games with a lot of visual details.
The second graphical test we ran was 1080p Manhattan 3.1 Offscreen, in which Huawei P10 lite managed to render 261.9 frames. Again, this is a low score, which confirms the fact that this is not a smartphone dedicated to hardcore gamers.
The third and final gaming test we ran was 1080p T-Rex Offscreen, a test which shows you how the smartphone fares in older games with fewer visual details. Huawei P10 lite got 899.3 frames, which is similar to the power of an old Samsung Galaxy S5.
The conclusion of the gaming benchmarks is that the Huawei P10 lite is not a smartphone for gamers, but can run games nonetheless. However, the games you run on it are not going to run at high framerates, and the visual details are not going to be as rich as on higher-end smartphones.
Next, we went on to check the smartphone's performance in what is probably the most common thing everybody does on a smartphone, which is to browse the internet. We used Vellamo again, but this time we ran the Browser test. Huawei P10 lite got 3081 points in this test, and that is a good score which shows that your web browsing experience on this smartphone can only be a good one.
The Huawei P10 lite offers support for 4G data connections, so we measured its performance in this area also. To do the measurements, we used Speedtest, an app which tests how fast your internet connection is. The results we got were not impressive, but we must point out the fact that the 4G signal strength in our area and the transfer speeds offered by our mobile operator are not that high.
One other significant thing about any mobile device, including smartphones, is how long it lasts on a full battery charge. To measure that, we used PCMark's Work battery life test, which measures the autonomy of the battery when the device is running normal day to day activities like browsing the web, working with documents, or editing photos. Huawei P10 lite managed to resist for 9 hours and 3 minutes. It is a good result, and it means that this smartphone should have no trouble staying on for a day, without having to charge it.
All the results we measured in the benchmarks point to the same direction: the Huawei P10 lite is a good smartphone that does an excellent job in browsing the web and other daily activities but also falls a bit short when it comes to playing games.
What is the Huawei P10 lite good at?
The Huawei P10 lite Android smartphone is great at:
- Browsing the internet and social networks
- Multitasking with all kinds of productivity apps
- Keeping you mobile, for it has a rather generous battery that can last for an entire day of use, without having to charge it
- Fast wireless connections, as Huawei P10 lite can connect to 5GHz networks that use the 802.11ac standard
- Being a fashionable device that looks better than other devices in its price class.
Pros and cons
There are plenty of good things to say about the Huawei P10 lite:
- It has a good design that looks great and is easy to adapt to
- It has solid hardware inside (octa-core processor, 3GB or 4GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage space)
- It is a Dual SIM (the Dual Standby type) smartphone so you can use it with two different SIM cards
- The fingerprint sensor is fast and precise
- The camera produces good results when the environment is well lit
- It comes with Android 7 Nougat, the latest major version of Android
- It has a good price for what it has to offer
There are also a few things that are not so good about the Huawei P10 lite:
- The camera is not great when the environment is not very well lit
- The graphical chip is not very powerful, so you can't expect excellent performance in 3D games
- The glass on the back of the smartphone is a magnet for fingerprints
Verdict
The Huawei P10 lite is one of the best mid-range smartphones available today. It is a good looking smartphone, and it does a solid job in daily activities such as browsing the internet, reading and sending emails, working with documents or checking your favorite social networks. It is also a good device if you want to take photos outdoors when you go on a hike or to a picnic. However, the Huawei P10 lite is not the best choice you could make if you want a smartphone for gaming or for taking great photos in all light conditions. If you don't have a large budget and you want a well-rounded smartphone that delivers all the basics you need, in a beautiful package, for an affordable price, Huawei P10 lite is one of the best options you have.
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