During Huawei’s P-series launch in Paris last March, the Huawei P20 Lite was a no-show. That might have been intentional so the bigger P20 and the P20 Pro gets all of the media’s attention.
This week, Huawei is unceremoniously lent us a P20 Lite to review. It came with the retail box that’s pretty similar to that of the P20/P20 Pro. Inside is Midnight Black version of the Huawei P20 Lite.
While the P20 Lite and Nova 2i had a lot in common in terms of hardware, the Huawei P20 Lite is obviously more beautiful. It’s got an all-metal unibody design with back-to-back glass protection (probably Gorilla Glass as well).
Up at the front is a large 5.85-inch IPS LCD display with a full HD+ resolution or 2280×1080 pixels at 19:9 aspect ratio. In fact, the P20 Lite has higher resolution compared to its more premium siblings (which is only 2240×1080 pixels).
The notch is also there up top but a quick change in the Settings will virtually remove that. It’s also odd that the P20 Lite has a bigger display compared to the Huawei P20 which is just 5.8 inches. There must be some confusion somewhere in Huawei’s design department.
At the back is a dual camera setup, much like the set up of the P20, but Huawei dropped the Leica label on this one. It’s the same 16MP+2MP module that was used in the Nova 2i.
The fingerprint scanner is also placed at the back, carved out from the glass paneling. There seems to be a trend here that low-end models get a fingerprint scanner at the back while premium, flagship models have them in front.
The power button and volume controls are on the right, SIM card slot on the left, and noise-canceling mic up top. It’s also great to know the P20 Lite comes with a USB Type-C port with fast-charging, something we don’t often see in the mid-range category.
The Type-C port is flanked by the speaker grille and primary mic with the 2.5mm audio port on the other side.
Powering the P20 Lite is a HiSilicon Kirin 659, the same chipset as the one used in the Nova 2i. It’s paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage (128GB in other regions). It runs Android 8 Oreo out of the box with EMUI 8.0.
Our initial benchmarks showed 87,639 in Antutu and 925/3,675 points (Single-core/Multi-core) in Geekbench.
The 3,000mAh internal battery might just be enough for a whole day use but we’ll figure that out in our battery test. The P20 Lite now also supports fast-charging via the USB Type-C port and comes with a 9V/2A wall charger.
Huawei Philippines has not shared the suggested retail price but we will find that out by April 28. We guess it will be in the vicinity of Php15,000 to Php18,000. More on this in our full review.
Huawei P20 Lite specs:
5.84-inches 19:9 LTPS IPS LCD display @ 2280 x 1080 pixels
2.5D Curved Glass Display
HiSilicon Kirin 659 2.36GHz octa-core processor
4 x 2.36GHz ARM Cortex A53 + 4 x 1.7GHz ARM Cortex A53
ARM Mali-T830 GPU
4GB LPDDR3 RAM
64GB, 128GB internal storage
expandable via microSD up to 256GB (uses SIM2)
16MP+2MP rear cameras, f/2.2 with LED Flash
16MP front camera, f/2.0
4G VoLTE
Hybrid Dual-SIM (nano+nano/microSD)
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.2
GPS with aGPS support, GLONASS
Fingerprint Scanner
Android 8 Oreo with Huawei EMUI 8
3,000mAh Li-P battery
148.6 x 71.2 x 7.4mm (dimensions)
145 grams (weight)
The P20 Lite will come in Klein Blue (equipped with glitter cover film), Sakura Pink, Midnight Black and Platinum Gold.
Huawei have a good quality. My friend is using this brand. She told me that it has a long battery span and the capacity of storage is also good that you need need to buy memory card for your files and etc.