Huawei P30 Lite Review: Almost like its big brothers.

Being one of the leading smartphone company, the Huawei has been marketing itself aggressively in the Nepali market too. Almost every Huawei’s products are available in Nepal. Recently, Huawei launches new flagships, which has the worlds best camera on any smartphones, the Huawei P30 Pro, along with P30 and P30 Lite. Both P30 and P30 Lite share a gene with its big brother. Today, I got the Huawei P30 Lite with us. We almost used this device for a whole month, here’s my experience. 

Design and Looks

Like the best camera phone of the year P30 Pro, the Huawei P30 Lite comes with glass on both sides, with a plastic frame holding them together. The glass back has become common, these days. However, having a glass back has its own demerits, it’s slippery, trust me either put on a cover or break the phone. The display is 6.15 inch AMOLED panel with Full HD+ resolution, 415 PPI density. That means the display looks pretty good, crisp and clear. On the front, like it or not, there is a dewdrop or water drop notch, that is, nothing more. Though the company has not specified any kind of screen  Glass protection it definitely has some, but its better use a screen protector on, to save the display from scratch. 

Design-wise, there is nothing significant, but it looks good. Further talking about the ports and buttons, 3.5mm audio jack, USB Type-C, mic, and speaker lies on the bottom. Sim tray, noise cancellation hole on the top, volume rocker and power button on the left of the device and nothing on the right side. 

Camera and Photography

Now, coming to the main point, the camera. We already know, the big brother has the best camera quality and setup. As a legacy, the youngest brother has some features too. At this price level, Huawei P30 Lite has the best camera in any smartphone.

As technical specifications go, 24MP wide-angle lens, 8MP ultra wide lens, and 2MP depth sensor can take awesome photos, especially at night. Unlike its big brothers, it does not have any zoom lens or periscope lens, the photos taken from this device can easily defeat another smartphone at the same price level.

The camera app on the device has lots of features, like Night Mode, Portrait Mode, Time-lapse, etc., so that you can show your photography skills. As already mentioned, the photography is good in this device, especially the night photography. Even though there is a Night Mode feature in the device, you really don’t need to use that one, because normal Photo Mode can take awesome night photo.

Besides the night mode, the Bokeh effect also works pretty well. Similarly, the 3D mode or Panorama mode, etc. can take interesting photos too.

Talking about the selfies, the day-light photography is pretty good, clear and crisp. However, at night or low light photography seems to be a little bit noisy. Besides, the AI also enhances the photography, and it also detects the environment and surroundings. 

Performance and Gaming

Huawei P30 Lite packs the Huawei’s in-house mid-range processor, the Kirin 710 paired with 6GB of RAM, which gets the job done. Actually, the performance in this is quite appreciable. For basic works, like running regular apps, has no issue at all. However, heavy tasks like gaming and photography, sometimes you might face an issue like heating and freezing, but rarely. Further, we tested, the device becomes a little bit warm while intense gaming, I didn’t find any overheating issue, neither lag or hang. Most of us are into mobile gaming, especially online gaming, and this device also handles online gaming pretty easily.

While in my test period, I had been playing the PUBG Mobile intensely, where I felt no disturbance, even setting the graphics to HD and Frame Rate to High, there was no issue. While playing other games there was no such issue, ever with the graphics intensive games like Asphalt 9, the game is running smoothly. Well with the company’s GPU Turbo technology, the graphics. So, we are hoping gaming will be enhanced better with the GPU Turbo.

Software and User Interface

Like most smartphones that don’t run stock Android, Huawei P30 Lite has its own UI, the EMUI 9 on the top of the latest Android 9 Pie. There as some tweak and redesign over the app icons, buttons on the control center, and other elements on the interface which make the UI different from the stock-Android look.

The Huawei P30 Lite lock screen looks neat. All the apps are laid out on the home screen, although you can enable the app drawer from the settings menu. For the frequently used apps swiping left which show HiBoard, which shows most used apps and a search bar that can do local and internet searches. There’s also the Digital Wellbeing, which gives you a look at your smartphone habits and lets you act upon it.

Security

With the recent development of In-display fingerprint scanners, most of the midrange smartphones has implemented this technology. But, Huawei wants to keep it plain and simple for the Huawei P30 Lite as it features the traditional, rear-mounted one.

Along with the rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, its 32-megapixel selfie camera doubles as the face unlock sensor. You can enable the ‘Raise to Wake’ feature so it can instantly unlock the device when you pick it up. Since it lacks a night-seeing sensor, it won’t work in a pitch black room, unless the screen brightness is high enough to light up your face. It can unlock the phone really fast, although using the fingerprint might feel faster and more intuitive.

Google’s Autofill passwords, which comes with Android Pie, is also on the Huawei P30 Lite. Features like App lock, PrivateSpace, and File safe are also present.

Battery

Talking about the battery, it packs 3340mAh battery, with the optimized OS, it lasts for a whole day and even more in a single charge. However, if you use the device for heavy task, it might drain the battery quickly. For me, the battery backup was pretty good. I do not do a heavy task at day time, it will last till evening easily.

On the upside, it does come with a fast 18W charger. This can refuel the battery from 20% back to 100% in around an hour.

Verdict

Likewise, the Huawei P30 Pro, being one of the best flagship devices that you can get in the market. With the P30 Lite, the company has ticked all the bases to be among the best mid-range on the market.

The Huawei P30 Lite may lack a unique feature, just like most of its competitors. But the beauty of it is, the handset was able to cover all the areas with absolute grace. It brags a sleek design that’s good both in the hands and the eyes. There are a large display and reliable performance for both work and play. And a killer set of cameras that exceeds expectations.

Though the processing chipset performs well for day to day life, it would have been better if the company has introduced more powerful chipset then the current Kiren 710 processor. The other improvement could have been with the battery. The P30 lite is among the lightest midrange devices around, but with extra weight added for extra battery life would have make device even better.

In our conclusion, the Huawei P30 Lite is easily a great option for those who want to explore mobile photography without drilling hole in the pocket. With P30 lite you’re also getting a smartphone that’s a great, light, stylish and reliable daily driver.