Honor 50 Lite review: Every (new) beginning is difficult
A TEST REPORT from Nils Ahrensmeier 
on January 05, 2022, 10:00 | Write a comment
With the Honor 50 Lite, the former subsidiary of Huawei is bringing a cheap smartphone to the German market, which should offer the most important functions of the Honor 50 for less money. TechnikNews tested it.
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Design and processing:
The Honor 50 Lite has a modern design that is almost identical to that of the Huawei Nova 8i. This is also logical, since smartphones from the first draft to the finished product Product about 2 years. Thus, both the Honor 50 and the Lite model (and probably all models this year) are still penned by Huawei engineers. The front camera sits in a punch hole on the left side of the display, the display edges are very thin at the top and sides. Only at the bottom are the edges a little thicker. A screen protector is already attached to the display, saving you the hassle of sticking it on. There is a headphone jack on the top, and a mono speaker, the SIM slot, and the USB-C port on the bottom. The power button and the volume up/down rocker are on the right side and are easy to reach. The fingerprint sensor is built into the power button, so it's recessed a little in the frame.
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- The back is made of plastic, but doesn't feel cheap (Image: TechnikNews)
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- A loudspeaker and the SIM slot are located on the lower side. (Image: TechnikNews)
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- Fortunately, the Honor 50 Lite has a headphone jack. (Image: TechnikNews)
The workmanship is sufficient, but not really outstanding. The device is made of inexpensive polycarbonate and, thanks to its rounded edges, sits comfortably in the hand.
Display:
The display 6,67 inch display is large and has super thin display edges, but technically it is worlds behind the competition. competitorproProducts from Xiaomi, OnePlus or Motorola, for example, already rely on AMOLED technology and fast refresh rates of 90 or 120 Hertz. The Honor 50 Lite has none of these technologies and relies on a 60 Hertz LCD display. The sharpness of Full HD+ and the good color representation are convincing, but that's simply not enough for a 300 euro smartphone.
The Honor 50 Lite's display is technically far behind the competition (picture: TechnikNews)
Hardware / performance:
The hardware of the device is also not quite at the level of current mid-range or even budget smartphones. The Snapdragon 662 is from 2019 and is therefore significantly slower than current ones ProSnapdragon 7 series processors. Both Geekbench and 3D Mark scores are well below comparable devices.
However, apps open quickly in everyday use, but current games stutter or can only be used in a lower resolution. The performance is sufficient for social media and other everyday use, but it's not really future-proof. This is also shown by the lack of 5G, which I don't currently miss at least. Of the Prozessor is supported by 6 gigabytes of RAM and 128 gigabytes of storage. Unfortunately, this cannot be expanded; there is no option with 256 gigabytes.
Camera / s:
The four cameras are very present on the back (picture: TechnikNews)
There are four camera sensors on the back of the smartphone, the main camera has a resolution of 64 megapixels, which is also heavily advertised. The usual pixel binding adds four pixels to one, so that a resolution of “only” 16 megapixels is achieved. I would rate the images from the main camera as "sufficient". In good light, sharp photos with sufficient details and HDR are possible. But photos in low light can quickly become very noisy, and the same applies to the zoom. So the main camera should be sufficient for occasional shots, but you won't win a photo competition with it. Skin tones in particular don't look natural either.
Recordings with the 8 megapixel ultra wide angle camera are sometimes blurred, but it does its job and record a lot more. Meanwhile, I would strongly question the sense of the 2 megapixel macro camera, I don't take photos from 4 cm (at least I) very often in everyday life. In addition, this camera has no autofocus, which makes taking photos even more difficult.
Battery pack:
The Honor 50 Lite's battery is the highlight of the device. The device has a 4300 mAh small battery, which is recharged with a super fast 66 watts. This means that the device is half charged again in 15 minutes and fully charged in 40 minutes. This is almost unique in this price range, only the Realme GT Master Edition loads faster (here is the test from my colleague Fabian). In everyday life you can easily get by with the battery for a day, and those who use little can manage for 1,5 days. In the PCMark battery test, however, the device has to compete with our comparison device (Redmi Note 10 Pro) beaten for an hour.
Software:
The big advantage of Honor smartphones compared to Huawei devices is that they can use Google services again. Since they were sold by Huawei, they are now an independent company and accordingly the US embargo no longer applies to them. Accordingly, the Google Play Store, Google Maps and so on are preinstalled as usual. MagicUI 4.2 runs on Android 11, an update to Android 12 has not yet been announced. The software itself runs smoothly and is also very clear.
A few impressions from the "Magic UI" software (screenshot: TechnikNews)
And finally ...
It is really difficult for the Honor 50 Lite, as it is simply too expensive for these specifications for a price of 300 euros. I'm really happy that Honor is back on the German market, but that's precisely why you should pursue an aggressive pricing strategy “like in the past”. For 300 euros, other manufacturers such as Xiaomi, Realme, Motorola and Co. simply offer a lot more functions such as OLED displays, high refresh rates or faster SoCs. The only big highlight for me is the very fast loading, which other manufacturers do not yet offer. If you absolutely want an Honor smartphone, then you should go for the normal one Honor 50 grab, this offers a lot more for its money.
