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Huawei P30 lite review: What can this year's middle class do?

Huawei P30 lite featured image
Picture: TechnikNews
(Post picture: © 2019 TechnikNews)

Everyone just looks at that Huawei P30 Pro and the Huawei P30, but actually there is also that Huawei lite P30. I was able to see in detail what this can do.

Unboxing and initial setup

The Huawei P30 lite comes in a typical Huawei packaging. That means: white cardboard with gold inscriptions and a few company logos. This is already known from other smartphones from the manufacturer. If you lift the lid of the packaging, you can immediately see the P30 lite in a plastic film. Underneath, Huawei put a case with instructions and a SIM tool. Again underneath are the charger and in-ear headphones. These do not sound world-shifting, but are sufficient for short listening to music and for making phone calls.

Huawei P30 lite unboxing

That comes in the box. (Image: TechnikNews)

Also the furnishingprozess is already known if you have owned a Huawei device in the past. After you have selected the correct language, you can set up the Google account. After that, a backup can be restored and a locking method can be chosen. Signing in with the Huawei ID is optional. After about 20 minutes, the procedure is over and you can start using the Huawei P30 lite.

Design and workmanship

Those who are familiar with the P30 series should immediately notice that the P30 lite from Huawei looks very similar to its two larger siblings. Starting with the shape of the housing to the placement of the buttons and the camera hill. That brings us to the first point of criticism. The latter protrudes quite a bit, which means that the smartphone wobbles very easily when used at the table. More details about the camera will be given later. The Huawei P30 lite is available in three different colors, namely Midnight Black, Pearl White and Peacock Blue. My test device also has the latter color and I have to say that I like this very much. Depending on how the light shines on the glass back, the color changes between blue and purple. And yes: the back is a magnet for fingerprints.

Let's start at the bottom of the smartphone. There, Huawei installed a jack plug for headphones, a USB-C port for charging and the device's only speaker. According to my expectations, it doesn't sound great, but it is still better than that of my Honor 8X. The left side is then completely empty, at the top you can find the slot for a microSD and a nano-SIM. On the right side we find the power button and the volume control, at the back is the fingerprint sensor. As we now know from Huawei and Honor, this works very reliably.

Huawei P30 lite design

Picture: TechnikNews

For the most part, the P30 lite made a very robust impression on me. Except for a few small scratches in the display glass (although I was very careful with the smartphone), I couldn't find any manufacturing defects. With a weight of 159 grams, the P30 lite is also very light. Huawei does not guarantee protection against water or dust.

Display

Now we come to the component that you look at every time you use it: the display. It measures 6,15 inches and has a Full HD resolution, i.e. 2.312 x 1.080 pixels. I don't have to say much about the display and the image quality of this one, since both points are very good compared to smartphones with a similar price tag. I feel like the display of the P30 lite is better than that of the Honor 8X, but maybe that's just me. On the Proproduct page on the internet there is also talk of an “anti-fingerprint film”. I can't judge whether this really works, for me the Huawei P30 lite attracts no fewer fingerprints than any other smartphone.

Huawei P30 lite display

Huawei built in a small notch. (Image: TechnikNews)

To enable a possible borderless design, Huawei built in a notch. However, this is not so noticeable, as it is a water droplet notch, as we know it from other models of the manufacturer. The front camera, which I will come to in detail later, is located in this display recess.

Specifications

In the Huawei P30 lite comes the HiSilicon Kirin 710, an octa-coreProprocessor for mid-range smartphones. There is also the Mali G51 GPU, four gigabytes of RAM and 128 gigabytes of mass storage. In everyday use, this package delivers very good performance, with which most prowill be able to cope without problems. However, the device could run even faster if the software wasn't so cluttered - more on that in a few moments. Still, I was able to enjoy games like Asphalt 9 fairly smoothly.

The battery is 3.340 mAh, which is pretty average these days. Depending on the use, I could usually achieve a screen-on time of four to five hours with a standby time of one day. The battery is full again after around 2,5 hours thanks to fast charging.

Software

Android 30 with the code name Pie runs on the P9.0 lite in conjunction with version 9 of the in-house user interface EMUI.

Huawei's software was once known for being very colorful, playful and cluttered. Today, thanks to bloatware like the app from Booking.com, a mirror app can still be seen a bit from that time, but it's not as bad as it was back then. Here and there, there are still some long loading times. Huawei got its own software under control really well and, according to my estimates, will continue to improve it in the following years.

I was surprised that I couldn't find Instagram's app anywhere in the Play Store. To this day, I can't say exactly why that is. Anyway, I was able to download an APK file and get Instagram working that way, in case anyone else out there has the same Proproblem.

Cameras

Finally, I would like to say a few words about the cameras. On the back is the triple camera with a 48 megapixel wide-angle sensor (f / 1.8), an eight-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens and a bokeh lens that has a resolution of two megapixels. The front camera has a resolution of 24 megapixels and an aperture of f / 2.0. Videos are recorded in 1080p.

The photos that I took with the Huawei P30 lite were just as I expected in advance. Not terribly bad, but not overly good either, but definitely useful. Middle class. In good light, the photos (without AI mode) are usually very lifelike with great colors. I would rather keep my hands off the AI ​​mode, as it can easily exaggerate the saturation of the recordings. You can still see some details on pictures taken in poor light. However, they don't look so good overall. I liked the results of the front camera very much - if there was enough light. Otherwise they were mostly unusable.

Prices and availability

The Huawei P30 lite is available from MediaMarkt, Saturn and Amazon. The price at MediaMarkt and Saturn is 330 euros, while the smartphone at Amazon currently only costs 260 euros.

Huawei P30 lite: conclusion

With the Huawei P30 lite, Huawei shows once again that good smartphones can also be cheap. In everyday use, the smartphone always delivers and does not let you down. It is less suitable for people who do a lot of power-hungry things on their smartphones. However, this target group is also very likely to use more powerful devices. The camera is very good for the price range, but here, too, the P30 lite cannot keep up with more expensive devices.

I didn't like that the camera hill protruded so much. There is still a bit of room for improvement in the software, as it still comes with a lot of bloatware and is very sticky.

Thank you for providing the Huawei P30 lite.

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David Haydl

David lives in Graz and has been there for around half a decade TechnikNews, also editor-in-chief for some time. He regularly provides the site with news, test reports and the like TechnikNews Weekly, which was his idea to launch. He likes to spend his free time outdoors, listening to a lot of music (and clearly too loud) and some podcasts on all kinds of topics, and also likes to go running. He enjoys the time that remains with his charming girlfriend or in front of the TV.

David has already written 1245 articles and left 116 comments.

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