Huawei P8 Lite smartphone review: no sugar or sweeteners

Let's start with the good news. Huawei marketers have finally gotten rid of the completely unnecessary, rudimentary word Ascend in the names of their smartphones. It has outlived its usefulness – and that’s wonderful. Now the names of the Chinese company's smartphones sound succinct and concise. Compare for yourself which is better: Huawei Ascend P7 or Huawei P8/P8 Lite. The answer, in our opinion, is obvious: the shorter it is, the easier it is for everyone.

Now as for the new products from Huawei themselves. The first is a typical flagship. A large screen with Full HD resolution, a powerful eight-core processor, three gigabytes of RAM, support for advanced LTE standards, 13- and 8-megapixel cameras - this is not a complete list of the advantages of the Huawei P8. But we will talk about it in detail another time. Today we will talk about its younger brother – Huawei P8 Lite. It should be noted that Huawei has not previously spoiled us with various “mini” smartphones; this genre is new for the company. Therefore, it is very interesting to see how lumpy their first mini-pancake came out.

⇡#Technical characteristics

Judging by the technical specifications table, Huawei P8 Lite is in many ways inferior to its older brother. It looks like the engineers plucked off a piece (element) from the previous smartphones in the series, seasoned it with a new sauce (body) and served it to the table. The dish is ready, bon appetit! No, really, the combination of hardware is really strange - the smartphone has an HD-resolution display, an eight-core system-on-a-chip and a thirteen-megapixel camera. Let's try to figure out how all this coexists in one mid-price smartphone.

Advantages and disadvantages of Huawei P8 Lite

Positive aspects of the subject:

• Small amount of RAM by modern standards
• Memory expansion possible
• Slim body (7.7 mm)

Cons we found:

• Not enough built-in memory by modern standards (16 Gb)
• Low pixel density for this screen size (294 ppi)
• Single band WiFi (2.4 GHz only)
• No 3.5mm jack for headset and headphones
• No fingerprint scanner
• Weak battery (2200 mAh)

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⇡#Appearance and ergonomics

And Huawei marketers with a sense of humor are doing very well! Otherwise, it’s difficult to explain how it was possible to attribute the word Lite (“light”) to the plumpest and one of the heaviest smartphones in the line? Seriously, the body thickness of the P8 Lite is 7.7 millimeters, although the thickness of all Huawei P series gadgets still on sale does not exceed seven millimeters, and the newest ones are rapidly approaching six. The device also weighs noticeably – 131 grams. True, using the P8 Lite with one hand is quite convenient - you don’t get tired of it.

Huawei P8 Lite – front panel

Well, since we started to cut the truth, it’s worth saying that in the case of P8 Lite, the letter P in the name does not need to be deciphered as the pretentious Platinum. Be honest: here it obviously means Plastic. It is noteworthy that the body of the original P8 is made of metal.

Huawei P8 Lite – front panel

The device looks, to be honest, quite standard. There is nothing for the eye to catch on; it does not have any remarkable finishing elements. At the top of the front panel there is a slot for the earpiece and the lens of the front five-megapixel camera, at the bottom there is a rather large empty area. The system navigation keys – “Back”, “Home” and “Menu of open applications” – are touch sensitive, they are located at the bottom of the screen. The thickness of the side frames around the display is standard – neither large nor small.

Huawei P8 Lite – sides

Along all the narrow edges of the case there is a silver edging, stylized as metal - admittedly, a rather hackneyed solution, because of which the device looks somewhat cheap. Although Huawei P8 Lite is not a cheap smartphone.

Huawei P8 Lite – location of hardware keys

We have no comments regarding the ergonomics of the device. The power button and volume keys are on the right side, right under the thumb. The buttons have a short and distinct stroke; They are easy to use by touch. Next to them are slots for a Micro-SIM card and a universal connector for a SIM card or microSD flash drive. At the top end there is a headphone jack.

Huawei P8 Lite – bottom end

The Micro-USB 2.0 interface is located at the bottom end. Next to it are the slots for the external speaker. Its location is good - it does not overlap either during operation or when the smartphone is lying on the table.

Huawei P8 Lite – rear panel

The surface of the back panel of the device is rough, so it does not slip in your hands. At the top of the “back” there is the lens of the main thirteen-megapixel camera along with an LED flash.

Operating system and shell

The shell uses EMUI 3.1, which is currently the latest version. The operating system is Android 5.0. An update to Android 6.0 Marshmallow is expected next year.

The EMUI 3.1 shell is very similar to MIUI and Flyme. In it, all applications are located on desktops. There is no application menu as such. It is possible to create folders, change the effect of flipping desktops and the grid of shortcuts.

The interface turned out to be interesting. For some, the downside will be that the system's shortcuts for popular applications look different from Google Play, but this is more a matter of habit. But the ability to change the location of the on-screen keys turned out to be a very useful feature.

Among the useful features, it is worth highlighting the “Movement” settings item. There are several tabs there. They allow you to configure how to mute an incoming call by turning the phone face down, as well as mute alarms and timers. You can also enable waking up the screen with a double tap.

More about Huawei: Huawei Honor 5X - review of a “mid-ranger” with flagship ambitions

⇡#Display

The smartphone has a five-inch IPS screen with a resolution of 720 × 1280 pixels. To be honest, for a modern smartphone released in mid-2015, this is a very small resolution - it will hardly surprise anyone. The pixel density of the screen is quite decent - 293.7 ppi. Individual pixels are not visible to the naked eye, the “pixelization” effect is moderate. Small fonts lack sharpness a little, but movies and photographs look quite detailed. The resolution is sufficient for multimedia tasks and games.

You can look at the screen from any angle – the information on it remains readable even at large viewing angles. Thanks to this, it is convenient to watch movies on the device together. True, a barely noticeable purple tint appears on black, but this does not interfere with working with the device. The touch screen is quite responsive – it responds very quickly and accurately to touches and recognizes gestures. In total, the display understands up to ten simultaneous presses.

Huawei P8 Lite – AnTuTu MutliTouch Test results

The screen was made, as they say, with due philanthropy. A very effective polarizing filter combats glare here. Protective glass with an oleophobic coating is used, thanks to which the surface of the front panel is easily cleaned from “fingers” and other small dirt. In addition, there is no air gap between the protective glass and the matrix - the screen is made using OGS technology. This has a positive effect on the number of unwanted reflections.

The brightness reserve of the Huawei P8 Lite screen is moderate. The maximum luminosity of the white field is 307 cd/m2. By modern standards, this is not so much. In direct sunlight, the display noticeably fades - you have to squint and raise the backlight level to maximum to see what is happening on it. But for well-lit rooms the brightness is quite enough. The minimum screen brightness is only 12 cd/m2, which means that in the dark the device is very gentle on your eyes. The gadget is equipped with a light sensor, thanks to which it can automatically change the display backlight level for comfortable work in certain conditions.

The display is not very contrasty: the contrast ratio is 746:1, and this is not very good. It’s not critical at all, but it’s not good either – about a four minus on a five-point scale. Modern IPS-ki boast 1000:1.

The color temperature of dark shades of gray is on average 7250 K. When moving to light colors, it begins to increase noticeably. So, the white temperature is 7750 K, which is a bit too much. Let us remind you that the ideal value is considered to be 6500 K, but the picture on the Huawei P8 Lite display looks “cold”. It is noteworthy that the shell provides the ability to adjust the white balance, so that if necessary, the colors on the screen can be made “warmer”.

Huawei P8 Lite – adjusting color temperature

The display, on the contrary, is calibrated very well, almost wonderful. All gamma curves – both color components and gray – almost completely coincide with the reference curve. This means that the midtones on the P8 Lite's display are exactly as bright as they should be - neither dimmer nor brighter. Minimal deviations can be safely neglected. The scales are very, very decent.

The triangle with the display's color gamut is slightly irregular in shape. Judging by the diagram, blue and green are slightly oversaturated, and red, on the contrary, is slightly dimmer than it should be. However, the deviations are also not at all critical. In general, the display is configured normally.

Huawei P8 Lite – smartphone screen color gamut (white triangle) compared to sRGB color space (black triangle)

Screen

HUAWEI P8 Lite is equipped with a 5-inch IPS screen with HD resolution (1280×720). PPI is 294. There is automatic brightness adjustment and ophleophobic coating. The quality of the coverage is average. The maximum brightness is 316 cd/m², and the minimum is 9.7 cd/m².

Screen measurements showed the following. The color temperature is smooth and is at the level of 6500K, which is the reference value. From other graphs it is clear that green color predominates over the rest.

As a result, the screen has no obvious shortcomings. A little contrast and brightness spoil the picture, but in this price range this is not so critical. You need to remember that in the screen settings menu there is a “Color Temperature” item that allows you to adjust the screen temperature to suit you.

⇡#Hardware and performance

The Huawei P8 Lite has a new, and therefore especially interesting for us, HiSilicon Kirin 620 system-on-chip. Yes, Huawei continues to use its own platforms in its gadgets (more precisely, its subsidiary). The system-on-chip used is eight-core. But this is good only for the company’s marketers and for users who do not clearly understand that the kernels are different. The fact is that the Kirin 620 includes eight ARM Cortex-A53 cores operating at a frequency of 1.2 GHz. As we know, these cores are not very productive, and how they will solve complex problems when gathered in a group of eight is an open question.

It is noteworthy that these processor cores are capable of executing the modern ARMv8 instruction set, thanks to which the chip supports 64-bit computing. The platform's process technology is quite old - 28 nm HPm, while many competitors are already using 20 nm or even smaller design standards.

The role of the graphics controller in the Kirin 620 is played by the ARM Mali-450 MP4, operating at a frequency of 533 MHz. There are more advanced GPUs on the market, but for a system-on-a-chip in the mid-price category, this one will do just fine. The device has two gigabytes of RAM, which is enough to perform everyday tasks and run most games. The volume of built-in flash memory is fixed - 16 gigabytes; there are no versions with a larger volume. If necessary, the user can install a microSD memory card with a capacity of up to 64 gigabytes into the device instead of a second SIM card - the slot is universal.

In synthetic tests, the device showed completely standard results for its class. So, in the AnTuTu Benchmark 5 task, the gadget scored thirty-five thousand “parrots”, in the simple game Basemark 2 Taiji - 55.3 FPS. Overall acceptable, but without any complaints.

With “difficult” game tasks, things are somewhat worse. “Heavy” games on the P8 Lite noticeably slow down - the number of frames per second often drops below a comfortable thirty per second. In 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited and GFX Bench 3, the gadget could not keep up even with the LG G3 and Fly Tornado Slim - far from the most gaming “devices”.

Camera

Unlike the flagship models of the line, the budget version received a single main 12-megapixel camera module instead of a dual one. The photo sensor here is a Sony IMX286, the lens has an aperture of f/2.2, and the camera is also equipped with phase detection autofocus.

The quality of the resulting images is quite consistent with a mid-level smartphone. No surprises, pleasant or unpleasant. The Lite version takes excellent photographs in normal lighting; at dusk, the processor tries to minimize the amount of noise in the frame. The lens quickly focuses on the correct subject and produces an image with accurate white balance. The front module is capable of producing acceptable material for Instagram and social networks, but you shouldn’t count on the flagship quality of selfies. There is a built-in minor facial enhancement feature.

Examples of photos:

The main camera can record FullHD video at 30 frames per second. Only HD format is available for the front camera. An example of a video is in the video below.

⇡#Communication

Working with two SIM cards in Huawei P8 Lite is implemented in a completely standard and, perhaps, the most convenient way. After installing the cards in the slots, the user must determine which of them to access the network, which to make calls, and which to send SMS and MMS messages. The log of messages and calls shows which SIM was active - you won’t be able to get confused in the cards. Talking through the device is quite convenient: the volume reserve of the earpiece is decent, and the interlocutors did not complain about poor audibility. In general, the device copes with its main task well.

The set of wireless interfaces on the smartphone is completely standard. There is Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and NFC. The gadget navigates the area using a radio module that communicates with GPS satellites (with support for A-GPS hot start technology) and GLONASS. It works quite stably. A minute after launching the profile test, the gadget detected a total of twelve satellites of two navigation systems and was guided by seven of them. The navigation error radius was in the region of 11-13 meters, which is quite acceptable. During testing, the device was quite successfully used as the only means of communication, access to the Internet and navigation - we have no complaints about the radio modules.

⇡#Camera

The front camera in the device is five megapixel. It doesn’t have autofocus, and, of course, it doesn’t have a flash either. With its help, you can take good self-portraits and organize video conferences even in moderate lighting. There is no shame in uploading selfies to social networks from the front camera of the P8 Lite. In the dark, the picture becomes quite noisy, in general, like all webcams.

Huawei P8 Lite – main camera

The main camera here is also quite serious - with a 13 megapixel BSI backlight sensor, an automatic focus system and an LED flash. The camera control interface is very simple and easy to understand. There is an HDR mode, depth of field control, automatic selection of the best photo from a series, automatic enhancement of portraits, voice shooting, a number of artistic filters, geotags and other standard options for digital cameras. You can judge the quality of the shooting from the photographs below.

Huawei P8 Lite

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The camera definitely takes good pictures - no worse than the cameras of “classmates”. In bright daylight, photos turn out rich, with natural colors and a good level of detail. Sharpness drops slightly towards the corners of the frame, but not critically. Indoors, contrast and detail decrease slightly, but are still very decent. The Huawei P8 Lite camera copes with shooting in the dark like most other mobile cameras - with varying, to put it mildly, success.

⇡#Autonomous work

The device has a rather modest battery with a capacity of 8.36 Wh (2200 mAh, 3.8 V). It should be noted that even the previous Ascend P7 was equipped with a fatter battery – 2460 mAh. It is not clear what is causing the reduction in capacity; it seems that the P8 Lite has a larger body, a newer generation, and a smaller battery. Not good.

With continuous video playback and data updating in the background, the device lasted just over six hours. In general, the result is acceptable, but some competitors “live” in this test even longer. Obviously, to extend battery life, it is enough to lower the screen backlight level and turn off unused wireless modules. During testing, the device only failed to survive until the end of the working day once, when it was used almost without interruption as a car navigator. The average operating time of the P8 Lite is quite standard - from a working day to a day, depending on the load.

As is usually the case, the device has several energy saving modes. By default, the “normal” scenario is activated, in which the electronics do not greatly limit the CPU load. There is also a “smart” mode in which the device tries to use fewer platform cores. Finally, the “energy-saving” mode comes in handy when the battery charge is low and you can’t remain without communication. In this mode, all “smart” functions are disabled, and a wonderful smartphone turns into a very ordinary mobile phone with a notebook and SMS/MMS transfer function.

Autonomy

The Huawei P8 Lite review turns to autonomy, which is driven by a battery with a capacity of only 2200 mAh, which is very small by modern standards. This already hints that you can’t walk far from a power outlet with the Huawei P8, or you always have to have a power bank at hand. This results in weak battery life results, although in a moderate usage scenario it will be possible to last until an evening charge. Energy saving modes save the situation; when activated, all background activity is suppressed. You can choose one of three energy saving levels. In maximum economy mode, performance is reduced, which can cause lag in resource-intensive applications.

As the Huawei P8 Lite gold review showed, with continuous reading, the battery lasted for 11 hours at minimum brightness, and when playing videos in 720p at the same brightness and with an active Wi-Fi connection - 7 hours. The device lasted 3.5 hours in games. The results are average, no matter how hard you try, but you will have to connect to the charger every day. A full charge takes 2 hours and 15 minutes.