“The P20 Lite may be part of the same series, but is a whole new beast when compared to the P20 Pro”

Huawei’s sub brand Honor has been quite active in India, but we haven’t seen too many Huawei-branded phones in the county in the recent past. This, despite the fact that Huawei is one of the biggest smartphone manufacturers in the world. Well, that changes today with the launch of Huawei’s camera wizard, the P20 Pro (first impressions). While the P20 Pro understandably hogged the limelight on the launch dias, the triple-camera toting smartphone also has a smaller sibling in the form of the P20 Lite. The fact that the P20 Lite is part of the same series has raised our expectations from it quite a bit, and given that it’s priced affordably, the new handset should find takers. Here’s a closer look.

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Android phone makers seem to have embraced the notch design wholeheartedly, with many new models sporting cut-outs on the top portion of the display. The P20 Lite is part of the same brigade, with a 5.84-inch screen bearing an aspect ratio of 19:9 and hardly any bezels on the sides. Thanks to its FHD+ resolution, it’s quite crisp too.

The phone looks quite stylish, thanks to its 2.5D glass body and the lack of bezels in the front. And since the fingerprint scanner is located at the rear and the navigation keys come implemented in the software, the fascia is almost all screen, save for a small chin that bears the Huawei branding. The notch up top holds the earpiece, front camera and sensors.

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Switch to the back, and you’ll see the dual cameras, stacked vertically on top left and jutting out a wee bit from the glass back. Below that is located the flash, along with the words “Dual Lens” and the sensor size emblazoned underneath.


The circular fingerprint scanner is in the centre, with more Huawei branding placed closer to the bottom. At the bottom of the phone, you’ll find the Type-C port and the speaker, while the power key and volume rocker are on the right. On the left, you’ll find the ejectable SIM tray.

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Software-wise, the Huawei P20 Lite runs EMUI v8 based on Android 8.0 Oreo, and offers the usual features like app lock, PrivateSpace etc. The device offers face unlock as well, sticking to the current trends. The demo unit we played with had a bunch of apps preloaded, including Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. There’s a new Ride mode as well, targeted at two-wheeler riders. Once enabled, it notifies callers that the user is riding and can’t accept calls.

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As far as shooting capabilities are concerned, the P20 Lite offers a 24MP wide-angle selfie camera that boasts a 3D portrait lighting feature. On the rear is a 16MP primary shooter, mated to a 2MP depth sensor. In terms of camera features, you get a wide aperture mode for bokeh, moving picture, and beautify options up front. Digging into the other shooting modes, you’ll find a ton of options such as Pro, Light painting, night shot, slow mo, time lapse, HDR, and even an AR lens mode. While we couldn’t try these out in our brief time with the phone, quick test shots indicate good image quality, at least with ample ambient light. Expect more details when we get to review the phone properly.

Inside the phone, ticks the Kirin 659 SoC, which includes an octa-core processor with four A53 cores clocked at 2.36GHz, and four A53 cores clocked at 1.7GHz. Mated to 4 gigs of RAM and 64GB storage, the combination seems to offer a smooth usage experience. That said, the same processor powers the Honor 9 Lite, the base model of which is priced at Rs 10,999 in India. And as per our review of the 9 Lite, you can expect smooth usage of it, but graphically-intensive games do take their toll on performance. We’re hoping the Huawei P20 Pro doesn’t display the same behaviour though. The 3,000mAh battery, combined with a bunch of software optimisations, promise long battery life, but again, we’d need to evaluate the phone’s performance extensively before we can say how well it fares as a daily driver.

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With its pricing of Rs 19,999, the Huawei P20 Lite goes up against its own cousin, the Honor 9i (review), plus others like the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro (review) and the notch-toting OPPO F7 (review) and Vivo V9 (review). While the P20 Pro may be able to stand out from the crowd thanks to its Leica-powered triple cameras, the P20 Lite doesn’t really offer any standout feature, at least on paper. We’ll need to evaluate its on its merits and see if it can beat its rivals to come across as a compelling option.