Huawei launched two models of its camera centric P-series this year – Huawei P30 and P30 Pro. However along with these two, the Chinese smartphone maker also launched a cheaper model in the line-up, Huawei P30 Lite in Pakistan and other regions except China.
Like usually Huawei launches a smartphone in China and then launches the same phone globally with a different name. Sometimes the same phone is placed in a certain line-up or series to fill the pricing gap. The latter is what we can assume as a situation with Huawei P30 lite replacing the China specific Nova 4e in global markets.
Nevertheless the identical design and hardware, the P30 Lite features some extra network bands than Nova 4e, to support in global markets. But launching the phone in P-series to reach more consumers with low budget, might be an ideal decision for the company to have more sales.
Huawei launched its camera power house – Huawei P30 Pro for PKR 1,75,000 in Pakistan. The company also launched the standard model of P30 for PKR 1,25,000. These are exactly around the European price tag and really the higher ones – thanks to Pakistani Rupee value.
So with those higher-priced flagship models, Huawei P30 Lite becomes really favorite among the lower-budget customers. The P30 Lite costs only PKR 48,000 but also lacks almost everything that the flagship counterparts have. It’s just another mid-range smartphone that you would see a lot in this price range. The question is, is P30 Lite worth the price of it and is it really competitive among its price range? We will evaluate that right in this review, so continue reading.
We did a separate unboxing session with Huawei P30 Lite earlier with our first impressions. You can check that out as well.
Huawei P30 Lite Unboxing/First Impressions [Urdu]
Our first impressions were pretty fine with Huawei P30 Lite. However P30 Lite felt premium like any previous P-series phones but as we have recently with Nova series phones. They are as good as P-series. Means to say that the build quality and design of P30 lite is extremely similar to those, recently introduced with Nova 3 series.
Here is the full list of items you will get in the Huawei P30 Lite retail box.
- Huawei P30 Lite – The device itself of course.
- Travel Charger: 5V/2A + 9V/2A Quick Charge
- USB Type-C connectivity cable
- Stereo Earphones
- SIM tray eject tool
- Quick Start Guide
- Silicon back cover
- Screen protective film (factory-applied)
Let’s have quick look at the specifications and features of the Huawei P30 Lite.
Quick Features and Specifications
| Huawei P30 Lite | |
| SoC | Chip: Kirin 710 CPU: 4x Cortex-A73 2.2GHz + 4x Cortex-A53 1.7GHz GPU: Mali G51 MP4 |
| Memory | 4GB RAM + 125GB Storage |
| microSD card | dedicated slot (up to 512GB) |
| OS / Software | Android 9 Oreo / EMUI 9.0 |
| Display | 6.15-inch IPS LCD 2312×1080 FHD+ resolution, 19.3:9, Pixel density: 415 ppi Screen-to-body ratio: ~84% |
| Rear Camera | 24MP Main PDAF Sensor, f/1.8 lens aperture 8MP Ultra wide-angle 2MP depth sensor 720p/1080p video recording at 30fps |
| Front Camera | 32MP sensor, f/2.0 lens aperture |
| Battery | 3340 mAh 5V/2A (10-watt) 9V/2A (18-watt) fast charging |
| Size/Weight | 152.9 x 72.7 x 7.4 mm / 159 grams |
| Sensors | Fingerprint sensor, Accelerometer, Proximity, Ambient light, E-Compass, Gyroscope |
| Connectivity | WiFi: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Dual Band: 2.4GHz / 5GHz WiFi Tethering, Hotspot Bluetooth: 4.2, USB 2.0, Type-C GPS/AGPS/GLONASS/BeiDou |
| Color Options | Peacock Blue, Midnight Black |
Build and Design
Huawei P30 lite has a unibody design with a 3D curved glass on the back. The design follows the last year’s P20 Pro which was later adapted by some other brands too including Honor. In fact Huawei shipped its mid-range Nova 3 series and Y9 2019 in the similar design. Now that the Chinese phone maker has not moved on to another unique design for its P30 flagship phones, it keeps it alike on the P30 Lite as well.
The other blue variant, which is called Peacock Blue has some eye-catchy gradient color. But the black variant is totally plain and decent.
Thanks to the not-so-big size of the phone, that the handling is easy as well as one-handed use is also quite possible.
You can see the rear-mounted fingerprint sensor along with the triple-camera setup arrayed vertically on the upper-left corner.
Components and Ports
Huawei P30 Lite sports a USB Type-C port along with the loud speaker and 3.5mm audio jack at the bottom. There is also a mouthpiece (primary mic). The power button is on the right side of the phone along side the volume rocker.
There is a SIM slot on the top of the phone, which is a hybrid slot. It can serve for one SIM and one microSD card or two SIM cards at once. You cannot use two SIM cards and a memory card simultaneously though.
Front and Display
Huawei P30 lite features a U-shaped dewdrop notch on the front that houses the front-facing camera. Bezels around the screen are now similar to most bezel-less designs we have seen. They are all thin around the left, right and top, whereas the bottom chin takes some space due to the components and ports.
Huawei P30 Lite features a 6.15-inch screen with aspect ratio of 19.3:9. It comes with full HD+ display resolution of 2312 x 1080 pixels serves with the pixel density of around 415 ppi. According to Huawei the it’s a 90% screen-to-body ratio which does not include the the frame outside the glass. But when we include the full front profile to calculate the display area ratio, it comes out as around 84.2%.
The phone comes with an LTPS IPS LCD panel and its outdoor visibility is quite impressive. Full HD resolution is also something attractive but it’s always prone to consume more battery. So you might want to consider your preference here – whether you want long runner or a sharp and crisp display.
During our trial, the display wasn’t quite aggressive with battery drain. So you shouldn’t be worry about that either.
Software and User Interface
Huawei P30 lite runs Android 9.0 Pie operating system out-of-the-box. On top of it, the phone layers with the proprietary EMUI 9. Huawei has changed a lot in the new version, specially the placement of some built-in apps and features within settings.
The native camera app once again gets some feature shifts. The aperture mode is no more available on the main viewfinder slides but portrait mode is. But you can access the aperture mode from “More” screen. Just like that there are some unneeded changes I believe.
Apart from those little changes, the basic interface and user experience remains the same as we have seen previously in EMUI 8.2. The home screen still comes with two modes – standard and drawer mode. Notification panel remains intact with white theme.
Lock, Unlock and Home Screen
The lock screen keeps its Magazine style by default as always. You can change the categories to load wallpapers from, in this specific style. Just in case if you didn’t know, this style loads a new wallpaper every time you press power button to wake up the phone. Some quick options are also present on the lock screen.
The home screen can be configured as always to have different layout of icons. Folders and context menu is there that you can initiate by tap and holding an icon – you can still drag the icon that way by ignoring the menu and continue with dragging.
Even though the EMUI 9 has some features/options shift from here and there, the home screen settings are still not in one place. The home screen configuration options still don’t offer to change the style – standard or drawer mode.
App Drawer
Default home screen style is just old without the app drawer but you can turn it on by going through Phone settings > Home screen & wallpaper > Home screen style > Drawer.
Huawei should really move this option to the home screen settings which are available right from the home screen.
Software based Notch Handler
The software based top-bezel illusion that camouflage the notch as it was never there, continues with P30 lite. Though the notches made it possible for displays to expand further around to edges, there are people who don’t like those cut-outs. This software based bezel is really for them as it aligns with the notch’s size by darkening the top status bar.
Then it turns out to be much similar in size of the bottom physical chin. However the top bar still keeps the information intact, so it doesn’t loose the space either. All those icons and notifications appear along side the front-camera.
Variety of Navigation Styles
In addition to common three-key navigation that you have seen in above screenshots – recent apps, home, and back keys, P30 lite also has a few more navigation options. Single-key navigation, and navigation dock.
[navigation styles screens]
Navigation Dock. When enabled, a dock is appeared floating on the screen which you can simply tap, tap & hold, hold & stretch and drag to respectively navigate to back, home, recent tasks view or move the dock itself.
Security & Privacy
Fingerprint and Face Unlock are the two basic security features in Huawei P30 Lite. There is indeed no objection over fingerprint scanner as it’s as fast as always Huawei has made it. Face Unlock, on the other hand, only uses the front camera. Hence it’s not that fast and secure as fingerprint sensor will be.
PrivateSpace
In addition to various security and privacy features like App Lock, user profiles, Huawei has added a new PrivateSpace which I guess is more useful than user profiles. Unlike user profiles you don’t need to choose the user first to switch to. Instead, you can just turn it on with your main profile and set a different PIN code to unlock into this space right from your own main profile’s lock screen. In fact you can set a different finger to go into this space without any other input on the lock screen.
It’s a perfect option to apply on a case when you need to give out your phone temporarily to anyone for a while, you can put your finger (that you have set for PrivateSpace) on the scanner and it will be unlocked into that space. You can even share that PIN code with them as it’s totally a separate space and won’t show anything from your main profile.
Phone Manager
The phone manager is still there and it’s an important part of Huawei smartphones, I appreciate that as most of the things it would handle from management of memory to the privacy features. Phone manager app include everything from permissions, mobile data control, memory cleaner and management, Avast virus scanner is built-in, app locker and then a shortcut to battery options.
Smart Screen Resolution
Huawei P30 lite has a native resolution of 2312 x 1080 pixels but you can set the resolution down to 1734 x 810 pixels which will consume low power. However, by default, the Smart resolution option is turned on which will automatically adjust the screen resolution when needed to conserve the battery power.
App Assistant (formerly Game Suite)
Previously Huawei has shipped its phones with a built-in Game Suite app. It would allow users to add certain games in a list that will provide the users with uninterrupted gaming experience. In addition the system will optimize the settings for better performance in selected games. This may also consume more power and you may experience heat up. But the Game Suite was replaced by the “App Assistant” in the latest EMUI 9.
I didn’t find any significant difference but it was really hard finding the App Assistant in the phone. Unlike the Game Suite that was right among the apps, the App Assistant is hidden into settings. You need to go through Settings > Apps > AppAssistant.
System Performance
As we have already noted above, the Huawei P30 lite features Kirin 710. It is company’s latest mid-range system-on-chip which was released last year with Nova 3i. Sooner after that, the chip was also featured on Huawei’s mid-range Y9 2019.
Nevertheless the Kirin 710 is a good processor and competed really well with Snapdragon 660 and Helio P60 at the time of launch. But now that we have seen upgraded versions from both Qualcomm and MediaTek, I believe Huawei could have brought some upgraded processor too with P30 Lite.
PUBG Mobile should be enough to tell about the gaming performance; right? Well, it automatically configured on the second level of graphics “balanced” and frame rate at “medium”. This default configuration gave me the wonderfully lagless experience. You can also go further 1-level up in graphics to have some doomed experience.
So it’s not gonna take any bump in performance compared to previous devices with Kirin 710. In fact, the P30 lite’s benchmark scores were far less than Nova 3i and Huawei Y9 2019 carrying the identical processor. But the culprit is the default settings which prefer to facilitate with better power management. The system allows you to turn on “Performance Mode” in battery settings. That brings back the true performance of the phone which is nearly identical to what we have experienced with Nova 3i and Y9 2019.
Benchmark Scores with Performance Mode (ENABLED):
- AnTuTu v7.2: 140331
- Geekbench v4:
- Single-core: 1565
- Multi-core: 5456
- 3D Mark – Sling Shot Extreme
- Open GL ES 3.1: 986
- Vulkan: 1369
Benchmark Scores with Performance Mode (DISABLED):
- AnTuTu v7.2: 118234
- Geekbench v4:
- Single-core: 1535
- Multi-core: 5173
- 3D Mark – Sling Shot Extreme
- Open GL ES 3.1: 936
- Vulkan: N/A
Battery Performance
Battery wise, the Kirin 710 has helped the P30 lite just how it did with Nova 3i. The 3340mAh battery in Huawei P30 lite is good for all kind tasks for the whole day.
Can’t compare with Y9’s large 4000 mAh battery, but still P30 Lite didn’t let me down with its power management. With all day to day tasks including phone calls, text, social interaction, streaming video and music, etc, it should be fine for P30 lite to stay up until you may need to put it on charge when you go to sleep.
Like Nova 3i, excessive camera usage may take more battery in P30 lite. Graphically heavy gaming will take most of the battery juice as well as GPS navigation. With that in mind, you may need to charge the phone mid-day.
Camera – Photos and Videos
Huawei P30 lite features triple camera setup on the back. The main 24MP sensor is supported by a large f/1.8 aperture lens. Along side an 8MP camera sports ultra wide-angle lens. A third 2MP depth sensor is hosted for bokeh effect in portrait and aperture mode.
The camera user interface follows most of the features as we already know, however it has also shifted some from one place to another. AR Lens is also present with 3D QMoji for front camera and other visual effects for both front and rear cameras. Unlike Nova 3i, the AR backgrounds and 3D objects are not available in P30 lite.
The camera features a pro-mode like always, but a so-called “Night” mode is also present that takes shots in dark environment with longer exposures and lower-ISO sensitivity. Unlike in pro-mode, the long exposure in night mode works with AI powered stability that can work impressively hand-held. It takes a 3 sec exposure at lowest possible ISO sensitivity according to the scene. You can choose your own exposure time and ISO as well in this mode, but the longer you go, the more blurry photos you may get.
Huawei P30 lite features company’s AI algorithm can “recognize 22 categories” of scenes and provides optimized settings instantly. The “AI” option is provided right above the live viewfinder that you can turn on/off.
Camera Performance
The Huawei P30 lite camera worked nicely to capture pleasing photos in most of the environments. The camera reproduces true colors but a bit vibrant as well. Image detail is also fine along with right amount of sharpness in bright light or outdoor. The camera also managed to provide better dynamic range in most overly back-lit situations.
In addition to enhancing sharpness, producing better colors and image detail, the noise handling was also impressive by P30 lite.
When shooting in dark and low-light situations, P30 lite impressed with capturing nice image detail. The noise handling was also controlled well. Sometime the over exposed light glows were the problem. But when the the special night mode is in action, you are gonna witness really a pleasant night-time photograph with vibrant but accurate colors.
As far as portrait/aperture mode is concerned, image detail mostly remains fine but sometimes it gets softer on subject. Taking portrait shots in bright light is easy for the phone, but like most smartphones even including the high-end ones, it struggles to take usable portrait shots in low-light.
The ultra wide-angle camera helps in scenarios where you need to cover more area in your frame. But currently like any other smartphone with ultra wide angle-lens, P30 lite also comes with a fixed-focus camera. The images look good when viewing in full but when you look look at it 1:1 scale, you will notice that the detail is not as fine as you would have with the primary camera.
The 32MP front camera is just new entrant in mid-range segment. The P30 lite makes use of it very well. This large resolution selfie shots come very sharp out of the camera. The image detail impressive in bright light. However the one in low-light is also not that bad.
Just keep an eye on our portal or our social pages to get notified as soon as we publish a dedicated camera review for Huawei P30 lite. Here you can see some sample shots anyway.
Sample Photos
Video Recording
The Huawei P30 lite supports up to 1080p video recording that too 30fps and 60fps. Though the electronic image stabilization (EIS) is only supported with 30fps recording. The phone does not support 4K video recording but indeed has a Slow-mo support with 120fps or 480fps.
We’ll inform you as soon as the dedicated camera review is up for Huawei P30 lite. For that, you have subscribe to our portal and social channels.
Conclusion
Huawei P30 lite comes at right price range with all its features but we still believe that the phone must feature an upgraded processor. However Kirin 710 is still comparable with MediaTek’s Helio P70 in Vivo V15 and OPPO F11 Pro. The default settings of P30 lite focus on power management which is indeed a good thing. But in this default mode the performance of the phone will be much restricted. That’s why with default settings the benchmark tools performed far less than others. However, turning on the performance mode, brings back the phone to perform equally with others.
USB Type-C has finally been added to mid-range segment with P30 lite, which is a welcome thing. Fast charging on the other hand is also a good thing on P30 lite.
But with the price tag of PKR 48,000/- P30 lite is gonna have tough time competing Vivo V15 and OPPO F11 Pro. However it’s worth mentioning that Vivo’s V15 and OPPO’s F11 Pro cost a couple of more thousands and come with some appealing features such as pop-up selfie camera and truly bezel-less screen.
P30 lite can still be considered on the positive side as the phone comes with the glass build and also supports USB Type-C. It’s rather more compact. On the other hand, the Vivo and OPPO’s counterparts are built with plastic. So it’s much easier for you to decide – what stands better according to your preference.
Huawei P30 lite in Gallery
