Huawei P8 Lite Review – The P8 smartphone from Huawei offers high end performance with glowing specifications, but not everybody needs a high end smartphone with all its bells and whistles. For example, some don’t mind having to wait for an extra second or two to open an app, or a few seconds longer to open a game to play.
For those not so huge on the budget or don’t really need to spend premium for a phone, Huawei P8 Lite offers a good mid range all-rounder Android smartphone.
It’s also a great gift to someone who never has a smartphone before, without having to pay a hefty price.
Huawei P8 Lite Review – Packaging
Huawei P8 Lite Review – Look & Feel
The P8 Lite is powered by an octa-core processor with 2GB RAM and 16GB internal storage. It has a 5″ 720p HD display on a rather slim bezel and has a similar look-and-feel with the P8 (apart from the different materials used and other minor cosmetic differences). The hard plastic material on the P8 Lite still looks somewhat premium though, and not cheap-ish.
It’s comfortable to hold and feels non-slippery so you probably wouldn’t drop the phone accidentally on the floor (or at least, less chance to). Overall, I like the way it feels when I had it as my main phone to test for about a week.
Huawei places their own interface (Emotion UI) layered on top of the stock Android and it appears that there no App drawers. Meaning, any apps you download will always be placed on your home screen and there is no way to hide them. This makes the phone seem to look disorganised and clunky, but for a non-powered Android user, it’s actually simpler and less confusing (i.e, removing an app will actually remove/uninstall it from the phone).
Colors feel natural on the P8 Lite (not overly saturated like Samsung phones), though not as sharp as a high-end smartphone and suffers a bit under direct sunlight.
Huawei P8 Lite Review – Performance
The P8 Lite is not the fastest phone but considering it’s not supposed to be a flagship phone like their Nexus 6P, that’s okay. Performance is actually pretty good as a daily driver phone. For browsing, news reading, or hanging out in social media apps like Facebook and Twitter, the phone still feels buttery smooth.
Sometimes, however, it can take a second or two longer to open apps and playing graphic-intensive games cannot maintain smooth frame rates all the time. Even playing Hearthstone feels a bit sluggish occasionally.
P8 Lite battery life is pretty good as I manage to last a whole full day without a charge with still a good amount of battery left. I didn’t really push the device into the limit, however, but doing what most users would do: chatting, reading news, social media interactions, and a few photos taking in between.
Huawei P8 Lite Review – Cameras
It has a 13MP rear camera and 5MP front camera that can take good and fast shots, assuming you have a good amount of light in. The camera sensor somehow also manages to grab good shots when indoor.
Huawei P8 Lite Photo Samples (unedited, resized):
The 2 photos above were taken in a bright sunny day, despite of how cloudy/gloomy they look.
Huawei P8 Lite Review – Conclusion
Huawei P8 Lite is a good all-rounder mid-range phone with a body that feels good to hold, have the power to offer a smooth UI experience, great battery life performance, and good camera performance considering the price.
However, sometimes the colors on the photos get washed out or looks colder than they should, opening or running apps is not always smooth (especially while running graphic intensive games), and the screen is not the sharpest and brightest.
Overall, the P8 Lite is a good all-rounder Android phone in mid range market. It won’t blow your budget and it won’t disappoint those who are using their smartphone casually.
Huawei P8 Lite is available exclusively to Telstra starting from $55/month by the time this review was written. If you live in Melbourne, this is probably a good time for you to check out Telstra’s new awesome store in Melbourne CBD.
Disclosure: The P8 Lite was given as a gift during an end-of-year party event, but I was under no obligation to review it. All opinions are mine and not paid.
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