Huawei is one of the biggest names in the smartphones industry. That must mean that the smartphones the company produces are good, not just marketed very well. We recently got our hands on their latest mid-range smartphone, namely the Huawei P10 lite, and we were curious to see if it is an excellent choice for people who want a well-balanced smartphone at an affordable price. After using it for two weeks, we are now ready to share our findings with you, in this review:

Hardware specifications and packaging

The Huawei P10 lite smartphone comes in a white cardboard box with a simple design, which resembles the one used for Huawei's high-end device, the P10. The name of the smartphone is printed with glossy ink in the middle of the front side of the box, and essential information such as the model, IMEI and serial numbers of the device is found on the bottom of the box.

Slide the inner box within a box, and you'll find the smartphone, its power charger and a detachable Micro USB cable, a pair of wired headphones, a pin for ejecting the SIM tray, the warranty certificate and the quick start guide.

The Huawei P10 lite smartphone is available in four different colors: Platinum Gold, Graphite Black, Sapphire Blue and Pearl White. The model we tested was Sapphire Blue.

Huawei P10 lite has a 5.2-inch screen, with a Full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and a pixel density of 424 ppi. This screen benefits from IPS technology, meaning that its colors are close to natural and the viewing angles are very wide. Both the screen and the back of the smartphone are covered in 2.5D curved glass, which protects the smartphone from dust and small scratches. The edges are made of metal which should protect it from accidental hits and bumps.

To be able to compute, the Huawei P10 lite relies on a Kirin 658 octa-core processor, which has four cores running at 2.1 GHz and another four cores running 1.7 GHz. The graphics are handled by a Mali-T830MP2 video chip.

The Huawei P10 lite smartphone comes with 32GB of internal storage space out of which 18GB is free for you to use. It also has 3GB or 4GB of RAM, depending on the region you live in. The model with 4GB of RAM storage space is sold in the western states from the European Union, in Northern Africa, Southeast Asia and in countries from APAC (Asia-Pacific). No matter which version you buy, you can extend the internal storage space with a microSD card of up to 256GB. The Huawei P10 lite smartphone that we had tested came with 3GB of RAM.

The primary camera found on the Huawei P10 lite has 12 megapixels and a lens aperture of f2.2, while the front camera has 8 megapixels and an aperture of f2.0. The rear camera also benefits from a LED flash that's useful especially in low light conditions.

Regarding connectivity options, Huawei P10 lite offers a Micro USB 2.0 port for charging and data transfers, a Bluetooth 4.1 chip, and a wireless card that supports the 802.11 ac/a/b/g/n standards on 2.4GHz and 5GHz radio networks. This is true if you live in the Western European countries, Japan or Korea. If you reside anywhere else in the world, the Huawei P10 lite that's sold in your area supports only the 802.11 b/g/n standards on 2.4GHz frequency.

The Huawei P10 lite is a Dual SIM smartphone, which means that it can use two different SIM card simultaneously, from the same or different mobile operators. It works in Dual SIM Dual Standby, which means that your smartphone can have both SIM cards active at one time, but only as long as they are not used. As long as the SIM cards are both in Standby mode, you can make and receive calls on any of them. However, once you take a call on one SIM card, the other becomes inactive. The first SIM slot supports mobile 4G connections, and the secondary SIM slot supports only 2G networks. The secondary SIM slot can also be used to attach a Micro SD memory card to the smartphone instead of a second SIM card.

Huawei P10 lite has a variety of sensors built-in, such as an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a proximity sensor, a compass and a fingerprint reader on the back.

The smartphone is equipped with a non-removable Lithium-Polymer battery with a generous capacity of 3000 mAh. The battery should be able to keep the smartphone running for at least a day, even if you use it extensively.

Huawei P10 lite has 5.76 inches (146.5mm) in height, 2.83 inches (72mm) in width, and 0.28 inches (7.2mm) in depth. It weighs 5.15 ounces or 146 grams.

If you want to see all the official specifications of the Huawei P10 lite smartphone, visit its web page: Huawei P10 lite - Specifications.

The Huawei P10 lite offers a pleasant unboxing experience, and the hardware inside shows that we are dealing with an elegant, medium range device.

Design and build quality

The first thing that catches your eye on the Huawei P10 lite is the rounded glass used to cover both its screen and its back side. It looks stylish, but it also means that the smartphone is a fingerprint magnet and that you must take extra care when you put it down. The glass is slippery, and if you place the smartphone on a plane surface that is not well leveled, you could watch your smartphone slide across the table. 🙂 Other than that, if looks are what matters most to you, take our word for it, the Huawei P10 lite is one of those devices that turn heads when you take it out of your pockets or purse.

A good thing about the design and the materials used for making the Huawei P10 lite is the fact that its edges are made from metal. That gives you confidence that even if you hit or bump the smartphone occasionally, it can endure the mistreatment.

The front side of the smartphone is dominated by the 5.2-inch screen and the very thin left and right bezels. Under the display, you can see a Huawei silverish logo and nothing more, while the top of the screen is where the earpiece, the proximity sensor, and the 8-megapixel front camera are found.

On its right side, the Huawei P10 lite has the standard power button and volume rocker, towards the top. The volume rocker is made from a single metal piece, and it is a lot longer than the power button, and the power button also has a different texture, so it is easy to identify which is which, even if you don't look at the buttons.

The left edge of the smartphone holds only the SIM tray which you can eject using the pin bundled in the smartphone's box.

On the bottom edge, you can find the Micro USB port in the center, the microphone pinhole on its left, and the loudspeaker on its right.

The top edge of the smartphone is home only to the 3.5mm audio jack that is used for connecting the earphones.

On the back of the Huawei P10 lite, on the top left corner area, there is the main rear 12-megapixel camera and its flash. As you can see in the next photo, the camera lenses look very small. We will see later on if the camera does a good job or not.

In the top middle area of the smartphone's back, the Huawei P10 lite has its fingerprint sensor, slightly lowered inside the case. That makes it easy to identify and touch with your index finger even if you use the smartphone with only one hand. We must point out the fact that the fingerprint reader works very well and identifies fingerprints almost instantly. It is one of the best fingerprint sensors we have seen on a smartphone (among those we tested, of course).

The Huawei P10 lite is a beautiful smartphone with a traditional design. Everything from power button to volume rocker to the camera and fingerprint reader are in their usual places. It has become rather hard to innovate regarding new design for smartphones, but that is not a bad thing. Accommodating yourself to the Huawei P10 lite is a 10 minutes task.

The smartphone experience on the Huawei P10 lite

The Huawei P10 lite does an excellent job when it comes to its primary purpose of being a phone. Both the earpiece and the microphone are of high quality, and both you and the ones you speak to over the phone can understand each other easily.

We also appreciated the excellent signal reception that this smartphone delivers. During the time we used it, we did not encounter any radio signal drops.

The loudspeaker on the Huawei P10 lite is powerful, and we did not notice any sound distortions. However, we would not recommend that you rely on it when you want to watch a movie or listen to music. For that, the bundled earphones will do a better job.

As for the "smart" part of the smartphone experience, the Huawei P10 lite does great also. The eight cores of the processor and the 3GB or more of RAM are enough to give you a good multitasking experience. We did not see any stutters or lagging when we used the smartphone for browsing, watching videos, listening to music, scrolling on Facebook and other similar activities.

The Huawei P10 lite is a good smartphone, but it is not extraordinary when it comes to games. If you want to play new 3D games at high frame rates, you should probably look for a more expensive smartphone. The Huawei P10 lite smartphone can run all the latest games but not at highest graphics quality settings and certainly not at high frame rates.

The Huawei P10 lite managed to impress us with its battery. In average use that did not involve games, it managed to last us for a day and another couple of hours without needing to charge. On a day in which we played games roughly for an hour or so, and in a day when we also spent probably more than 2 hours on Facebook, the Huawei P10 lite smartphone asked to be charged in the evening. In any case, this is a device that will get you through the day without having to plug it into a power outlet.

The Huawei P10 lite is both a good phone and a good smartphone. It offers an excellent experience regarding phone calls sound quality and the radio signal reception is top-notch. We also appreciate the fluent experience in multitasking. The only downside of this smartphone is gaming, which doesn't compare with that of more expensive smartphones.

Read the next page of this review, and you will find out more about the camera experience, the software installed on the Huawei P10 lite, its performance in benchmarks and our final verdict.