Huawei P40 Lite, Touchdown and First Impressions

adminFebruary 27, 2020

0 6 minutes read

The Huawei company has just officially announced the arrival of the first member of the best Huawei mobiles, the P40 family, to the market. The Huawei P40 Lite model arrives as the most modest of the range at a price that starts at 299 euros, along with the true-wireless Freebuds 3 headphones.

The big day came when Huawei introduced the first mobile of the next P40 family. The Huawei P40 Lite has just been announced; it is the best Huawei mobile that opens the range and presumably lowers the price.

This mobile is a notable update from the P30 Lite with a new processor, Kirin 810, manufactured in 7nm, which will consume less and perform more than last year. The design has also been another differential point. And this mobile is committed to an all-screen design with a hole for the front camera.

Due to the political situation between the US and China, this model comes at a time when it cannot use Google Mobile Services, so Huawei continues to bet on Android 10 and EMUI 10 with its services and applications. Let’s see how this Huawei P40 Lite is.

Table of Contents

Content of the Huawei P40 Lite contact:

Design and display: Showy colors, glass finish, and screen hole

Software and performance: Without a trace of Google but with a promising Kirin 810 chip
Cameras and autonomy: 5 sensors to cover almost any use and finally, fast charging
Conclusions: A significant update at a meager price

Glass finish and all screens with a hole

Huawei has just launched a colorful terminal with green and white finishes with a bright pink gradient and one in black for the more traditional ones. That rear part shows a glass finish from which the pack of four cameras comes out approximately one millimeter in the upper left and reminiscent of the size of the Mate 20.

This rear glass curves at the edges to gently embed in the central part of the body, in metal with the same color finish, in matt. In that metallic body, we have on the right side the power button that doubles as a capacitive fingerprint reader and the volume buttons.

At the bottom, we find a pleasant surprise: the minijack, USB-C connector, microphone, and the main speaker, as we see, in a down-firing format. The left side is immaculate except for the upper part, where the tray for double nanoSIM or nanoSIM plus NMCard is located to expand the internal memory. The top of the phone only integrates the noise-canceling microphone.

If you look at this matte metal part, there is a small bezel that makes the black plastic support of the screen wholly concealed. The sensations the terminal has given us when picking it up are pleasant: premium material, not very heavy, and relatively compact for the screen size it mounts.

Let’s talk about the screen since we face a mobile that rushes the frames 6.4 inches diagonally with rounded corners and a hole in the upper left where the camera for selfies is housed.

The upper part of the screen, the call speaker, is integrated into the frame and, together with the sides of the screen, has the most minor structures being the most considerably lower, about 3 millimeters.

The impression that the screen has given us with the unaffected eye is that it does not offer all the brightness provided by mobiles of a similar category. Do not think that we mean that it is not enough brightness to be used indoors or even with outdoor light, but it seems somewhat more muted.

Be that as it may, we will have to wait for our laboratory measurements to contrast that feeling.

EMUI 10 without a Google trace and a promising Kirin 810 chip

Something that stands out when it comes to touching the terminal for the first time is that you can’t find any Google applications. While it is expected due to the current situation between the US and the company, we will have to deal with Huawei Mobile Services, that are implementing more services every day, although still behind Google Mobile Services.

We find an implementation of EMUI 10 on Android 10. This, coupled with 6 GB of RAM, makes the use of the terminal in terms of multitasking relatively light. At least, as we could see in our first contact. To install applications, we will have to use the App Gallery. And things have not changed much since we tested the Mate 30 Pro.

There are missing applications that most of the public uses daily and Huawei. Aware of that, it has developed Phone Clone. An app that is integrated into the terminal boot and that you can also use later. This allows you to pass applications, contacts, and multimedia content from your mobile to this new P40 Lite.

That way, you can have WhatsApp or Instagram, among others. It is true that applications integrated with GMS will not work correctly. Such as Cabify and those implementations that Huawei has proven not to work either. But at least it is a start. There is a quick method to install GMS through an APK. And although it has limitations, it will make the terminal a wearable Android mobile like any other.

During the analysis, we will go deeper into the topic of software. What we can comment on now is that it assembles a new processor. The Kirin 810 is a cut-out version of the Kirin 980. It is manufactured in 7nm, and although the GPU is less capable, a Mali G52 MP6 processor, Cortex A55. Two fast cores are lost, and the GPU is somewhat more modest than the Kirin 980. But in return, we see a notable improvement in CPU performance with the A76 vs. the A73 chips of the Kirin 710. It mounts two A76 cores and six more efficient processors.

During the short time we have tested it, we have only been able to verify that the operating system behaves very fluidly. And we will have to pass all the tests in our laboratory. We must check how much improvement there is in front of the Kirin 710. And if that GPU can perform enough to run state-of-the-art games smoothly. What is clear is that it is a more energy-efficient chip.

Five sensors to cover almost any use and, finally, fast charging in the Lite range

The mobile has five sensors, four in the back and one in the front. We see how the camera software follows the line of unifying interface in EMUI 10. And is very similar to the Huawei P30 or the Mate 30 Pro. With the provision that there are not some of advanced functions of these.

We have a carousel of options in which we can choose between the traditional modes of Huawei: Portrait, Opening, and night. And even one in which we can put emojis. How is the rear camera pack? As we see, in the rear camera, there is no sensor with telephoto optics; the mobile seems to offer 2X Zoom in some modes. Still, we understand that it will be a cut from the full resolution of 48 Mpx of the primary sensor through pixel binning. You can get photographs of 12 Mpx with more exceptional brightness.

In return, it integrates a macro sensor with a very close fixed focus and large photodiodes. It is a functionality that seems to be fashionable this year. And the truth is that the result with zoom or with a full angle sensor is very similar. We have to test it thoroughly to tell you how the system works.

What Huawei has said is that there is an AI system that detects the content of a video you record. And generates a shorter version that shows its highlights in the device’s gallery. It is something that we would like to test thoroughly. We analyzed it since we found it interesting if it works well, and we wanted to see how this mobile mounts a battery of 4,200 mAh. And fast charge SuperCharge 40W. That is the exact configuration of, for example, the flagship of last year, the P30 Pro.

With this battery, it should be possible to reach two days without much problem. Thanks to that, more efficient chips, among others. In addition to Huawei’s most advanced fast charging, it should be able to charge in just over an hour. We will check it in our analysis.

This a significant update at a very content price. And Huawei is selling this terminal at a rate of 299 euros. Along with True Wireless headphones with active noise cancellation that we liked so much, the FreeBuds 3. These headphones have a sale price of around 150 euros.

That is, we are seeing how Huawei continues to take steps in a situation that is not comfortable and imposed by the US government. We look forward to thoroughly analyzing the terminal and seeing how it performs. The screen quality and if we can deal with Huawei Mobile Services daily. Or we will have to take a step towards GMS methods. This mobile is a natural hardware update compared to last year’s Huawei P30 Lite. With significant improvements in autonomy, the camera and the design is a mobile that gives better sensations.