Huawei P8 Lite 2017 Micro Sim

Update: Huawei P8 Lite no longer available

Since its initial inception, Huawei'south P8 Light was highly regarded equally an excellent budget alternative. it might not accept been Moto-levels of adept but in the areas that matter, the P8 Lite offered plenty of goodies for a wallet-friendly price.

Sadly, the P8 Calorie-free is no more. Huawei'south "Low-cal" variants of its flagship phones are still being offered, although you'll be expected to pay a fiddling more than yous would have done previously. Huawei's P20 Lite, which is its most contempo cheaper flagship model, costs £230 and should be a solid pick if y'all didn't want to spend oodles of cash, without sacrificing likewise much when it comes to performance and design.

Regardless, Chris' original Huawei P8 Low-cal review continues beneath.

Huawei P8 Lite review

The Huawei P8 Lite 2017 is a dual-SIM smartphone that features a 5.2in Full HD brandish, a fingerprint reader and an octa-cadre processor, and runs on Android vii Nougat. Its toll? £185. In fact, you can now notice information technology fifty-fifty cheaper SIM-free on Amazon.

This is nil new, all the same, and the competition at this cost is violent, with handsets such every bit the slinky Award 6X (£225), the long-lasting Lenovo P2 (£200) and the all-round fantabulous Moto G4 2016 (£150) all making a strong example. Can the Huawei P8 Lite step in and provide another solid alternative?

READ NEXT: Our pick of the best budget smartphones

Huawei P8 Low-cal 2017 review: Design and build

Huawei has shown in recent times that information technology knows how to make a good-quality smartphone, and the P8 Calorie-free 2017 is no exception. Information technology looks and feels just like an iPhone. Many phones practice nowadays, of form, but with its distinctive curved edges and "Piano Black" finish, this phone looks uncannily similar to a Jet Black iPhone than nearly.

When you become closer to information technology, it'south clear this isn't a premium Apple tree product, only it's decent pattern for a low-budget smartphone. It's larger than the iPhone 7 for starters, but its v.2in Total Hard disk display is almost every bit easy to employ one-handed, and it feels well counterbalanced in your hand.

The fingerprint reader is at the back rather than at the forepart, a design pick I prefer over a front-mounted reader, and information technology's accompanied at the rear by a 12-megapixel camera and single-LED flash. Around the front, there'due south an 8-megapixel selfie camera, the display and the Huawei logo. There are no capacitive buttons, though: Huawei has opted to use onscreen navigation buttons instead.

It's also good to come across Huawei retaining the 3.5mm headphone socket, hither found on the top edge of the phone, with the volume rocker and power buttons on the right-hand side, a dual-SIM slot on the left (SIM slot ii can also take a 256GB microSD card), and a micro-USB charging port and a single down-firing speaker on the bottom.

For the coin, in that location'due south no dubiousness the Huawei P8 Lite 2017 is a looker, simply I exercise have bug with a few applied elements of the design. The plastic frame surrounding the screen, for instance, lowers the tone, as does the standard glass, which appears not to have been treated with an oleophobic coating. That means it picks up greasy fingerprints similar crazy and information technology'due south quite a challenge to keep it clean.

I was also shocked at how apace and hands the telephone got scratched. Subsequently a few days of simply putting it downwards and picking it up from the desk-bound, it had already started to pick upwardly unsightly scuffs and marks. I can't imagine what would happen to information technology if you lot absent-mindedly dropped information technology in your pocket with a set of keys. A example and/or and screen protectors for the forepart and rear would appear to be essential purchases.

READ NEXT: Lenovo P2 review – sensational bombardment life

All-time Huawei P8 Low-cal contract and SIM-free deals

Huawei P8 Lite 2017 review: Display

The P8 Lite 2017 comes with a five.2in Full HD (1,080 x one,920) IPS display resulting in a respectable pixel density of 424ppi. The screen's biggest forcefulness is its effulgence: it's among the brightest screens I've ever ready my eyes on. I measured it at a blinding 700 cd/m2, significant it'll be readable in fifty-fifty the sunniest conditions.

The screen'due south contrast ratio is pretty high, likewise, at 1,553:1, with deep blackness and bright whites contributing to dynamic images and video, and I had no problems with viewing angles either. The phone employs dynamic contrast, however, which can't exist disabled, boosting its effulgence levels when displaying white or light content onscreen, which could potentially have a negative touch on on bombardment life.

The display's weakness is its colour representation, which isn't great. With an 86% sRGB coverage, images wait slightly dull and murky when compared with the Lenovo P2's 99.ix% sRGB coverage display.

Huawei P8 Lite 2017 review: Software

Android 7 Nougat is a fantastic operating system, and I'm pleased to say that it'southward included with the Huawei P8 Lite 2017. This isn't a stock installation, though, as Huawei has its Android Emotion v UI (EMUI) skin installed on the phone.

EMUI is very much a love-it-or-hate-information technology thing. Personally, I don't mind it at all. I detect it user-friendly and information technology performs well without sucking also much operation out of the phone. Granted, it uses actress RAM as do all 3rd-political party launchers, but I'm still a fan of EMUI's integration over other Android interfaces, such as Samsung'south TouchWiz.

I particularly like its storage cleaner, which speedily frees up infinite and wipes your phone's enshroud. The ability-direction functionalities are also useful for prolonging bombardment life and roughly seeing how many hours you've got left.

I certainly didn't experience any major hiccups with the software and felt it was able to handle everything I threw at it while providing a smoothen yet snappy performance on a daily footing.

Huawei P8 Lite 2017 review: Functioning

The P8 Lite 2017 is powered by an octa-core (four x 2.1GHz Cortex-A53 & 4 x 1.7GHz Cortex-A53) Kirin 655 processor. It also has 3GB of RAM, which is plenty for your multitasking needs. I didn't experience whatsoever hitches when using the phone equally my daily driver.

Looking at constructed benchmarks, the P8 Calorie-free 2017 performs well when compared to its budget competitors. In the Geekbench four multi-core test, the Huawei P8 Light (2017) achieved a result of 3,237, mere inches behind the Award 6X and marginally better than the Lenovo P2 and Moto G4.

In the Geekbench 4 unmarried-cadre benchmarks, the P8 Lite 2017 achieved a score of 780, putting it behind the Lenovo P2 (813) and the Honor 6X (784), while beating the Moto G4 (719). These aren't differences that will brand a huge difference in solar day-to-twenty-four hours use.

It's a similar story with the phone's Mali-T830MP2 GPU – it's a reasonable performer, on a par with its main rivals, but falls far behind flagship phones. When playing Cobblestone 8: Airborne and Temple Run 2, the phone coped well and didn't experience jittery. Using GFXBench to criterion the phone synthetically against other budget smartphones, its onscreen performance was on a par with the Laurels 6X. The P8 Light 2017 returned an average frame rate of 8.4fps in comparison to the Lenovo P2'due south 10fps, Honor 6X'southward 8.4fps and Moto G4's 7.7fps.

Battery life is less impressive. The telephone's non-removable 3,000mAh battery helped it last 10hrs 24mins in our video-playback exam. That'due south nothing more than mediocre, and it lags a long mode behind the Lenovo P2 and its v,100mAh bombardment. That phone lasted an incredible 28hrs 50mins in the same test.

Even fix against its illustrious opposition, such as the Laurels 6X, whose 3,350mAh battery gave it a run fourth dimension of 11hrs 18mins, the Huawei P8 Light 2017 is a impact below average.

READ NEXT: Moto G4 review – one of the best upkeep smartphones of 2017

Huawei P8 Light 2017 review: Camera

The phone's 12-megapixel rear-facing camera with an aperture of f/two.0 isn't bad for a £185 smartphone. The P8 Lite 2017 doesn't have stage-notice autofocus or optical image stabilisation, merely that's to be expected for a phone at this cost point.

Information technology holds its ground in low-light conditions, producing images that aren't riddled with racket. Looking back at my test shots on the PC, I felt the images had a vibrant tone to them, but besides held the right residue, where the sample shots weren't oversaturated.

I as well establish the white residual to be on bespeak and automated exposures well judged. However, I did notice a lack of detail on objects at a altitude; every bit yous can encounter in the test shot below, the brickwork is a picayune blurred.

^ Taken without HDR

This good performance extends to the camera flash. Although a fairly basic single LED, it was good to run into that it didn't add that unwanted blueish hue to images. Many upkeep smartphones take on a blue tone, which spoils the colours in an image.

On a negative annotation, the camera'southward HDR fashion proved of limited benefit, with only pocket-sized improvements in my indoor shots and barely any differences when comparing outdoor HDR shots with non-HDR shots.

^ Indoor shot with HDR and background lighting

You can make more of a difference if you lot take the time to dabble with the Pro camera mode. This lets you set white rest, exposure compensation, ISO and shutter speed, and allows you to fiddle with various metering and autofocus modes equally well. In that location's fifty-fifty a pro video style that allows you to lock in white balance and gear up exposure bounty, metering and autofocus mode. Alas, there's no way to lock exposure in pro video fashion, which sort of defeats the object, and it can't capture in 4K, instead it's express to 1080p at 30fps.

^ Prototype taken with flash (HDR off)

Despite producing respectable images, however, the P8 Lite 2017 isn't at the same level as the Moto G4, the best mobile phone camera at this price point. Images on the Moto G4 are sharper, take less image dissonance in low-lite weather condition and look more vibrant.

Huawei P8 Lite 2017 review: Verdict

The Huawei P8 Low-cal 2017 has stiff competition from the Honor 6X, Lenovo P2 and Moto G4, and it is this that ultimately proves its undoing. While it looks nice and performs well for a £185 smartphone, it's let downward in other areas by its easily scratched drinking glass back, its tendency to pick up clay and crud, and its mediocre battery life. The camera is decent merely is outshone past the Motorola Moto G4.

In short, while you certainly won't be disappointed by the Huawei P8 Lite if you happened to purchase one, at that place are other smartphones I'd recommend over it. If y'all want the very all-time bombardment life, choose the Lenovo P2; if yous desire the best all-rounder with the best camera, get for the Motorola Moto G4. The P8 Calorie-free, alas, falls just behind both of these.

Hardware
Processor	Octa-core (4 x 2.1GHz Cortex-A53 & 4 x 1.7GHz Cortex-A53)
RAM	3GB
Screen size	5.2in
Screen resolution	one,080 x 1,920
Screen type	IPS
Front camera	8 megapixels
Rear camera	12 megapixels
Flash	LED
GPS	Yes
Compass	Yes
Storage	16GB
Retention carte du jour slot (supplied)	microSD (256GB)
Wi-Fi	802.11bgn
Bluetooth	Bluetooth 4.1
NFC	Yes
Wireless data	3G, 4G
Dimensions	147.two ten 72.9 x 7.6mm
Weight	147g
Features
Operating system	Android 7
Battery size	3,000mAh