Huawei P30 Lite First Impressions

The Huawei P30 series of smartphones has finally arrived in India, and while the buzz is mostly centred on the flagship Huawei P30 Pro and its photography prowess, its lower-end sibling — the Huawei P30 Lite — is also an attractive new offering in its price bracket. The Huawei P30 Lite borrows design elements from the Huawei P30 Pro and offers competent hardware, at least on paper, at a starting price of Rs. 19,990. At the Huawei P30 series' launch event in India, we had a brief hands-on experience with the Huawei P30 Lite, and here's what we think about the Chinese smartphone maker's latest mid-range offering.

The Huawei P30 Lite, despite being a budget-friendly smartphone that costs less than one-third of the Huawei P30 Pro's asking price, doesn't skimp on the flashiness and still looks gorgeous. The gradient finish on the Peacock Blue variant exhibits wavy patterns and catches the eye when light falls on it at different angles. There is also another variant called Midnight Black, which sports an understated glossy black finish.

In addition to aesthetics, the Huawei P30 Lite also offers a nice in-hand feel with a decent grip thanks to the curved 3D glass exterior. It doesn't feel too large either, despite packing a 6.15-inch full-HD+ (2312x1080 pixels) display. This phone uses an LCD panel and has a 90 percent screen-to-body ratio, thanks to a waterdrop notch at the top. The colours on the screen looked good to us, and the viewing angles were fine, but we didn't get a chance to test this phone's display under sunlight.

The Huawei P30 Lite packs a 6.15-inch display with a screen-to-body ratio of 90 percent

As is the case with many glass-bodied smartphones, there is no escaping smudges with the Huawei P30 Lite. The dimensions of this phone are 152.9x72.7x7.4mm, and at 152g, it is relatively light. Under the hood, the Huawei P30 Lite is based on the octa-core Kirin 710 SoC paired with either 4GB or 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.

The whole package is kept up and running by a 3,340mAh battery, and this phone supports 18W fast charging. EMUI 9.0.1, based on Android 9 Pie, runs things on the software side. Switching between apps was fluid and the UI felt snappy overall in our brief experience with the Huawei P30 Lite, but we'll soon be putting it through all our tests to bring you more details of its performance.

The imaging hardware on the rear of this phone consists of a 24-megapixel (f/1.8) wide-angle camera assisted by an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. On the front is a 32-megapixel (f/2.0) camera with support for features including 3D panoramas, AR stickers, and portrait mode. This affordable phone indeed lacks the Huawei P30 Pro's periscope wizardry and the much-talked-about 5x optical zoom capability, but the specifications and the impressive build quality of the Huawei P30 Lite could still make it a compelling smartphone in its price bracket.

We'll hold off on our final verdict till we complete our review, in which we will thoroughly assess the Huawei P30 Lite's camera performance, battery longevity, gaming capabilities, and other key parameters. Stay tuned to Gadgets 360 for our in-depth review, set to arrive soon.