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Introduction
What looks like a Huawei P30, feels like a P30, snaps photos like a P30, and yet it's cheaper and lighter? Well, Huawei would have you believe it's the Huawei P30 Lite. At first glance, it's got an equally stunning design, promising gaming capabilities, but above all - it comes with one skilled triple-camera on the back.
Huawei's Lite models have often been left out of the spotlight in favor of the P and Mate headliners. But when the cogs of the well-oiled PR machine no longer need to spin for the big guns, they are put to good use in the marketing of the Lite model, previously mentioned just briefly by the maker.
And now, it's the Huawei P30 Lite's turn to take center stage - and it's our chance to complete the review series for the Huawei P30 family.
The Huawei P30 Lite has the captivating looks of the more expensive P30 models with all the bells and whistles - curves, glossy frame, gradient back. And speaking of the back, there is a triple-camera on the back as well, though not as advanced as on the regular P30 - it can snap regular and ultra-wide photos and Night Mode is available, but optical zoom is missing.
Ed. note. We are reviewing the EU version of this model, which has a 48MP main camera on the back instead of the 24MP one found in other regions.
Finally, the Kirin 710 chipset designed and manufactured by Huawei has already proven as a gaming-friendly handler and we can't wait to try it once more. But before all that, a quick specs inspection follows.
Huawei P30 Lite specs
- Body: Dual-glass with plastic frame; Peacock Blue, Midnight Black, Pearl White color schemes; 159g.
- Screen: 6.15" LTPS IPS LCD, 1,080x2,312px resolution (415ppi); waterdrop notch.
- Chipset: Kirin 710 chipset, octa-core processor (4x2.2GHz Cortex-A73 + 4x1.7GHz Cortex-A53), Mali-G51 MP14 GPU.
- Memory: 4/6GB RAM, 128GB storage (expandable via a microSD - hybrid slot).
- OS: Android 9 Pie with EMUI 9.0.
- Camera: Main: 48MP, f/1.8, 27mm, PDAF; ultra wide: 8MP, f/2.4, 17mm, fixed-focus; depth sensor: 2MP, f/2.4; Video: 1080p@30/60fps capture, EIS.
- Selfie cam: 24MP, f/2.0, Portrait Mode with live bokeh effects.
- Battery: 3,340mAh; Fast Charge 18W.
- Connectivity: Dual SIM, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac; GPS; Bluetooth 4.2 + LE, NFC, USB Type-C, 3.5mm jack.
- Misc: Rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, single bottom-firing loudspeaker.
So, the Lite isn't as powerful as the P30, but is no feeble either. And while it can do lossless zoom, it should still ace the night shots. There is a lot to explore and so far the only caveat coming to mind is the lack of waterproofing.
Unboxing the Huawei P30 Lite
The P30 Lite retail bundle contains the usual - a USB-C cable, an 18W charger, and one cheap-looking headset.
The phone should be packed with a transparent case in some markets, but you have to confirm this with your local Huawei website.
Finally, the P30 Lite has a factory-applied screen protector, which isn't of top quality, but we are glad it's there anyway.
Design
Our Huawei P30 collection is finally complete now that the Lite has joined the regular and Pro model. Quite different models those three, but on the outside, it's hard to tell them apart. Can you?
The Huawei P30 series
Indeed, the P30 phones share a similar design language - a dual-glass body, edge-to-edge display with a dewdrop-like notch, dazzling paint job, and a vertically-oriented tri-eyed camera deck.
The Huawei P30 series
Enough teasing though, the regular P30 is on the left, the Pro is in the middle, and the Lite is on the right. It's a pretty family picture though, isn't it?
We are glad Huawei is sticking to its captivating color options even though lately these gained massive momentum and even the cheapest of the Chinese phones are already offering such eye-catchy paint jobs.
And while on the outside the family resemblance is obvious, the Lite has some differences you can feel once you pick it up in your hand.
For starters, the Lite's frame is made of plastic. It's shiny, it's glossy, and Huawei matched its paint with the main theme of the gradient back. But it may be more prone to scratches than if it were a metal one.
Huawei P30 Lite
Then there is the screen. It looks as large as the one on the P30 and with the same tiny notch, but there is actually a minor difference in the size - the Lite has a 6.15" panel while the P30 has a 6.1". It's fine if you can see the difference in size, but in real life, you may be able to tell them apart as the Lite has an LCD screen, while the P30 uses an OLED.
The cutout at the top houses the 24MP selfie shooter, while above it is a very thin earpiece grille. And around the left corner of that grille is a green notification LED.
The back of the P30 Lite can be stunning, and even mesmerizing if you will, when you have it in the signature Peacock Blue option.
Or if you don't want such a pretentious paint job, the uniform Pearl White or Midnight Black are excellent alternatives, too.
The triple camera is on the back and is humping quite a bit. First at its top is the 2MP depth sensor, followed by the 8MP ultra-wide-angle snapper, and the final camera is the 48MP primary. The LED flash is outside, below this camera deck.
And speaking of the back, the glass panel is curved towards the longer sides, while the whole thing has a subtle 2.5D finish. This is quite a common trend, but while it may be hurting the grip a bit, it boosts the looks and the illusion of an even slimmer profile.
The Huawei P30 Lite has no ingress protection whatsoever. But it can brag with standards connectors - there is a USB-C port at the bottom, and a 3.5mm audio jack, while its hybrid SIM slot supports a regular microSD card.
Huawei P30 Lite
The Huawei P30 Lite measures 152.9 x 72.7 x 7.4 mm, which is about 4mm taller than the regular P30. It weighs 159 g, 6g less than the P30.
Handling the P30 Lite is what you'd expect from a dual-glass design. It can be slippery, but it's not as slippery as some other more demanding lookers. If this bothers you, then a case is always an option, Huawei may be even bundling one with the Lite in your market.
There is only one thing we found concerning about the build - there is a tiny gap between the frame and the rear glass, which may accumulate some dust particles over time. We can't be sure as we had the phone for a week, but it's a valid concern and we've expressed it so you can take it into consideration.
A 6.15" LTPS IPS LCD display
The Huawei P30 Lite is equipped with a 6.15-inch IPS display with a dewdrop notch in the middle. It matches the size and even the cutout of the P30's display, though the flagship one is of the OLED kind. Well, if we really need to be punctual, the Lite's display is a tiny little bit larger.
The Lite brings yet another tall screen with an aspect ratio of 19.5:9, which has become somewhat of a standard these days. The resolution is 2312x1080px that makes for a pixel density of 415ppi - pretty good numbers these days.
In our testing, the P30 Lite posted good numbers for brightness and contrast though we've seen better even in this class. There's a small boost in auto mode, adding 20-something nits over the ones you can get in manual.
The minimal brightness we measured turned out excellent at mere 1 nit.
| Display test | 100% brightness | ||
| Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | ||
| 0.39 | 480 | 1231 | |
| 0.413 | 501 | 1213 | |
| 0.27 | 482 | 1785 | |
| 0 | 449 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 635 | ∞ | |
| 0.358 | 479 | 1338 | |
| 0.414 | 470 | 1135 | |
| 0.313 | 460 | 1470 | |
| 0.344 | 441 | 1282 | |
| 0.346 | 427 | 1234 | |
| 0 | 424 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 551 | ∞ | |
| 0.332 | 473 | 1425 | |
| 0.469 | 590 | 1258 | |
Now let's talk color accuracy. The Huawei P30 Lite can be impressively accurate in representing the sRGB color space. In the Normal+Default display setting it achieves an average DeltaE of 1.4 with a maximum deviation of 2.8. If you want, you can tweak it even further with the manual options.
That's not the default mode, though, because people tend to prefer livelier colors. The Vivid+Default setting (the actual out-of-the-box state) delivers those, but it also renders quite bluish whites and over the top blues. The Vivid mode covers the DCI-P3 color space and we measured an average DeltaE of 6.3 with a maximum deviation of 11.7.
One issue we observed is the less than ideal backlight uniformity of the panel. On bright screens you'll be able to notice some dimming around the edges - it's not a deal breaker, but it's there. Also, looking at the display even at a slight angle is quick to introduce a contrast shift, but that may or may not bother you.
Battery life
The Huawei P30 Lite packs a 3,340mAh battery, up from the 3,000mAh of last year's P20 Lite model. It does have a larger display area to light up, though, so the battery life score is not clear just by looking at the numbers.
The Kirin 710 chip is newer and more efficient, which eventually turned out for the better for the P30 Lite and it posted much better battery scores than the P20 Lite. This year's model showed vastly improved endurance in standby, 3G voice calls, and Wi-Fi web browsing, and it also benefitted from a slight increase in video playback longevity.
Overall, the Huawei P30 Lite Endurance rating works out to 94 hours - a tangible 17-hour improvement over the predecessor.
The P30 Lite supports 18W fast charging and the bundled charger replenishes 35% of a dead battery in half an hour.
Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSer App. The endurance rating above denotes how long a single battery charge will last you if you use the Huawei P30 Lite for an hour each of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. We've established this usage pattern so that our battery results are comparable across devices in the most common day-to-day tasks. The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritty. You can check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.
Loudspeaker
The Huawei P30 Lite has a single bottom-firing speaker at its disposal, just like the Lites to come before it. A stereo setup might be out of the question, but the speaker can still put on a good show and scored an Excellent mark in our test. Unfortunately, when playing music over YouTube or the default Music player the speaker sounds noticeably quieter. Worse, the output is rather mediocre and lacks in the high and low frequencies.
| Speakerphone test | Voice, dB | Ringing |
Overall score | |
| 66.2 | 68.3 | 73.6 | Good | |
| 68.3 | 73.8 | 75.8 | Good | |
| 67.1 | 72.9 | 81.6 | Very Good | |
| 67.8 | 70.0 | 84.2 | Very Good | |
| 66.3 | 71.5 | 84.9 | Very Good | |
| 66.6 | 74.4 | 81.8 | Very Good | |
| 68.9 | 71.3 | 82.7 | Very Good | |
| 71.5 | 73.8 | 83.1 | Excellent | |
| 70.0 | 73.8 | 87.0 | Excellent | |
| 69.8 | 71.5 | 90.5 | Excellent | |
| 83.2 | 75.6 | 83.5 | Excellent |
Audio quality
The Huawei P30 lite had mostly excellent readings in the active external amplifier test, save for the stereo crosstalk, which was a bit higher than we are used to seeing from smartphones these days. Still, it’s nothing to lose sleep over as stereo quality remains solid. More troubling is the below average loudness, which is present both here and when we plugged in a pair of headphones.
On the upside, plugging in hеadphones did little damage to the accuracy of the output and it remained great. Whether the sub-par loudness will actually matter in your daily usage depends on the impedance of your headphones. If it’s not too high you should be very happy with the P30 lite, otherwise, you might find it struggling to keep up.
| Test | Frequency response | Noise level | Dynamic range | THD | IMD + Noise | Stereo crosstalk |
| +0.03, -0.01 | -94.4 | 94.2 | 0.0015 | 0.0076 | -71.2 | |
| +0.12, -0.06 | -93.6 | 93.4 | 0.0032 | 0.097 | -56.8 | |
| +0.03, -0.06 | -93.4 | 93.2 | 0.0009 | 0.0082 | -92.3 | |
| +0.30, -0.12 | -92.0 | 91.9 | 0.102 | 0.231 | -47.0 | |
| +0.04, -0.04 | -92.2 | 91.9 | 0.0032 | 0.015 | -97.1 | |
| +0.05, -0.03 | -96.1 | 91.6 | 0.0033 | 0.024 | -56.4 | |
| +0.04, -0.00 | -93.3 | 93.2 | 0.0029 | 0.0077 | -93.8 | |
| +0.07, -0.01 | -92.9 | 93.2 | 0.015 | 0.076 | -68.8 | |
| +0.04, -0.04 | -90.7 | 90.7 | 0.0015 | 0.014 | -94.5 | |
| +0.05, -0.29 | -92.5 | 92.5 | 0.024 | 0.296 | -55.0 | |
| +0.01, -0.04 | -92.3 | 92.4 | 0.0041 | 0.0085 | -80.7 | |
| +0.45, -0.54 | -92.2 | 92.8 | 0.0084 | 0.492 | -51.5 |
Huawei P30 lite frequency response
You can learn more about the tested parameters and the whole testing process here.
Android 9 and EMUI 9.0.1
The Huawei P30 Lite boots Android 9 Pie with Huawei's own EMUI on top, itself version 9 as well. There is a newer version 9.1 available on the high-end P30 models, which has a brand-new file system called EROFS, but it's not on the Lite.
The P30 Lite has a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner and it's among the best in terms of speed and accuracy. Face Unlock is available, but it just uses the front camera, which means it's less secure and can potentially be fooled by a picture. So, if privacy is of utmost importance, you may want to avoid this option.
Fingerprint ID • Face ID
Like all EMUI-driven devices, you can set up a magazine lockscreen style that changes the picture every time you wake up the screen. Sliding from the bottom will bring out quick shortcuts to some commonly used utilities. As usual, we found it to be useful and a bit annoying at the same time because there were times when we just wanted to unlock the phone, but we brought out the menu instead.
On the homescreen you will find all of the installed and system apps but there's a toggle in the settings menu that lets you choose between the standard layout or a homescreen with an app drawer. It's a personal preference and it's good to be able to choose.
Lockscreen • Tools • Magazine unlock • Homescreen • Homescreen style
Swiping to the right from the homescreen will bring up your Google Feed while swiping down from an empty area lets you search in your apps and contacts. On other makers' launchers that last action could bring down the notification shade, but not here.
You can, however, pull down the shade by swiping on the fingerprint reader, then double tap to dismiss all notifications and swipe back up to hide the shade - no more reaching for the top bezel when using this tall 19.5:9 screen. This is a setting that you need to enable in the fingerprint ID section of the settings menu, it's not on by default.
The notification shade itself is nothing out of the ordinary. It can fit three rows with five quick launch icons for each row and right under the icons, you will find the screen brightness slider.
The notch on the P30 Lite may be minimal, but you still get the option to hide it altogether by painting the entire status bar black.
Google Feed • App/contacts search • Notification shade • Notch settings
Multitasking is a familiar affair. Holding the Recent key will let you activate the split screen mode. You could even have a video playing on top of the two windows if for some reason you find that useful.
Notification area • Toggles • Recent apps • Split screen • Split screen
As we've seen on other recent Huawei/Honor devices, on the P30 Lite you can opt for gesture-based navigation if the classic navbar is too 2018 for you. It goes like this - swipe up for Home, swipe up and stop midway for Task switcher, or swipe from the left or right edge of the screen for Back.
From the Phone Manager app, you can access shortcuts to storage cleanup, battery settings, blocked numbers, Virus scan powered by Avast, and mobile data usage.
Huawei's own Music app offers a way to listen to stored MP3s, while Huawei's Health app offers Google Fit syncing and step counting. The gallery is an entirely custom job too, but it has the usual chronological and albums views plus an AI powered highlights selection. There's a file manager app and a note-taking app. And if you don't like any of those - there is an abundance of alternatives in the Play Store.
FM radio support is available on the P30 Lite and you get a propriate app as well.
Phone Manager • Music Player • Gallery • Files • FM radio
Performance and benchmarks
The P30 Lite is powered by Huawei's own midrange Kirin 710 chipset. It's made on a 12nm process (its efficiency already proven in the battery chapter) and features an octa-core CPU in a 4x2.2 GHz Cortex-A73 & 4x1.7 GHz Cortex-A53 configuration. The GPU is a Mali-G51 MP4. The P30 Lite is available with either 4GB (ours) or 6GB of RAM.
Huawei has made its Performance mode available to anyone and you can find the switch in the Battery settings of the P30 Lite. The Performance mode offers a small speed boost in some instances (mostly in raw CPU power), but not for long as the phone gets warm quickly and it automatically reverts to its safe settings until it cools down.
The net result is minor, if any, boost across all benchmark tests for the first run. Yes, that's it. You can get a sustainable 5% boost from the regular mode over time, while the 10% bump is for the first few minutes only. So, we are not sure if the extra heat and battery drain are worth the hassle.
When it comes to single-core CPU performance, the Huawei P30 Lite is performing admirably, bested only by the faster cores inside the Galaxy A50.
GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)
Higher is better
- Samsung Galaxy A50
1715 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
1650 - Honor 8X
1618 - Huawei P30 Lite (perf. mode)
1576 - Realme U1
1567 - Huawei P30 Lite
1534 - Realme 3 Pro
1471 - Realme 2 Pro
1462 - Sony Xperia 10 Plus
1340 - Samsung Galaxy A40
1325 - Huawei P20 Lite
938
When all cores work together the P30 Lite is a match for the Snapdragon 660 (Realme 2 Pro) and not the far behind from the Snapdragon 710 (Realme 3 Pro) and Helio P70 (Realme U1).
GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)
Higher is better
- Realme U1
6004 - Realme 3 Pro
5881 - Honor 8X
5651 - Huawei P30 Lite (perf. mode)
5549 - Realme 2 Pro
5531 - Huawei P30 Lite
5523 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
5411 - Samsung Galaxy A50
5396 - Sony Xperia 10 Plus
4780 - Samsung Galaxy A40
4112 - Huawei P20 Lite
3756
In the graphics department, the Huawei P30 Lite outperforms or matches its rivals but the Realme 3 Pro with its Adreno 616 GPU as part of the upper-tier Snapdragon 710 chip.
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Realme 3 Pro
20 - Huawei P30 Lite
13 - Huawei P30 Lite (perf. mode)
13 - Honor 8X
13 - Samsung Galaxy A50
13 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
13 - Realme 2 Pro
12 - Realme U1
12 - Sony Xperia 10 Plus
8.4 - Samsung Galaxy A40
7.4 - Huawei P20 Lite
4.9
GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Realme 3 Pro
11 - Samsung Galaxy A50
8 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
7.7 - Realme 2 Pro
7.2 - Realme U1
7.1 - Huawei P30 Lite
7 - Huawei P30 Lite (perf. mode)
6.9 - Honor 8X
6.7 - Sony Xperia 10 Plus
5 - Samsung Galaxy A40
4.6 - Huawei P20 Lite
2.8
The 3DMark Unlimited test score didn't turn out as good as the GFX ones, but it's in the same ballpark as its rivals.
3DMark SSE 3.1 Unlimited
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
1409 - Samsung Galaxy A50
1353 - Realme 2 Pro
1291 - Realme U1
1133 - Sony Xperia 10 Plus
1002 - Huawei P30 Lite (perf. mode)
988 - Huawei P30 Lite
985 - Samsung Galaxy A40
647
Over at the compound AnTuTu test the Huawei P30 Lite shows some real muscle and is on par with its
AnTuTu 7
Higher is better
- Realme 3 Pro
155647 - Samsung Galaxy A50
144574 - Realme U1
144436 - Huawei P30 Lite (perf. mode)
141600 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
139075 - Honor 8X
137276 - Realme 2 Pro
132958 - Huawei P30 Lite
129887 - Sony Xperia 10 Plus
120573 - Samsung Galaxy A40
106388 - Huawei P20 Lite
87431
Kirin's latest cost-efficient chipset is a close match for the Snapdragon 660, Exynos 9610, and Helio P70, while it's not that far behind the Snapdragon 710. There is not much heat build-up on the P30 Lite even at peak loads and it rarely throttles, if at all. The phone handles gaming very well, with balanced and sustained performance, and we didn't experience any major hiccups in day-to-day OS operations.
A triple camera on the back
The Huawei P30 Lite has a triple camera on its back - the main 48MP PDAF f/1.8 snapper is joined by an 8MP fixed-focus, f/2.4 ultra-wide, and a 2MP, fixed-focus, f/2.4 depth sensor. There is also a single LED flash around.
The main camera uses a 48MP sensor, probably a Sony IMX 586 or similar, and has a quad-Bayer array for pixel binning. The resulting image is 12MP in resolution but with less noise. You can shoot in full 48MP though and under the right circumstances, you can even get that image in native resolution. But more on that - in a bit.
Huawei's AI is available, and it can be turned quickly on or off via a toggle on the viewfinder. It will recognize 22 categories of scenes and adjust image parameters accordingly, though the real-life effect, as a general rule, is pumped up contrast and boosted colors.
There is also Huawei's Night mode - it will produce usable pictures, even if it has its limitations. It creates pseudo long exposures by stacking multiple frames gathering light along the way. We're talking six-second-long hand-held exposures which would otherwise result in a blurry mess. Those are not always keepers and you still need to have a reasonably steady hand, but you'll be getting usable photos in situations you'd otherwise get none. The mode also does a remarkable job of retaining color where others would lose saturation.
The camera app
Other than that, the camera app would be familiar to anyone who's picked up a recent Huawei smartphone, which means it's messy and scattered as usual. Pro mode is available via the mode selector and there you can adjust the parameters yourself - ISO (50 to 3200), shutter speed (1/4000s to 30s), exposure compensation (-4 to +4EV in 1/3 stop increments), and white balance (presets and light temperature).
Ever since artificially defocused backgrounds became all the rage, Huawei phones have been offering both a Portrait mode and an Aperture mode. In Aperture, you can choose the simulated aperture in the range from f/0.95 to f/16. Post shot, you can change the aperture and the focus point within the Gallery.
In Portrait mode you can enable and disable the background blur, you can change the simulated lighting, and you can also add some beautification on a scale from 0 to 10.
Image quality
The Huawei P30 Lite aims to be great when it comes to photo quality and we are not disappointed. We've observed consistent performance during the day with an impressive dynamic range, good colors, and excellent sharpness even if the default photos less contrasty than ideal. We can say for sure that the Quad Bayer technology works as advertised so you better stick to the 12MP mode - the level of detail is pretty flagship-grade.
Huawei P30 Lite 12MP camera samples
Also, you might as well leave the AI on this time around as it doesn't ruin the photos as seen on some other Huawei devices before. If the colors on the regular photos are a bit duller for you (as they were to us), the AI will saturate them a bit, but not over the top.
Regular • AI • Regular • AI
The phone also offers a toggle for 2X zoomed shots, but the zoom is purely digital and ruined further by excessive sharpening.
Huawei P30 Lite 12MP 2X zoom photos
Switching to the 48MP mode will result in softer looking and noisier photos - which is only expected, of course. This sensor is meant to be used for pixel binning in 12MP. However, if you insist on shooting in the full 48MP, you should arm yourself with patience as it takes longer to capture and save a photo in full resolution. The images are good and if you downscale them to 12MP manually, you will get a bit sharper photo with a minor improvement in areas with high-frequency details, but no major differences. But if you think this is still worthy of using the 48MP mode, let us stop you right there.
Since taking photos in this mode takes longer and requires a lot of the phone's processing power, you should wait a couple of seconds between each shot. And even if you do, this does not guarantee you the phone will save the native 48MP photo. A notification, a sudden movement that will change the viewfinder and engage the GPU more than expected, or hitting the shutter before the photo has been saved successfully (there is no indication when this happens), and you will get a digitally upscaled version of the 12MP photo instead of the full 48MP sensor readout. And it's not good at all. We were careful and 5 of our 9 test shots were saved this way.
48MP native • 48MP native • 48MP native • 48MP digitally upscaled
The ultra-wide camera produces good 8MP images with applied distortion correction. Pixel level quality is far from great, and the dynamic range is not as excellent as on the regular photos, but the colors and contrast are excellent. Overall, those images should be enjoyed for what they are - exaggerated perspective shots on the cheap.
Huawei P30 Lite 8MP wide-angle samples
Moving on to low-light photo quality. The 12MP shots have good color saturation and exposure, even though highlights will get clipped. On closer inspection, the level of detail isn't as good and there is some noticeable noise left even after some noise reduction was applied. Those images are far from the best we've seen in the mid-range class but could do for the social networks once downscaled to, say, 5MP.
Huawei P30 Lite 12MP low-light photos
The Night Mode is available only on the regular camera and its pictures are great with enough detail, even exposure, tolerable noise levels, and accurate colors, though it also applies some excessive sharpening. It brings back detail in those clipped highlights we mentioned before. If you can keep the P30 Lite still enough for those 6-second shots, you can use this mode more often.
Huawei P30 Lite 12MP Night Mode photos
There is no Night Mode for the ultra-wide-angle camera. Sadly, because this camera needs all the help it can get as its regular low-light images are rather abysmal without any software enhancements.
Huawei P30 Lite 8MP wide-angle low-light photos
Once you're done with the real world samples, head over to our Photo compare tool to see how the P30 Lite stacks up against other smartphones.
Huawei P30 Lite against the P20 Lite and the Redmi Note 7 in our Photo compare tool
Portraits
The Huawei P30 Lite has a standalone 2MP camera to help capture the scene depth information and should be producing some good portrait shots. Those are saved in 12MP and indeed they turned out impressive. The separation is excellent, there are no abrupt transitions, and the algorithm is smart enough not to get fooled by objects close to the face. Sure, the photos aren't perfect, but we've seen flagships do way worse and we really got more than we hoped for from a mid-ranger.
Huawei P30 Lite 12MP portraits
Portrait Lighting is available if that's your thing. It sure isn't ours.
Huawei P30 Lite 12MP portraits with lighting effects
Selfies
The Huawei P30 Lite comes with a high-res 24MP selfie camera behind f/2.0 lens. The focus is fixed, as usual. If you get the distance right, and if there's plenty of light - you can get some detailed shots. Colors are spot on too.
Huawei P30 Lite 24MP selfies
If you are shooting with AI on, sometimes HDR will get triggered and it will boost the dynamic range, but the detail levels will drop significantly.
An HDR selfies
There's also a portrait mode. In fact, it's the mode the selfie camera defaults to when you switch from the main cam - a bit weird. You can turn the blur on and off, there's also beautification (a 0-10 setting). The subject separation is mostly hit and miss though, and we can't recommend this one.
Huawei P30 Lite 24MP selfie portraits
Portrait Lighting is available for selfies, too, but you have to trust us on this - the photos are even more disappointing.
Video recording
The Huawei P30 Lite records video at up to 1080p resolution and it comes in the standard 30fps flavor, but also a smoother 60fps. Electronic stabilization is available in the 30fps mode and it's always-on.
Video is encoded using the h.264 codec by default with a toggle to switch to h.265 if you prefer. That said, the bit rates with h.264 are more in line with what you'd get with the more efficient h.265 from other phones - 1080p/30fps videos get around 11Mbps, while 1080p/60fps is treated to about 17Mbps. Audio is always stereo, recorded at 192kbps.
1080p/30fps footage is quite nice with good contrast, lively colors and impressive dynamic range, though the resolved detail is average at best. Opting for 60fps will give you even less detail.
You can also shoot 1080p@30fps clips with the ultra-wide-angle camera and while they lack in detail big time, they still come with nice colors, excellent contrast and dynamic range.
Here's a glimpse of how the P30 Lite compares to rivals in our Video compare tool. Head over there for the complete picture.
Huawei P30 Lite against the P20 Lite and the Redmi Note 7 in our Video compare tool
Competition
The Huawei P30 Lite is worthy of the P30 branding and you can tell. It has the eye-catchy design of the P30, and the triple camera can hold its own in its class.
Cuts had to be made though, and we can safely assume nobody expected the flagship Kirin to be within the Lite model. Luckily, Huawei's Kirin 710 is very much capable of handling heavy duties and intense gaming and it won't disappoint.
Unfortunately, the tri-eyed camera at the back is of no P30 quality. It has a high-res main sensor (at least our 48MP review unit), and then an ultra-wide-angle snapper, but there is no telephoto cam. But lacking optical zoom is understandable and nobody really expected the Lite to have it at this price point.
It's just that the Lite's camera may be well-spec'd on paper but it can't live up to the expectations and in the end, it's just your average regular+wide mid-range camera at best. Then the video recording turned out to be very poor across the board. The excellent portraits are probably the only reminiscence of the top-end P30 snappers.
Finally, the Huawei P30 Lite isn't expensive at about €380 (at time of writing) but is not a cheap phone either.
Samsung is offering the Galaxy A70 at the same price, and it has more to show off. The A70 has a Super AMOLED screen with an under-display fingerprint reader, a faster chipset, a larger battery, and more promising triple-camera, especially when it comes to video capturing.
Then the Galaxy A50 is about €100 cheaper, and yet it also tops the Lite with a Super AMOLED screen and a larger battery, while offering similar processing power and camera capabilities.
There is also the fact that Huawei actually has a pretty similar phone on half the Lite's price - the Honor 10 Lite. It has the Lite's screen, same chipset, and equally capable camera sans the wide-angle snapper, that is. If you consider €180 worthy of a mediocre ultra-wide snapper, sure, if not - it will make you think twice before opting for the Lite.
And finally, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 has been already established as one of the ultimate price/performance devices in this class and we can't miss mentioning it. It also offers a similarly large and notched screen, has the Snapdragon 660 to behave nicely under pressure, and while lacking an ultra-wide-angle snapper, it matches the 48MP main one in terms of good- and low-light quality. Oh, and it costs half the P30 Lite money.
Samsung Galaxy A70 • Samsung Galaxy A50 • Honor 10 Lite • Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
The verdict
The Huawei P30 Lite has some of the flagship P30 magic, but those little sparkles are not enough to light up the fire of excitement. It has a good screen, but it's not an OLED. There is a triple-camera on the back, but it's not even close to what the P30's and the Pro's can do.
The lack of excitement doesn't make the P30 Lite a bad phone, on the contrary - it has a lot going on, including game-ready hardware. But it far from being competitive until its price goes down. Not that the Lite is expensive, but there are cheaper phones that are simply better.
Pros
- Stunning design, matches the looks of the P30 phones
- Large display with good contrast and color accuracy, and a tiny notch
- Gaming-friendly hardware, 128GB default storage, microSD
- Long-lasting battery life
- EMUI is fast and theme-able
- Shoots great pictures in daylight, the Night Mode helps it at night
- Excellent portraits from the main camera
- Good selfies
Cons
- Different cameras for different markets (48MP vs. 24MP)
- Regular low-light photos are nothing special
- No 4K video recording
- The 1080p videos are not competitive
- Pricier than the equally capable competition at launch
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