Huawei P30 Lite First Impressions: Budget P30 for price-conscious consumers

Triple-Lens Rear camera Setup, 32MP selfie camera

Huawei P30 Lite comes with three cameras on the back. The triple-lens camera setup comprises of the 24MP wide-angle lens that works on F/1.8 aperture, an 8MP ultra-wide lens working on F/2.4 aperture, and a 2MP depth sensor. The 32MP selfie camera works on F/2.0 aperture. The 3-lens camera setup gets almost all the modes and features that we are currently testing with Huawei P30 Pro excluding the exclusive 50x digital zoom and ultra-low light mode.

During our brief testing, we found the camera app on P30 Pro quite functional and full of features such as Wide angle shot, Night mode, Portrait, Pro, Slow-mo, Panorama, Light painting, HDR, Time-Lapse, 3D Panorama, amongst other features. The 32MP front-camera seemed pretty capable. We took some selfie shots that showed good detailing and natural color tones. The front-facing camera also offers a variety of modes such as Portrait, Panorama, AR lens, Time-Lapse, Filter, 3D Panorama, Stickers, Capture smiles, Mirror reflection, Audio control, and timer.

Ultra-wide angle mode for street and landscape photography

The Portrait mode in the rear camera struggled to recognize faces in challenging lighting condition. The standard mode and ultra-wide angle mode worked without any issues. The ultra-wide angle mode on P30 Lite seemed pretty good and captured a very wide frame. It will come handy for street and landscape photography. We were not able to test the P30 Lite's camera in daylight and would recommend you to wait for our comprehensive testing for a performance overview.

Design and Display: Crisp FHD display and compact form-factor

Huawei P30 Lite sports a 6.15-inch LCD screen that offers a resolution of 2312 x 1080 pixels. The display has a teardrop notch at the top and gives P30 Lite a screen-to-body ratio of 90 percent. The FHD screen showed high brightness levels and looked really crisp in our short testing during the launch event. The high pixel density of 415 PPI made the screen look really vibrant. You can also reduce the screen resolution to HD to save some battery or let the EMUI's AI decide the best settings depending upon the remaining battery life of the handset. It will be interesting to compare the P30 Lite's display with that of Vivo V15 and Galaxy A50 as both the handsets offer AMOLED panels. We want to understand if the Huawei's LCD panel matches the color and contrast on AMOLED panels offered by the other two smartphones.

Compact design, glossy back panel with a gradient finish

Even though P30 Lite sports a big 6.15-inch screen, the handset felt quite compact in hands. It weighs 159g and can be used with one hand for basic operations. Unlike the in-screen fingerprint scanner offered by the flagship P30 Po, the P30 Lite features a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor. The biometric scanner is placed conveniently in the reach of the index finger. The P30 Lite comes in two colors- Midnight black and Peacock Blue. We did not get our hands on the Black variant. The gradient finish on the Peacock Blue looked attractive but it is a fingerprint magnet. The phone attracted too many fingerprints and smudges while we were shooting the hands-on video. A case might solve the problem and Huawei bundles the silicon case in the box of the company's devices.

Hardware and Software

Powering the P30 Lite is the company's in-house Kirin 710 processor. The smartphone will be available in two variants- 4GB RAM + 128GB ROM and 6GB RAM + 128GB ROM. The internal memory is expandable upto 512GB. The smartphone runs on Huawei's own EMUI 9.0.1 interface over Android 9.0. We are using the P30 Pro with the same custom skin and it is working without any performance issues. We will soon give you a comprehensive review of P30 Lite's processing, gaming, and multitasking performance.

Battery and Connectivity

Additionally, P30 Lite sports a 3,340mAh battery unit which as per Huawei can get you through an intense action-packed day at work on one full charge. For connectivity, you get Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, 4.2 with aptX HD support. The smartphone does not support NFC and also does not offer water-dust or splash resistance.

Availability and Offers

Huawei P30 Lite will be available in 120 Croma stores across India starting early next month. Jio network consumers can avail a cashback of Rs. 2,200 and over 2.2 Terabytes of data. Additionally, 44 vouchers worth Rs. 50 each will be redeemable on Rs. 198/INR 299 plan. Huawei informed that these Cashback vouchers can be redeemed, one at a time, against subsequent recharges of Rs.198 and 299 via MyJio app only. Additionally, upon performing recharge of Rs.198/Rs.299, 5GB additional data voucher, limited to 25 recharges will be credited in user's MyJio account.

Verdict

Huawei P30 Lite will take on sub 25K smartphones in the Indian market. The list includes Vivo V15, OPPO F11 Pro, Galaxy A50 and the Xiaomi's Redmi Note 7 Pro (6GB RAM variant). As we have tested all these handsets, we will soon compare the P30 Lite with the above-mentioned handsets to give you a better understanding of the Huawei's mid-range smartphone's performance. Stay tuned on GizBot.com.