Huawei P20 Lite released - Dual cameras and a notch for 370 euros

[Djole123]

So, Huawei has teased, leaked and hinted us with possible features of their new P20 series of smartphones, and today, we finally have the first device from the series, the P20 Lite.

 

Photo:

 

Man I'm having some deja vu here, it's almost like i've seen this kind of design before...

 

Yeah, it's a pretty blatant ripoff of the iPhone X design, with a notch on top and the dual vertical cameras, but it also has the chin on the bottom which to some might be OK, but for me is very unpleasant to look at.

 

Some of the other specs include an octa core Kirin 659 CPU (also found in the Mate 10 Lite and the Honor 9 Lite), 4GB of RAM, 64/128 GB of internal storage with SD card support, dual 16+2MP cameras and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

 

The price is pretty steep at 370 euros, considering that you can get the similarly specced Honor 9 Lite for much less, but it really comes down to do you want to trade the upper bezel for a notch.

No official word on the regular P20/P20 Plus, but they should be coming in around a week.

 

Source:

https://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_p20_lite_goes_official_officially_this_time-news-30176.php

[Drak3]

7 minutes ago, Djole123 said:

3.5mm headphone jack.

At least they got one thing right.

[Curufinwe_wins]

meanwhile the s9+ I'm currently loving has a more than slime enough top bezel while not having that fugly notch in my way.

[dizmo]

I just can't bring myself to consider a Huawei device.

3 minutes ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

meanwhile the s9+ I'm currently loving has a more than slime enough top bezel while not having that fugly notch in my way.

Haha, some people like the notch. I'd rather have a notch than a bezel, as long as it's implemented correctly.

[Curufinwe_wins]

Just now, dizmo said:

I just can't bring myself to consider a Huawei device.

Haha, some people like the notch. I'd rather have a notch than a bezel, as long as it's implemented correctly.

But the notch is notably deeper from the top of the device than the bezel, which is exactly what you are looking for really. And it currently isn't implemented well. 

 

Screen to body ratio for iPhone X 81.49%, for the S9+ 84% (same for the S9). 

[Walt]

5 minutes ago, dizmo said:

I just can't bring myself to consider a Huawei device.

Haha, some people like the notch. I'd rather have a notch than a bezel, as long as it's implemented correctly.

What is wrong with huawei?

[dizmo]

Just now, Curufinwe_wins said:

But the notch is notably deeper from the top of the device than the bezel, which is exactly what you are looking for really. And it currently isn't implemented well. 

 

Screen to body ratio for iPhone X 81.49%, for the S9+ 84% (same for the S9). 

I think that's greatly aided by the curved nature of the Samsung screen.

Consider the Zenfone 5. It's north of 90% screen to body.

What's held beside the bezels is below the bezel on a regular device. So you gain that little bit of space. I don't mind it at all, but that's my opinion. Of course nothing is perfect when it's new, and that's why Android P will greatly aid these phones.

Just now, Walt said:

What is wrong with huawei?

Their SoC's aren't that great (P20 devices are significantly behind SD845 devices), and if they don't specify UFS storage, you might not get it; even on flagship devices. They just throw in whatever's handy. Which, to me, is completely unacceptable.

[silberdrachi]

I like the design of the phone. And they even managed to keep the headphone jack and have the fingerprint in what i think is the best location.

 

Shame that they dont use better SOC in their systems or i would be really interested in it. My N5x is really starting to show its age.

[Murasaki]

Those cases are perfect for fingerprint evidence. Oh yeah and notches can go to hell.

[DocSwag]

5 minutes ago, dizmo said:

and if they don't specify UFS storage, you might not get it; even on flagship devices. They just throw in whatever's handy. Which, to me, is completely unacceptable.

Doesn't Huawei usually have really good storage on their flagships?

[dizmo]

2 minutes ago, DocSwag said:

Doesn't Huawei usually have really good storage on their flagships?

If you get one with UFS, sure. With the Huawei P9 some people were getting eMCC memory, which is significantly slower. Huawei's reasoning: We didn't specify memory type on the spec sheet.

Reviewers, of course, got cherry picked units.

[Walt]

If I like the design do you advise me to buy it? Or are the specs significantly worse for the price then other phones?

[Djole123]

3 minutes ago, Walt said:

If I like the design do you advise me to buy it? Or are the specs significantly worse for the price then other phones?

Yes, the specs are my issue. You can get the Honor 9 Lite, with the same SoC (but has a bit worse camera and micro-B instead of Type C) for about 250 euros, a 120 euro delta compared to the P20 Lite, however because of the much more agressive marketing of the P series over the Honor series, people are going to buy the P20 Lite regardless.

 

Honestly, if you don't have to, don't get the P20 series, and wait for the next Honor series of phones. Much better value for money.

[michaelocarroll007]

48 minutes ago, Djole123 said:

 

 

Man I'm having some deja vu here, it's almost like i've seen this kind of design before...

 

Yeah, it's a pretty blatant ripoff of the iPhone X design, with a notch on top and the dual vertical cameras, but it also has the chin on the bottom which to some might be OK, but for me is very unpleasant to look at.

 

 

 

I think it would look somewhat better if it didnt plaster the logo on the Chin. its not the best looking phone but for buget phones id let a small chin pass but then again could maybe be cheaper without the notch too. 

[Walt]

19 minutes ago, Djole123 said:

Yes, the specs are my issue. You can get the Honor 9 Lite, with the same SoC (but has a bit worse camera and micro-B instead of Type C) for about 250 euros, a 120 euro delta compared to the P20 Lite, however because of the much more agressive marketing of the P series over the Honor series, people are going to buy the P20 Lite regardless.

 

Honestly, if you don't have to, don't get the P20 series, and wait for the next Honor series of phones. Much better value for money.

Thanks! How long do will it take before the honor series get out?

[Eduard the weeb]

notchs suck imo hope google doesn't add one on the pixel 3

[Djole123]

25 minutes ago, michaelocarroll007 said:

 

I think it would look somewhat better if it didnt plaster the logo on the Chin. its not the best looking phone but for buget phones id let a small chin pass but then again could maybe be cheaper without the notch too. 

370 euros is by no means budget tho

[Trixanity]

They are really jacking up the prices. The P10 Lite launched at like €320 or so but I picked up mine two months later for €180 on sale. I'm guessing those sales will end too when they feel their market position is firm.

 

This is one seems like last year's phone in a new package with a small bump to screen and camera.

38 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Their SoC's aren't that great (P20 devices are significantly behind SD845 devices), and if they don't specify UFS storage, you might not get it; even on flagship devices. They just throw in whatever's handy. Which, to me, is completely unacceptable.

Their SoC business is on a different schedule. So Qualcomm managed to implement A75 cores versus Huawei still toying with A73. If you talk GPU, then sure. Adreno is the undisputed king.  

Last year CPU performance was mostly the same. But either way it's irrelevant because it doesn't ship with a flagship SoC. What you can accuse Huawei of is refreshing the same mid tier chip for like 2 or 3 years straight. It's the same chip as last year with a minor speed bump from what I can tell.

 

The storage thing is true though. It does seem to be a bigger problem in China and other parts of Asia than in Europe.

But this is irrelevant for this model too. I'm quite sure it's eMMC across the board.

[DocSwag]

52 minutes ago, dizmo said:

If you get one with UFS, sure. With the Huawei P9 some people were getting eMCC memory, which is significantly slower. Huawei's reasoning: We didn't specify memory type on the spec sheet.

Reviewers, of course, got cherry picked units.

Damn I didn't know that... that really sucks.

 

If only they used UFS all the time... their NAND performance is really REALLY good...

[michaelocarroll007]

31 minutes ago, Djole123 said:

370 euros is by no means budget tho

S9+ in Germany is 950 Euros

S9+ in UK is 870 euros 

Iphone 8 Plus in UK  800 euros 

Iphone X in UK 1000 euros

 

370 euros is Less then 50% of the price of flagship offerings from The two best selling flagship companies. Id consider if your making comparisons to Flagship phones taking into account the huge price difference it is by comparison a budget phone.  Budget is all relevant to the conversation and doesn't have a hard $ that makes something budget or not. To me the complaint it doesn't hide the Chin like the Iphone X does is a comparison to a 1000 dollar phone which in this comparison its a budget option. 

[Curufinwe_wins]

1 hour ago, dizmo said:

I think that's greatly aided by the curved nature of the Samsung screen.

Consider the Zenfone 5. It's north of 90% screen to body.

What's held beside the bezels is below the bezel on a regular device. So you gain that little bit of space. I don't mind it at all, but that's my opinion. Of course nothing is perfect when it's new, and that's why Android P will greatly aid these phones.

Their SoC's aren't that great (P20 devices are significantly behind SD845 devices), and if they don't specify UFS storage, you might not get it; even on flagship devices. They just throw in whatever's handy. Which, to me, is completely unacceptable.

That isn't quite true. You don't want a notch that is smaller than a line of display text (for design integration reasons), so they make it exactly that height, even if the bezel could be even smaller. The notch is approximately 12mm tall. (I say approximately because no one seems to have cared to properly measure in anything other than pixels, and I'm giving myself a +/- 2 mm cushion here. plus the overall screen bezel needs to still be added). The S9-series phones for example have a top bezel that is approximately 7mm thick to the edge of the frame. Obviously an extreme example, but if you look at the other notched phones this year, I honestly ask myself, why the fuck is the thickness from the top of the phone increasing now? It is just to have a "sufficiently pronounced" notch? Because that does seem counter to the real goal of the people pushing edge to edge displays.

 

Like look at that crap... 

Obvious semi-extreme example, but still.

 

Now... in theory they could make a notch that is exactly the required height (and width) and gain the best of both (although, I don't actually think it's worth the other compromises that occur in software/hardware. That is a separate debate.), but I don't think they will do that anytime soon (again because it's all about the design language.)

[JediFragger]

A notch!!!???? I'd buy that for a dollar.....

[MilitantCro]

After using Huaweis for some time now i find their version of Android one of the best there are.

[Guest The Viking]

19 hours ago, Djole123 said:

Honestly, if you don't have to, don't get the P20 series, and wait for the next Honor series of phones. Much better value for money.

I feel you don't know that...

 

Spoiler

Honor is owned by Huawei....

 

[rentaspoon]

20 hours ago, Drak3 said:

At least they got one thing right.

They get clogged up a lot with fluff on the p9 lite, hoping they've moved it now