Huawei p9 lite. grumpy review. Appearance and ease of use

Huawei P9 Lite fits comfortably in the palm of your hand and looks very attractive. But operating it with one hand is no longer very convenient, and the design completely evokes a feeling of deja vu - the smartphone is similar to both Huawei P8 Lite and Huawei P9, however, it is also not very different from Huawei P8.

Dimensions of Huawei P9 Lite: 146.8 × 72.6 × 7.7 mm, it is similar in size to Sony Xperia Z3+, but slightly inferior to it, and in comparison with Samsung Galaxy J3 it is thinner and taller. The weight of the device is 145 grams, which is not much; the 5-inch Asus Zenfone 2 Laser ZE500KL weighed the same.

The design of the smartphone is attractive, but not original - it can’t be immediately distinguished from either its predecessor or its older brother. Only small details have changed, such as the design of the keys, the texture of the back, or the appearance of the lens. The front panel does not evoke any emotions at all; you can only note the Huawei inscription and the black frames around the display - this is already a typical way to make the side frames visually thin (they are not visible when the display is turned off). Speaking of frames, they are really not that thick, the ratio of screen area to device surface is about 70%, a good indicator. The side edges are made of metal; these are not just stylized plastic inserts. Back panel smooth, but not slippery, visually again not very noticeable. On it you can see a logo with the inscription Huawei, but this same inscription is already on the front panel; it is not clear why it is also here. In addition, on the back you can note a square fingerprint scanner and a sticky strip on top. Purely subjectively, the surface seemed unpleasant to the touch, especially that very strip on top - as if you were touching jelly that had dried out a couple of months ago.

The materials of the smartphone body feel reminiscent of the metal Samsung Galaxy A3. But unlike it, the body of the lightweight P9 Lite is made not of metal, but of matte plastic, with the exception of the side frames. It scratches easily, but overall the build quality is quite high for a thin case.

Huawei Honor The P9 can be purchased in three colors - black, white and gold.

Screen - 4.8

The Huawei P9 Lite phone has a high-quality 5.2-inch display, it is clear and bright, but with a slightly elevated color temperature. However, you can adjust it to your taste using the image settings.

The display has a high Full HD resolution (1920×1080 pixels). The image on this screen looks very clear, because the pixel density is 424 ppi. Making the resolution higher is basically useless; the eyes simply wouldn’t notice the difference. The screen has a very effective oleophobic coating - it barely gets dirty and is easy to wipe off. Viewing angles are good, but average by the standards of IPS matrices. The brightness range is quite large - from 10 to 510 cd/m2, on a sunny day the screen is quite easy to read. In the dark, the screen is also comfortable and does not dazzle the eyes too much. The smartphone is equipped with an auto-brightness function; it works quickly, but tends to save money - we always wanted to add a little more brightness to make the display a little more readable. The image contrast is average, 900:1, slightly worse than that of Huawei Honor 7. The color gamut covers 100% of the standard and even “falls” far beyond it, apparently claiming to be something between sRGB and wider gamut Adobe RGB. The color temperature turned out to be somewhat high - 8400 degrees, which makes the image look a little cool. But you can always correct it in the screen settings, choosing not only on the “warmer/cooler” scale, but also with shade options. The color accuracy of the display turned out to be at a high level; no obvious deviations were noticed, only a slight tint of blue. At the same time, the colors of the phone interface itself (shortcuts and desktop) look a little pale, but it is quite possible that this was intended. Separately, we note such an important plus as the glove mode - if you turn it on, the screen becomes very sensitive, which will allow you to work with it outdoors even in cold weather.

Camera

Huawei Honor P9 Lite received only average cameras of 13 and 8 MP, not so different from Huawei P8 Lite (and perhaps even the same). They will be able to take a good side shot, especially in good lighting, but are inferior to flagship solutions.

A serious change in terms of cameras affected the interface, and, in our opinion, not for the better or the worst side, but really, just somewhere to the side. Previously, the main settings were accessible directly from the main screen, but now they need to be pulled out to the side with a “swipe”. Pull from the left edge of the screen - you will get to the shooting mode selection window, pull from the right to the left - you will get the settings yourself. It’s difficult to give such changes any assessment, it’s not for everyone, but at first it’s a little confusing. As for the settings themselves, they are quite rich - there are a number of simple filters, HDR mode, “Tasty Food”, panorama shooting, slow-motion shooting, decoration mode and “Light”. Only the last mode is unusual here - it is needed to photograph light sources in the dark with a long shutter speed of up to 30 seconds. True, so that the photo does not turn out to be too blurry, you will need a tripod - an ordinary “accessory” for a camera, but unusual for a phone. The camera is also equipped with a professional mode, and in it you can change quite a lot of parameters manually:

• ISO (100 to 1600)
• Metering method (spot, center-weighted, matrix)
• White balance (5 options plus Auto)
• Exposure (from - 4 to +4)
• Focus (Auto or manual)
• Shutter speed (from 1/4000 to 8 sec).

The possibilities are wide enough for price category phone, especially in terms of shutter speed. But if we talk about the quality of the images, then it is average for the resolution of the cameras. This is even a little sad, after the high-quality cameras in the Huawei P9, you also expect something cool from the P9 Lite. But here everything is quite ordinary - a medium-sized 1/3″ sensor with 1.12 micrometer pixels and an f/2.0 aperture is used. The level of detail is standard for a 13 MP resolution, focusing is quite fast (about a second), and most importantly - usually accurate. During the day, the camera takes pictures quite well; noise and blur can only be seen by zooming in on the image. But in the evening and at night, like most cameras in this price range, the picture is covered in noise. The smartphone can shoot video up to Full HD resolution (1920×1080 pixels). The camera also has a slow-motion video mode at 120 frames per second, but the resolution drops to a ridiculous 640x480 pixels. It’s simply unrealistic to seriously shoot something in this quality. The camera does not have tracking autofocus, but you can “tap” on an object, in which case the device will try to keep it in focus. Moreover, unlike its predecessors, this function has begun to work more or less adequately - it does not lose the desired object so often and actually somehow monitors it.

The front camera immediately received 8 MP, but they are not used very effectively. This allows you to get more details in the light, but all this gain is lost in poor lighting; indoor selfies no longer look very good if you zoom in on the image. The camera does not have a separate flash, but if necessary, the display itself can illuminate your selfie in the manner of Retina Flash on the iPhone 6s.

Photos from Huawei P9 lite camera - 3.2

Photos from the front camera of Huawei P9 lite - 3.2

Working with text - 5.0

Huawei P9 Lite comes pre-installed with two keyboards: the standard one from Google and Huawei Swype. The first one can be called typical, it does not have additional character markings, but there is support for continuous input and switching between languages ​​using a separate key. Branded keyboard It’s also interesting, in addition to the same functions, the icons with keys also have markings of additional symbols and a whole bunch of other things. For example, showing the trajectory of finger movement, adjusting the keyboard height, fonts and special gestures for control. The only thing we didn’t like was switching between languages ​​- this is done by holding down the spacebar and “swiping” up and then selecting a language from the drop-down list.

Internet - 5.0

Browsers are pre-installed on Huawei P9 Lite Google Chrome and Opera. The first one is available on most Android devices, but all others can be compared with it. Its main feature is that it eats a lot random access memory, but also works quite quickly. In addition, it allows you to synchronize tabs with the desktop version of the browser. But Opera has its own features, such as auto-fitting page text to the width of the screen and an express panel with icons of sites that interest you.

Communications - 3.8

The communications set of Huawei P9 Lite can be called almost top-end:

• Wi-Fi b/g/n with Wi-Fi Direct and the ability to distribute the Internet
• Bluetooth 4.1 with reduced energy consumption and A2DP profile
• LTE Cat support. 6 (up to 300/50 Mbit/s)
• A-GPS with GLONASS support
• NFC chip
• FM radio (headphones are required for this to work).

The only really notable things are the NFC chip and high-speed LTE. Otherwise everything is pretty typical - simple wifi and a Micro-USB 2.0 connector without OTG or Host support for connecting peripherals.

Multimedia - 4.4

The Huawei P9 Lite smartphone supports most audio and video codecs and provides quite good quality sound.

The phone plays music in FLAC and many other formats, but cannot cope with AC-3 (by the way, most smartphones “don’t like” it). The built-in video player is ready to play almost anything, be it 2K, 4K, TS, RMVB or any other format.

The Huawei P9 Lite comes with a proprietary audio player pre-installed, but there are almost no settings in it. There is not even an equalizer, which, by the way, was in the same player on the Honor 5X. Apparently they considered it unnecessary? The only outlet is that when you connect headphones, you can enable the SWS (Super Wide Sound) function, which improves the sound quality, making it more spacious. The pre-installed video player also failed to please with any features, except for the same SWS and watching movies in a separate small window (a dubious pleasure for not the most big screen). By and large, it can only play videos or... not play.

Battery - 2.8

The battery life of the smartphone can only be called average, which is a bit unflagship-like. We had enough for about a day of work, no more.

Despite the fact that the battery capacity has increased from 2200 mAh to 3000 mAh, the battery life of the phone remains approximately the same. It looks like all the battery gain has gone into a brighter, clearer screen. When watching HD video, the smartphone lasts 6 hours 24 minutes, an average result, almost like the stylish Lenovo Vibe X2 or the large Huawei Honor 4X. In music listening mode, the smartphone lasted for 45 hours, a rather modest result, comparable to Asus Zenfone 2 Laser, but almost half the size of the LG Nexus 5X. However, Huawei P9 Lite performed well in other tests. Thus, an hour of running the GeekBench Battery Test discharged the battery to only 10% of charge, which is only better for long-lasting smartphones like Huawei Honor 4C Pro. An hour of playing Thumb Drift “eats” 26%, that is, you can expect about 4 hours from the phone battery life in games. Shooting a 10-minute HD video took only 4% of the battery, which is a much better result than average.

In daily use, the Huawei P9Lite was enough for us for a day, no more. Like all smartphones, there is a power saving mode. When you turn it on, you get a black and white “dialer” with SMS messages; all other functions become unavailable.

Performance - 3.3

Huawei P9 Lite has received quite powerful hardware, especially compared to its direct predecessor. The phone's performance is enough for the interface to work smoothly and solve most tasks, except, perhaps, heavy and demanding games.

The smartphone received a fairly powerful eight-core HiSilicon Kirin 650 processor, four cores of which operate at a frequency of up to 1.7 GHz, and the remaining four - up to 2.0 GHz. It is interesting that the company does not position the chip as a top-end one; it is even considered quite budget-friendly (it will be used, for example, in Huawei Honor 5C), but at the same time it is capable of providing above-average performance. It is also curious that the processor is made using a thin 16 nm technical process, that is, Huawei keeps up with the times. Huawei P9 Lite received 2 GB of RAM, there are also versions with 3 GB of RAM, but it seems they will not reach Russia.

In daily use, Huawei P9 Lite performs well; its power is enough to operate a heavy proprietary interface. The only problem for him is heavy games (for example, Asphalt 8). At maximum graphics, the smartphone slows down, and quite noticeably, but at medium and low graphics, the race is already going smoothly. Average games like Minion Rush or Thumb Drift run quickly and without visible problems. At the same time, the smartphone hardly heats up - after an hour continuous operation The case temperature did not exceed 43 degrees at its hottest point.

In various benchmarks, Huawei P9 Lite showed results at a level between average and flagship:

• Geekbench 3 (processor test) - 3995 points, only a hundred or something inferior
• Ice Storm Unlimited by 3DMark (graphics) - 11586, higher than the stylish Lenovo Vibe Shot
• AnTuTu 6.0 (mixed test) - 52999 points, comparable to Meizu MX5.

Memory - 4.0

The volume of permanent memory of Huawei P9 Lite is 16 GB, of which about 10.3 GB is available to the user. This is an average figure, exactly the same as you will get on the budget Honor 4C Pro. If you will be taking a lot of photos or downloading large programs, then you will need a memory card slot (you can add up to 256 GB at once). It’s convenient that you can store not only photos and videos on the card, but also many applications.

Peculiarities

The Huawei P9 Lite phone received all the latest - latest android 6.0 and version of the proprietary interface EMUI 4.1. What's special about the phone is the fingerprint scanner, new system And functional interface. In addition, we note the presence of an NFC chip, fast LTE, support for two SIM cards, and a non-separable case.

An unpleasant feature is the so-called combination slot, into which you can choose to insert either a memory card or a second SIM card. Needless to say, the user prefers not to make such a difficult choice, but to have both at once.

As for the updated interface, it has its own oddities. The camera application has changed, disappeared somewhere proprietary browser and some interesting features controls like double tapping the screen to unlock. The settings have become more confusing, there are fewer different options, it feels like something is often simply missing. For example, the battery manager is not accessible directly from the settings window, fortunately, in this case there is a search window in which you can find all the mysteriously “missing” items.

But it is not all that bad. The phone has a fingerprint scanner, which works almost instantly. Moreover, you can use it not only for unlocking, but also for control. So, with its help you can take pictures, answer an incoming call, open the notification panel or scroll through photos.

Huawei P9 is one of the main flagships of the manufacturer, which not everyone can afford yet. It was created to compete with famous European and Korean flagships, and its junior modification Huawei P9 Lite received a compact body and a tasty price, which makes it a purchase optimal solution for many.

The smartphone does not have a dual main camera module, its hardware is also rather close to average, but it has an excellent screen, full functionality of the EMUI shell and a fingerprint scanner. Let's spend Huawei P9 Lite review and you will be able to understand what will be better for you - to assemble it for a flagship or to immediately acquire a simplified version.

Equipment Huawei P9 Lite

The Huawei P9 Lite smartphone comes with a charger, a micro-USB cable, headphones and documentation.

Design

The Huawei P9 Lite smartphone review moves on to consider the design, which turned out to be interesting. Huawei equipment always looks decent and the hero of our review was no exception. But unlike the older version, plastic is used as the main material.

There is a subtle striped pattern on the back and front panels, which makes the design more original. But if you remove the corporate logo on the front panel and put the screen in a locked state, you can easily confuse it with Xiaomi Redmi.

But the design of the back is already more reminiscent of the older P9 model - it has a fingerprint scanner installed in the center, and on top we see a transparent insert with a built-in camera and flash.

When you pick up the phone, the expected effect of contact with cold metal does not occur, which, combined with the low weight, hints that in order to save money, the case has a plastic base. Only the frame is constructed of metal, which does not separate the plastic elements very carefully.

Huawei P9 Lite mini 2 black review showed that this does not affect the perception of the design in any way, the device looks really beautiful. The plastic is of high quality - it does not become covered with fingerprints, which allows us to call it practical and did not receive a single scratch during the entire testing period.

The power control key and volume rocker are located on the right. They appear to be metal, but are actually made of plastic, like the rest of the body. A place for them was allocated on the right side.

The microSD card tray is combined with the second SIM card slot and is located on the left side.

At the top we see a traditional 3.5 jack for a headset, and it’s very good that they didn’t abandon it. An additional microphone is also installed here.

Huawei P9 Lite lte 16gb review informs you that the central place of the bottom panel is occupied by a micro-USB port. The main speaker and microphone were placed next to it.

Build quality on top level, which is what you expect from a manufacturer of this level - the parts fit tightly in the body, do not creak or play, only the above-mentioned side frame hints that the device belongs to the middle price category.

The smartphone is very convenient to use, its ergonomics are thought out to the smallest detail - the keys have a pleasant stroke and are located where you would expect to see them. The same goes for connectors. We didn’t forget about the event indicator. Huawei P9 Lite dual sim review showed that due to its compact size and light weight it is convenient to use with one hand.

The keys here are on-screen; if desired, their functionality and location can be set in the settings at your discretion. The scanner can be used not only to restrict access to the phone, but also to go to the notification shade, camera, and flip through photos.

Display

Huawei P9 Lite 2017 vns l21 review moves to a 5.2-inch display built using IPS technology. It received FullHD resolution and is covered with a flat protective glass with a good quality oleophobic coating. And to ensure maximum protection, the plastic side protrudes slightly above the rest of the case, which will save the screen if it falls.

The P9 Lit's display is surrounded by thin frames, which are completely invisible against a dark background. Thanks to this, the device should look great in any color options.

Factory screen calibration is far from standard - Colorful temperature is clearly overpriced, so after the first turn on you want to go to the settings and set your parameters there, which fortunately can be done.

Huawei P9 Lite lte dual sim review showed that the screen brightness level can be set in the range from 5 to 411 cd/m², and the contrast is 1 to 781. The picture is easy to read on the street, the screen is no worse or better than that of price competitors . Among additional features I would like to note the ability to operate with gloves, which is very useful during cold weather.

Performance of Huawei P9 Lite

Huawei P9 Lite specifications are based on a self-produced Kirin 650 processor, built using a 16-NM process technology. It consists of a pair of clusters, each of which has 4 Cortex-A53 cores with a frequency limit of 2 and 1.7 GHz. The Mali T830 MP2 video accelerator is responsible for the graphics.

Compared to the Kirin 620, we have a 60% increase in CPU and 100% in GPU, which is very impressive. The new i5 coprocessor, which collects and processes data from all sensors of the device, deserves special mention. It received an increase in performance, but at the same time began to consume less energy.

Synthetics:

Technical Huawei specifications P9 Lite comes with just 2 GB of RAM combined with 16 GB of user memory, of which 10.5 GB remains for use. In 2017, this volume will not be enough for most users, and therefore it is worth considering purchasing a microSD card. But in order to increase the amount of space, you will have to sacrifice a second SIM card. The micro-USB port does not support connectivity external devices by OTG.

Huawei P9 Lite gold 2 16gb review showed that according to the results of synthetic tests, Kirin 650 is comparable to another mid-range chip Helio P10 from MediaTek. Kirin is slightly superior in terms of graphics, but otherwise we see an identical result.

The smartphone is average in terms of performance - it can handle most games, but at maximum graphics the fps will be average and the experience will not be the same. You can still play Tanks on high graphics, but in more demanding games we see no more than 30 fps. There are no brakes or delays, which is nice.

Autonomy

Review Huawei phone The P9 Lite moves on to its 3,000mAh battery. The manufacturer promised to improve power consumption when developing a new chip, and after testing we can confidently say that it succeeded. Compared to the P8 lite, it has become much more durable under the same testing modes. But it’s a stretch to call it a long-liver, because with active use it barely survives until the evening.

When reading at the minimum comfortable brightness level, the autonomy lasted for 14.5 hours. Huawei P9 Lite 16 GB review showed that continuous video playback left the phone at half brightness in 10 hours. In games it lasted a little over 4 hours.

Interface

The Huawei P9 Lite 2 black review demonstrates that it uses the proprietary Emotion UI 4.1 shell, based on version 6 of Android. To her distinctive features It is worth mentioning the ability to control gestures and a virtual key, when pressed, a radial menu is displayed. This is very convenient when operating with one hand; you can immediately see the main functions in front of you. You can choose from thousands of available themes and switch to a simplified desktop display mode. The purpose of the function keys can be changed at your discretion.

Huawei P9 Light review showed that current events are displayed on the top curtain. It is divided into several menus; when you scroll to the second one, we see icons quick access to many functions, and there will be even more of them if you swipe your finger from bottom to top.

Wireless interfaces

The Huawei P9 Lite 16gb smartphone review makes it clear that to expand the internal memory you have to sacrifice a second SIM card. If you need two, then you won’t be able to increase the volume; there is no separate slot for microSD. The device works great in all types cellular communication, including LTE. It quickly connects to the network and does not lose connection, ensuring constant availability of the subscriber. Also pleases Wi-Fi operation, Bluetooth and GPS.

Huawei P9 Lite camera review

If the development of the Huawei P9 camera was carried out jointly with Leica, then there is nothing like that. The phone received a 13-megapixel main camera and an 8-megapixel front camera. The latter doesn't shoot perfectly, but in good lighting you can get amazing selfies. Huawei P9 Lite camera review showed that the front camera was not provided LED flash, but instead, when shooting in low light, the backlight of the screen itself is used. It turns on a moment before shooting.

Used as the main camera Sony module IMX214 with f/2.0 aperture, in addition to which there is a bright flash. Autofocus works flawlessly - everything is fast and clear.

The interface of the Camera application contains so many settings and shooting modes that you can easily get lost in them. But all menu elements are built logically, and the interface is easy to use. A gesture on the left can display available shooting modes, and on the right - camera parameters. Below is a menu for those who like to experiment with manual shooting settings. Huawei P9 Lite review in Russian showed that you can set white balance, ISO, shutter speed, control focus and much more.

Example photo:

Video shooting can be carried out in FullHD resolution with 30 fps, which the manufacturer rather did on purpose, leaving 4K only in its flagships. Slow motion shooting is possible in 720p resolution at 120 fps.

There is stabilization here, but when shooting on the go it plays virtually no role. In terms of quality, we have well-detailed videos, but the overall impression is spoiled by small stutters and speed dips. The suppression system suppresses extraneous noise well, providing high quality sound when recording.

The overall verdict is that the camera is serviceable and is approximately on par with its competitors. In some places traces of software processing are visible, due to which detail is lost in some frames. The main disappointment was the sharpness zones at the edges of the image, but you don’t remember about them when shooting at a short distance.

Conclusion

Huawei P9 Lite dual sim black review has come to an end and it's time to sum it up. It has already become commonplace for us that gadgets from China are much cheaper than their European competitors with identical characteristics. But the Huawei brand has managed to break into the global market, which is why the cost of its devices is gradually increasing and is already an order of magnitude higher than its Chinese competitors.

Huawei P9 Lite has become a pleasant exception to the rule, because for $182 they offer us a device with a fingerprint scanner, a FullHD display and good performance. What we regretted was the amount of RAM and built-in memory; there are really not enough of them here.

Where can I buy?

Your rating for the smartphone:

Decent affordable model in the updated family

This spring, Huawei introduced an updated line of its fashion models: P9, improved P9 Plus, and simplified P9 lite. We have already reviewed the central model of the P9 line in the corresponding review, now it’s time for its lightweight modification. Naturally, there is no longer a dual Leica camera, no metal body, a less powerful processor, and so on. But this is when compared with the current flagship.

However, we should not forget that P9 lite has the most direct relation not even to it, but to its own progenitor - P8 lite, which was released exactly a year ago. We will compare the hero of today's review with him. And with this comparison, everything is the other way around: the new product has a much better screen, a more powerful processor, and a larger battery. In general, the P9 lite is more similar in characteristics to the “full-fledged” P8, that is, the lite version today is a flagship by last year’s standards.

P8 lite, by the way, became the first fully equipped modification of the flagship; before it, the Huawei P series included only “numbered” models in one version without lightweight or improved versions. So today we have the opportunity to find out whether new fashion from Huawei and whether the new product is really worthy of its popular predecessors.

Main characteristics of Huawei P9 lite (model VNS-L21)

• SoC HiSilicon Kirin 650, 8 cores ARM Cortex-A53, 4x2.0 GHz and 4x1.7 GHz
• GPU Mali T830 MP2
• Operating system Android 6.0, EMUI 4.1
• Touch display IPS 5.2″, 1920×1080, 423 ppi
• Random access memory (RAM) 2 GB, inner memory 16 GB
• SIM cards: Nano-SIM (2 pcs.)
• Supports microSD memory cards up to 128 GB
• GSM networks 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• WCDMA networks 850/900/1900/2100 MHz
• LTE networks Cat.6 FDD Band 1/3/7/8/20
• Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n (2.4 GHz), Wi-Fi Direct
• Bluetooth 4.1, NFC
• USB 2.0
• GPS/A-GPS, Glonass, BDS
• Direction, proximity, lighting sensors, accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetic compass, step counter, fingerprint scanner
• Cameras 13 MP, f/2.0, autofocus, LED flash
• Camera 8 MP, front, f/2.0, fixed. focus
• Battery 3000 mAh
• Dimensions 147×73×7.5 mm
• Weight 145 g

Appearance and ease of use

The new product, like its predecessor, received a plastic case, which significantly distinguishes it from the current top version, since the P9 smartphone is clad in an all-metal case without plastic. Metal is also present here, but only in the form of a rim that runs along the entire side perimeter of the P9 lite case.

The design of the new product is practically no different from its predecessor, and even from other P series devices, since their appearance is almost the same. However, you can notice that P9 lite received back cover a strange-looking glossy translucent insert, which looks completely out of place here and looks worse than the matte insert that was in the same place on the P8 lite.

Interestingly, being just a few millimeters wider, longer and thicker, the P9 lite feels larger and bulkier in the hand than the metal P9. This is not to say that the smartphone is comfortable to operate with one hand; it is quite large for this purpose, even despite its small thickness. Matte surfaces prevent it from slipping out of your fingers and do not attract fingerprints. There are no complaints about the assembly; the device feels like a monolithic block.

The front panel does not have a convex 2.5D glass, it is the same flat as the P8 lite. But compared to last year’s model, the screen received twice the resolution: here it is already full Full HD, although the physical size has increased slightly (from 5 to 5.2 inches).

The front panel contains the usual number of elements, among them there is an LED event indicator. The front camera did not receive its own flash; here it was replaced with screen backlighting. There are also no touch buttons at the bottom of the device; all buttons are moved to the screen. Their order and set can be set independently in the settings.

None of the elements on the back of the case protrude beyond its limits, so you can comfortably use the smartphone even when it is lying on the table. There is a camera with a flash, as well as a fingerprint sensor area. The new fingerprint scanner supports ARM TrustZone technology, which increases the speed and accuracy of unlocking your smartphone with one touch.

The sensor pad recognizes the owner’s fingerprints as standard, but in addition, even without authorization, it can be used as a small touchpad. With it, you can scroll through pages, flip through photos in the gallery, turn off alarms, answer phone calls, and everything else in the same spirit. This functionality is now often found in smartphones equipped with a fingerprint scanner; we have already seen it in Huawei smartphones.

Mechanical keys and a card slot are usually located on the side faces. There were no significant changes to the buttons, except that the power key changed its strange and unsightly shape to a more suitable elongated one. Now all the buttons look nice and uniform. The keys are large and, as usual for Huawei smartphones, have a rather soft stroke.

As for the card slot, there are more changes here. The P8 lite had two such slots, but here only one connector is embedded, and, unfortunately, it is again a hybrid one. That is, you can install either two SIM cards or a memory card instead of one of them. Users have gone so far as to grind and glue cards together so that the smartphone can accept two SIM cards and a memory card at the same time, and if they go to such pains, it means they really need it. Then why don’t manufacturers listen to them and continue to fill their new devices with similar “hybrid” connectors? The question remains unanswered for now...

The interface connectors are located at the ends, where they should be. However, if in the older P9 model the audio output could be found at the bottom end, next to the Micro-USB connector and speaker output, then here, like the Huawei P8 lite, the hole for the headphone minijack is located at the top end and is adjacent only to the hole for the second, auxiliary microphone.

The Micro-USB connector here is standard, not type C, like the older P9; it is located in the center of the lower end. It is habitually framed by two grilles, and just as habitually one of them serves only as props, since there is no speaker behind it.

There are no plugs on the connectors, nor are there any strap mounts. The device did not receive protection from moisture and dust. As for the body colors, in the presentation photos there are devices of three colors, but at the time of the announcement of the article in official Russian retail there are white, black, gold and silver options.

Screen

The smartphone is equipped touch screen IPS, its physical dimensions are 65x115 mm, diagonal - 5.2 inches. The screen resolution is 1920×1080, the pixel density is 423 ppi. The frame around the screen is not very wide: about 3.5 mm on the sides and 15 mm on the top and bottom. On the large panel of the smartphone, the frame does not look rough; the screen as a whole fits in organically, although there was no attempt to achieve a “frameless” effect like the P9. The manufacturer provides exact figures: the Huawei P9 lite screen occupies 76.4% of the front panel surface.

The display brightness is automatically adjusted based on the light sensor. There is also a proximity sensor that blocks the screen when you bring the smartphone to your ear. Multi-touch technology allows you to process 10 simultaneous touches. You cannot activate the screen by double tapping the glass, but the screen will activate when you touch the fingerprint scanner pad. In the display settings, you can enable support for working with gloves.

A detailed examination using measuring instruments was carried out by the editor of the “Monitors” and “Projectors and TV” sections, Alexey Kudryavtsev. Here is his expert opinion on the screen of the sample under study.

The front surface of the screen is made in the form of a glass plate with a mirror-smooth surface that is scratch-resistant. Judging by the reflection of objects, the anti-glare properties of the screen are better than those of the Google Nexus 7 (2013) screen (hereinafter simply Nexus 7). For clarity, here is a photo in which a white surface is reflected in the switched off screens (on the left - Nexus 7, on the right - Huawei P9 lite, then they can be distinguished by size):

The screen of the Huawei P9 lite is darker (brightness according to photographs is 103 versus 111 for the Nexus 7). The ghosting of reflected objects in the Huawei P9 lite screen is very weak, this indicates that there is no air gap between the layers of the screen (more specifically, between the outer glass and the surface of the LCD matrix) (OGS - One Glass Solution type screen). Due to the smaller number of boundaries (glass/air type) with very different refractive indices, such screens look better in conditions of strong external illumination, but their repair in the case of cracked external glass is much more expensive, since the entire screen has to be replaced. The outer surface of the screen has a special oleophobic (grease-repellent) coating (even better in efficiency than that of the Nexus 7), so fingerprints are removed much more easily and appear at a lower speed than with regular glass.

When manually controlling the brightness and displaying the white field in full screen, the maximum brightness value was about 520 cd/m², the minimum was 11 cd/m². The maximum brightness is very high, which means, given the excellent anti-glare properties, readability even on a sunny day outdoors should be at a good level. In complete darkness, the brightness can be reduced to a comfortable value. In stock automatic adjustment brightness by the light sensor (it is located to the left of the front speaker slot). IN automatic mode When external lighting conditions change, the screen brightness both increases and decreases. The operation of this function depends on the position of the brightness adjustment, with which the user can try to set the desired brightness level in the current conditions. If in an office environment the brightness slider is set to maximum, then in complete darkness the auto-brightness function reduces the brightness to 16 cd/m² (normal), in an office illuminated by artificial light (approximately 400 lux) it sets it to 520 cd/m² (excessively bright), in in a very bright environment (corresponding to lighting on a clear day outdoors, but without direct sunlight - 20,000 lux or a little more) increases to 520 cd/m² (to the maximum, which is what is needed). If everything is also in office conditions, the brightness slider is at half the scale, then the screen brightness for the three conditions indicated above is as follows: 16, 180 and 520 cd/m² (suitable values). If the brightness control is set to minimum - 11, 11, 520 cd/m² (the second value is too low). It turns out that the auto-brightness function works adequately and to some extent allows the user to customize their work to individual requirements. At any brightness level, there is virtually no backlight modulation, so there is no screen flickering.

IN this smartphone An IPS type matrix is ​​used. The microphotographs show a typical IPS subpixel structure:

For comparison, you can see the gallery of microphotographs of screens used in mobile technology.

The screen has good viewing angles without significant color shift even with large viewing deviations from perpendicular to the screen and without inverting shades. For comparison, here are photographs in which the same images are displayed on the screens of Huawei P9 lite and Nexus 7, while the screen brightness is initially set to approximately 200 cd/m², and the color balance on the camera is forcibly switched to 6500 K. There is a white field perpendicular to the screens:

Note the good uniformity of brightness and color tone of the white field. And a test picture:

The colors on the Huawei P9 lite screen are clearly oversaturated and the color balance varies between screens. Now at an angle of approximately 45 degrees to the plane and to the side of the screen:

It can be seen that the colors have not changed much on both screens, but on the Huawei P9 lite the contrast has decreased to a greater extent due to the strong highlighting of blacks. And a white field:

The brightness at an angle of the screens has decreased (at least 4 times, based on the difference in shutter speed), but the screen of the Huawei P9 lite is still lighter (brightness according to photographs is 237 versus 222 for the Nexus 7). When deviated diagonally, the black field brightens greatly and acquires a reddish tint. The photographs below demonstrate this (the brightness of the white areas in the direction perpendicular to the plane of the screens is the same!):

And from another angle:

When viewed perpendicularly, the uniformity of the black field is good, although not ideal:

The contrast (approximately in the center of the screen) is high - about 1200:1. The response time for the black-white-black transition is 24 ms (13 ms on + 11 ms off). The transition between halftones of gray 25% and 75% (based on the numerical value of the color) and back takes a total of 45 ms. The gamma curve, constructed using 32 points with equal intervals based on the numerical value of the shade of gray, did not reveal any blockage in either the highlights or the shadows. The exponent of the approximating power function is 2.36, which is slightly higher than the standard value of 2.2. In this case, the real gamma curve almost does not deviate from the power-law dependence:

This device has some kind of dynamic adjustment of the backlight brightness in accordance with the nature of the displayed image. As a result, the resulting dependence of brightness on hue (gamma curve) may not correspond to the gamma curve of a static image, since the measurements were carried out with sequential display of shades of gray on almost the entire screen. For this reason, we carried out a number of tests - determining contrast and response time, comparing black illumination at angles - (however, as always) when displaying special templates with a constant average brightness, and not monochromatic fields in the entire screen. It should be noted that in this case, the brightness correction is weakly expressed and has a not entirely obvious dependence on the image, but it would be better not to have it at all.

The color gamut is noticeably wider than sRGB:

Let's look at the spectra:

We have already seen this in the case of, for example, Sony Xperia Z2, the non-lite version of Huawei P9 and other mobile devices. Sony indicates that these screens use LEDs with a blue emitter and green and red phosphors (usually a blue emitter and a yellow phosphor), which, in combination with special matrix filters, allows for a wide color gamut. Yes, and the red phosphor apparently uses so-called quantum dots. For a consumer device, a wide color gamut is not an advantage, but a significant disadvantage, since as a result, the colors of images - drawings, photographs and films - oriented to the sRGB space (and the vast majority of them) have an unnatural saturation. This is especially noticeable on recognizable shades, such as skin tones. The result is shown in the photo above.

The balance of shades on the gray scale is average, since the color temperature is above the standard 6500 K, but the deviation from the blackbody spectrum (ΔE) is below 10, which is considered an acceptable indicator for a consumer device. At the same time, at least ΔE changes little from hue to hue - this has a positive effect on the visual assessment of color balance. (The darkest areas of the gray scale can be ignored, since color balance there is not very important, and the error in measuring color characteristics at low brightness is large.)

This device has the ability to adjust the color balance by adjusting the hue on the color wheel.

The curves in the graphs above Without corr. correspond to the results without any color balance correction, and the curves Corr.— data obtained after shifting the point to the position indicated in the image above. It can be seen that the change in balance corresponds to the expected result, since the color temperature approached the standard value and ΔE decreased. There is a benefit from this correction, and the brightness has decreased by less than 10%. Note that this function implemented in this version rather for show, since there is no numerical reflection of the correction and there is no field for measuring color balance.

To summarize: the screen has a very high maximum brightness and has good anti-glare properties, so the device can be used outdoors without any problems, even on a sunny summer day. In complete darkness, the brightness can be reduced to a comfortable level. It is also possible to use a mode with automatic brightness adjustment, which works adequately. Also, the advantages of the screen include the presence of an effective oleophobic coating, the absence of an air gap in the layers of the screen and flicker, high contrast, and good uniformity of the black field. The disadvantages are low black stability to deviation of the gaze from perpendicular to the screen plane, an excessively wide color gamut and average (without correction) color balance. Nevertheless, given the importance of characteristics specifically for this class of devices, the screen quality can be considered high, although you should prepare for strange and not entirely natural shades in films and photographs.

Sound

Huawei P9 lite sounds, surprisingly, no worse than the older P9 model. Huawei's simplified version turned out to be well equipped in terms of sound system, this distinguishes it favorably from the similarly simplified Sony Xperia XA, for example, and from many others modern smartphones middle and even higher category. Huawei P9 lite is equipped with HiSilicon Hi6402 audio processor, 9 V Smart PA and a powerful built-in speaker. The sound of the P9 lite is really very good, this is one of the indisputable advantages of the new product. Both when the main speaker is working and in the headphones, the entire spectrum of frequencies, low in abundance, is perfectly visible, while the sound is not dull, but bright and rich. At the maximum volume level, the backgrounds do not merge, individual instruments remain distinguishable, and there is enough volume reserve for any environment. The vibration alert is average in power, or even slightly below average.

To play melodies, you use your own player, and, as usual, no additional ones manual settings it doesn’t - you can only turn on or off the virtual Super Wide Sound 2.0 (SWS) system, but only when working with connected headphones.

There are no complaints about the conversational speaker and microphone, although everything here is quite standard: the intonation and timbre of a familiar voice remain recognizable, extraneous noise practically unnoticed. The microphones are not too sensitive; to record on a voice recorder, you need to bring the device closer to the sound source. The sound itself is recorded cleanly and remains intelligible when played back; the noise reduction system copes with its tasks adequately. It is curious that here, unlike the older model, they did not forget to install the FM radio program.

Camera

Unlike Huawei P9, there is not a word about collaboration on the camera with Leica, everything is simpler here. Huawei P9 lite is equipped as standard with two cameras with a resolution of 13 and 8 megapixels. The quality of the front camera (8 MP, f/2.0) is not ideal, but overall it’s quite good for selfies, and in comparison with the P9 it looks no worse. The front module does not have its own flash; it is imitated here by the bright backlight of the display itself, which turns on for a second immediately before shooting. An example of a photo taken using this pseudo-flash can be seen below.

The main camera is equipped with a 13-megapixel module with a Sony IMX214 sensor and a lens with a maximum aperture of f/2.0. It has its own fairly bright flash. Autofocus is fast, works accurately, and makes no mistakes.

The camera control menu is exactly the same as in the older P9 model. There are many settings, additional modes- Same. The menu is arranged logically and is comfortable to use: a gesture on the left brings up a menu with various modes, on the right - a camera settings menu (image resolution, button control, etc.), and at the bottom brings up a menu for manual shooting settings. In it, as usual, you can independently control focus, shutter speed, sensitivity (ISO), exposure compensation and white balance. Using the Camera2 API it is possible to transfer camera control third party applications without restrictions, up to saving pictures in RAW.

The video camera can shoot with a maximum resolution of up to 1920×1080 at a speed of 30; there is neither 60 fps nor a 4K (UHD) shooting mode. There is also the possibility of slow-motion slo-mo recording in 720p resolution at 120 frames per second. For video shooting, you can turn on the stabilization function, but its effect is barely noticeable when shooting on the go. When shooting video at maximum resolution, the camera copes well in terms of image quality, but there are noticeable dips in speed and slowdowns, which noticeably spoil the whole picture. The sound during video recording is recorded quite well, and the noise reduction system copes adequately with wind noise.

• Video No. 1 (44 MB, 1920×1080 @30 fps)
• Video No. 2 (28 MB, 1920×1080 @30 fps)

	Sharpness in the central part of the frame is quite good.
	There are large areas of blur in the lower right and upper left corners.
	The text is well done.
	The camera does macro photography well.
	As the shot is removed, the sharpness drops smoothly.

Huawei P9 lite	Apple iPhone 6Plus

The camera turned out to be good. She takes advantage of places software processing, due to which the image is slightly blurred, although the detail does not suffer very much. The most disappointing areas are the areas of blur at the edges of the frame, but when shooting close objects they are almost invisible. As a result, the camera is quite suitable for documentary shooting.

Telephone and communications

The smartphone works as standard in modern 2G GSM and 3G WCDMA networks, and also has support for fourth-generation networks LTE Cat.6 with a maximum possible speed of up to 300 Mbit/s for reception, frequency aggregation is supported if there is appropriate support from the operator’s network. Five FDD LTE bands are supported, including the three most common among domestic operators (B3, B7 and B20). In practice, in the Moscow region, the smartphone was confidently registered and worked in 4G networks.

There is support for Bluetooth 4.1, and unlike the older model, there is an NFC module. The smartphone supports Wi-Fi Direct, you can organize a wireless access point via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth channels. Smart Wi-Fi+ lets you automatically switch between Wi-Fi and network mobile transmission data. The USB 2.0 connector here does not support connecting external devices to USB mode OTG. NFC module, unfortunately, does not have compatibility with the Mifare Classic protocol, which is necessary for the successful operation of the “” application with the Troika transport card. Modern Sony smartphones have this compatibility, and so does the Alcatel Idol 4s, so in this regard, Huawei smartphones are not the best choice for domestic public transport users.

The navigation module works with GPS (A-GPS), Glonass and Chinese Beidou. There are no complaints about the operating speed of the navigation module; the first satellites are detected during a cold start within the first minute. But it is worth noting that in the same place, the Sony Xperia XA demonstrates higher speeds in 4G, and finds satellites faster in cold mode.

The smartphone is equipped with a magnetic field sensor, on the basis of which the compass of navigation programs operates.

The smartphone, unlike the older model, provides work with two SIM cards according to the standard Dual SIM Dual Standby, that is, not equipped with two radio modules.

Any of the SIM cards can be designated as the main one for organizing voice calls, transferring data and sending SMS messages; When dialing a number, you can also select the desired card using the corresponding buttons. A SIM card in any slot can work with 3G/4G networks, but only one of them can function in this mode at a time. To change the assignment of slots, cards do not need to be swapped - this can be done directly from the phone menu.

OS and software

The device is used as a system software platform Google Android 6.0 Marshmallow 64-bit version with its own Emotion UI 4.1 shell, almost the same as in the older P9 model. Here, work with gestures is reduced to a minimum, and there is also an additional virtual control button that folds out on the screen into a radial menu. It is possible to change the design themes and enable a simplified desktop mode; the bottom control row of virtual buttons can also be reassigned at your discretion. The navigation panel has a timeline of events, on the next one you can find a quick access menu to the main settings, and by swiping up from the bottom you can call up another menu where you can find a flashlight, a voice recorder and some others useful features and settings.

The preinstalled programs are still the same: available file manager, the phone manager optimizes the system and its security, and the built-in pedometer constantly counts the steps taken during the day, and does this even when you don’t ask it for it.

Performance

The Huawei P9 lite hardware platform is based on the new 8-core HiSilicon Kirin 650 SoC of Huawei's own design. This SoC is made using 16nm technology. It consists of two clusters of four Cortex-A53 processor cores with frequencies of 2.0 and 1.7 GHz. The Mali T830 MP2 video accelerator is responsible for the graphics. The manufacturer claims that if we evaluate the performance of the CPU and GPU, the Kirin 650 is ahead of the Kirin 620 by 60% and 100%, respectively. Here we can mention the new i5 coprocessor, which is responsible for the operation of all sensors of the device, the performance of which has also been increased and power consumption reduced.

The smartphone's RAM capacity is 2 GB, the built-in flash memory is 16 GB (the user has less than 10.5 GB of free space). This volume can be increased using microSD cards, but then you will have to remove one of the SIM cards. Connectivity options USB port There are no external flash drives in OTG mode.

Most of all, the new HiSilicon Kirin 650 is close in results to another fresh mid-level platform - MediaTek Helio P10, which runs the similarly positioned Sony Xperia XA. Only here the graphics are a little worse, but in terms of complex and specialized browser tests there is absolute parity between them.

Based on the testing results, we can confidently say that HiSilicon Kirin 650 is a mid-level platform, not higher. A device with such filling confidently copes with almost any task, including demanding games. You can comfortably play World of Tanks at maximum fps values, heavier games demonstrate no higher than 30 fps, but also do not suffer from slowdowns and delays.

Testing in latest versions comprehensive tests AnTuTu and GeekBench 3:

All the results we obtained when testing the smartphone in the most latest versions popular benchmarks, we have summarized them in tables for convenience. The table usually adds several other devices from different segments, also tested on similar latest versions of benchmarks (this is done only for a visual assessment of the obtained dry figures). Unfortunately, within the framework of one comparison it is impossible to present the results from different versions benchmarks, so many worthy and relevant models remain “behind the scenes” - due to the fact that at one time they passed the “obstacle course” on previous versions test programs.

Testing the graphics subsystem in gaming tests 3DMark, GFXBenchmark and Bonsai Benchmark:

When testing in 3DMark, the most powerful smartphones now have the ability to run the application in Unlimited mode, where the rendering resolution is fixed at 720p and VSync is disabled (which can cause the speed to rise above 60 fps).

Browser cross-platform tests:

As for benchmarks for assessing the speed of the javascript engine, you should always make allowance for the fact that their results significantly depend on the browser in which they are launched, so the comparison can only be truly correct on the same OS and browsers, and this is possible during testing not always. For Android OS, we always try to use Google Chrome.

Thermal photographs

Below is a thermal image of the rear surface, obtained after 10 minutes of running the battery test in the GFXBenchmark program (the lighter, the higher the temperature):

It can be seen that the heating is more localized in the upper part of the device, which apparently corresponds to the location of the SoC chip. According to the heat camera, the maximum heating was 41 degrees (at an ambient temperature of 24 degrees), this is the average heating in this test for modern smartphones.

Playing video

To test omnivorousness when playing video (including support for various codecs, containers and special features, for example subtitles), we used the most common formats, which make up the bulk of the content available on the Web. Note that for mobile devices it is important to have support for hardware video decoding at the chip level, since it is most often impossible to process modern options using processor cores alone. Also, don't expect mobile device decoding everything, since the leadership in flexibility belongs to the PC, and no one is going to challenge it. All results are summarized in a single table.

According to the testing results, the test subject was not equipped with all the necessary decoders that are needed to fully play most of the most common multimedia files on the network, in this case, audio files. To successfully play them, you will have to resort to the help of a third-party player - for example, MX Player. True, it is also necessary to change the settings and manually install additional custom codecs, because now this player does not officially support the AC3 sound format.

Format	Container, video, sound	MX Video Player	Standard video player
BDRip 720p	MKV, H.264 1280×720, 24fps, AAC	plays normally	plays normally
BDRip 720p	MKV, H.264 1280×720, 24fps, AC3		The video plays fine, there is no sound
BDRip 1080p	MKV, H.264 1920×1080, 24fps, AAC	plays normally	plays normally
BDRip 1080p	MKV, H.264 1920×1080, 24fps, AC3	The video plays fine, there is no sound	The video plays fine, there is no sound

Further testing of video playback was performed Alexey Kudryavtsev.

We did not find the MHL interface, like Mobility DisplayPort, in this smartphone, so we had to limit ourselves to testing the output of video files on the screen of the device itself. To do this, we used a set of test files with an arrow and a rectangle moving one division per frame (see “Methodology for testing video playback and display devices. Version 1 (for mobile devices) 720/24p

Fine No

Note: If in both columns Uniformity And Passes Green ratings are given, this means that, most likely, when watching films, artifacts caused by uneven alternation and frame skipping will either not be visible at all, or their number and visibility will not affect the viewing comfort. Red marks indicate possible problems with playback of the corresponding files.

According to the criterion of frame output, the quality of playback of video files on the screen of the smartphone itself is good, since frames (or groups of frames) can (but are not required) be output with more or less uniform alternation of intervals and without skipping frames. When playing video files with a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels (1080p) on a smartphone screen, the image of the video file itself is displayed exactly along the border of the screen, one to one in pixels, that is, in the original resolution. The brightness range displayed on the screen corresponds to standard range 16—235—all gradations of shades are displayed in shadows and highlights.

Battery life

The capacity of the removable battery installed in Huawei P9 lite is the same 3000 mAh as that of the older model. The P8 lite, by the way, had a battery capacity of 800 mAh less, but that one had half the screen resolution. It's nice that the manufacturer's promises about a more careful attitude to energy consumption in their new chip came true: the P9 lite model turned out to be noticeably more durable in all standard modes testing than P8 lite. True, the device still cannot be called a long-liver: under intense operating conditions, it sometimes barely lasts until evening charging. But on the other hand, under exactly the same conditions, the competing Sony Xperia XA shows much worse results, so overall everything is normal here. The company's flagship P9, meanwhile, demonstrates better results, being equipped with exactly the same battery capacity.

Testing, as usual, was carried out without using any energy-saving modes, although, of course, the device has them.

	Battery capacity	Reading mode	Video mode	3D Game Mode
Huawei P9 lite	3000 mAh	14:30	10:00 am	4:00 am
Huawei P9	3000 mAh	19:00	9:00 a.m.	4 hours 50 minutes
Huawei P8 lite	2200 mAh	11:00 am	7:00 am	3 hours 30 minutes
Sony Xperia XA	2300 mAh	09:40	7 hours 50 minutes	2 hours 30 minutes
Sony Xperia X	2620 mAh	15:50	9:00 a.m.	5 h. 30 m.
Micromax Canvas 5	2900 mAh	14:40	9:50 a.m.	4:00 am
Xiaomi Redmi Note 3	4000 mAh	15:45	11:00 am	5 hours 50 minutes

Continuous reading in the Moon+ Reader program (with a standard, light theme, with auto-scrolling) at a minimum comfortable brightness level (brightness was set to 100 cd/m²) lasts 14.5 hours. When continuously watching videos from YouTube in high quality (720p) with the same brightness level through the home Wi-Fi network The device operates for up to 10 hours. In 3D gaming mode, the smartphone works reliably for about 4 hours.

Unfortunately, Huawei smartphone P9 lite arrived to us for testing without a supplied charger. From a conventional charger with a maximum output current of 2 A, the device charges for a very long time, approximately 3 hours 50 minutes with a current of 1 A at a voltage of 5 V. The device does not support wireless charging.

Bottom line

I was pleased with the price of the device: with all its positive qualities and a minimal number of shortcomings (in general, there are none), the smartphone is sold in official Russian retail at a price of 20 thousand rubles, which is 3 thousand cheaper than the same Sony Xperia XA Dual ( minimum prices for these devices from gray supplies, of course, below). Huawei P9 lite in this comparison looks clearly better in terms of sound and battery life, it loses a little in the power of the video accelerator, but this is not such a significant minus. Comparing the new product with its predecessor P8 lite is generally pointless, since P9 lite is better than it in almost everything. And even in front of the much more expensive flagship P9, our hero does not give in. Of course, the fundamental aspects here, such as performance and cameras, are worse, but there are some little things that the top-end device is deprived of: for example, the presence of NFC and FM radio. Huawei's new mid-level fashion device came out interesting and balanced, and its plastic case against the backdrop of the widespread fashion for metal in cases, it even looks somehow self-sufficient and commands respect.

Huawei P9 Lite was officially announced in the spring of 2016. This smartphone is a lightweight version of the famous flagship P9. This device has lost somewhat in terms of power relative to its older brother, but has successfully retained the overall design and some unique features.

Appearance and ergonomics

Matte plastic with texture adorns the back of the Huawei P9 Lite, which looks very stylish. There is a side metal frame. Moreover, all the corners of the body are rounded, and the edges are beveled. The smartphone is thin and attractive, but the appearance is somewhat spoiled by the translucent insert on the back, which is glossy for some reason. The fingerprint scanner is located on the back, it is implemented in the shape of a square. The memory card slot is already customarily combined with a second SIM, and the volume buttons are made of plastic. The device does not tire your hand at all and is truly a pleasure to use. Moreover, thanks to its excellent ergonomics and compact size, the gadget will fit in any palm. Dimensions of P9 Lite: height - 146.8 mm, thickness - 7.5 mm, width - 72.6 mm, weight - 147 g. Colors - silver, gold, black and white.

Display

The smartphone has a 5.2-inch screen with optimal dimensions. The viewing angles of this IPS matrix are very good, and the Full HD resolution only adds to the believability. The picture is rich and moderately juicy. But the brightness is a little lacking, especially noticeable in the sun. This display is covered with 2.5D glass, which looks really impressive.

Hardware and performance

Since the P9 Light still seems to be a mid-level device, the processor here is appropriate. We are talking about the Kirin 650 chip, which is made using the latest 16-nm process technology. The processor with eight cores can be overclocked to a frequency of 2000 MHz, and the Mali-T830 MP2 video chip is designed to accelerate graphics. The standard set includes 2 GB of RAM, as well as 16 GB of internal storage. Memory expandable up to 128 GB MicroSD cards. The advantages of the EMUI 4.1 shell and operating system are actively used here Android systems 6.0.

Thanks to modern hardware, there is no slowdown in the operation of the smartphone. At the same time, Huawei P9 Lite scores about 53,000 points in the AnTuTu test. In games, certain problems can only be observed in very demanding projects. If you lower the graphics level a little, then even the coolest toys will run perfectly smoothly.

Communication and sound

The Huawei P9 Light has amazingly high-quality speakers. The melodies became not only clearer, but also louder. The situation is similar with listening to music through headphones. And with the help of an equalizer you can easily enhance the bass or volume of the sound. The gadget supports standard networks, as well as LTE Cat 4.

Camera

The P9 Lite comes with a 13-megapixel camera. The user will be able to find many shooting modes, where there are even professional tools. A good level of detail in the photo is complemented by good color rendition. Very fast focusing instantly finds the subject in the frame. The device has a flash, but at night the pictures are somewhat noisy. Thanks to the capabilities of the 8-megapixel front camera, you can always experiment with self-portraits.

conclusions

What does a user get for 20,000 rubles? A solid middle peasant with great ambitions. The P9 Lights comes with a charging unit, instructions and a micro-USB cable, as well as a proprietary headset. The smartphone successfully retained the wonderful design of the flagship, and also acquired, although not powerful, modern hardware that makes the device work quite quickly.

Pros:

• Fast fingerprint scanner.
• Juicy screen.
• Attractive appearance.
• Great sound.
• Beautiful shell.

Minuses:

• There are problems with night photography.
• Not enough memory.

Technical specifications Huawei P9 Lite

General characteristics
Model	Huawei P9 Lite, VNS-L21, VNS-L31, VNS-L22, VNS-L23, VNS-L53
Date of announcement/start of sales	April 2016 / May 2016
Dimensions	146.8 x 72.6 x 7.5 mm.
Weight	147
Case color range	Black, white, gold
Number and type of SIM cards	Single SIM (Nano-SIM) or Dual SIM (Nano-SIM)
operating system	Android OS, v6.0 (Marshmallow)
Communication standard in 2G networks	GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 - SIM 1 & SIM 2
Communication standard in 3G networks	HSDPA 900 / 1900 / 2100 - VNS-L21, VNS-L31 HSDPA 800 / 850 / 2100 / 900 - VNS-L22 HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1700(AWS) / 1900 / 2100 - VNS-L23
Communication standard in 4G networks	LTE band 1(2100), 3(1800), 7(2600), 8(900), 20(800) - VNS-L21, VNS-L31 LTE band 1(2100), 3(1800), 5(850), 7(2600), 8(900), 19(800), 28(700), 40(2300) - VNS-L22 LTE band 2(1900), 4(1700/2100), 5(850), 7(2600), 28(700) - VNS-L23 LTE band 2(1900), 4(1700/2100), 5(850), 7(2600), 12(700), 17(700) - VNS-L53
Display
Screen type	IPS LCD, 16 million colors
Screen size	5.2 inches
Screen resolution	1080 x 1920 @424 ppi
Multitouch	yes, up to 10 simultaneous touches
Screen protection	Gorilla Glass 4
Sound
3.5mm jack	There is
FM radio	There is
Additionally	24-bit/192kHz audio
Data transfer
USB	microUSB v2.0
Satellite navigation	GPS (A-GPS), GLONASS/BDS
WLAN	Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, WiFi Direct, hotspot
Bluetooth	v4.2, A2DP, LE
Internet connection	LTE, Cat4; HSDPA, 21 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps, EDGE, GPRS
NFC	yes (in models L31, L21)
Platform
CPU	Octa-core HiSilicon Kirin 650 processor (4×2.5 GHz Cortex-A72 & 4×1.8 GHz Cortex-A53)
GPU	Mali-T830MP2
RAM	2GB/3GB RAM
Inner memory	16 GB
Supported memory cards	microSD up to 256GB, uses a combined SIM/SD-CARD slot
Camera
Camera	13 MP, f/2.0, autofocus, LED flash
Camera functions	1/3″ sensor size, 1.12 µm pixel size, geo-tagging, touch focus, face detection, panorama, HDR
Video recording	1080p@30fps
Front-camera	8 MP, f/2.0, autofocus, 1080p
Battery
Battery type and capacity	Li-Po 3000 mAh non-removable
Additionally
Sensors	3D touch, fast charging, charging other devices, fingerprint scanner
Browser	HTML5
Email	IMAP, POP3, SMTP
Other	— Fast battery charging — XviD/MP4/H.265 player - MP3/eAAC+/WAV/Flac player — Document viewer — Organizer — Voice dialing, voice commands
Equipment
Standard equipment	Huawei P9 Lite: 1 USB cable: 1 User manual: 1 Warranty card: 1 Charger 5V/2A: 1

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Let us remind our dear readers that we have already had the honor of getting acquainted with the new flagship Huawei P9 - and, moreover, we even gave it a medal “For Innovation and Design”. The smartphone turned out to be really cool - cute, powerful and with an excellent camera. It costs, however, an unusually high price for Chinese smartphone: about fifty thousand rubles. For everyone who wants a simpler gadget that looks about the same, Huawei just made the P9 Lite - a simplified version of the current flagship.

If we usually list all the advantages of a gadget in the introduction to the material, this time we want to focus on what the P9 Lite does not have in comparison with its older brother. The smartphone is built on a more modest system-on-a-chip (Kirin 650 instead of the monstrous Kirin 955), lacks a dual camera and a newfangled interface USB Type-C. The volume of both built-in flash memory and RAM has also been reduced. And at the same time, the P9 Lite body is half a millimeter thicker than the body of the original version. In general, all of its main features were taken away from the gadget and made into an ordinary mid-price smartphone. But the price has also been reduced significantly - you will have to pay about 20-25 thousand rubles for a smartphone. At the same time, the P9 Lite is still not so weak: an eight-core system-on-a-chip, a 5.2-inch Full HD display (just like the original) and a fingerprint scanner. The smartphone is worth a closer look, especially for those who are not used to throwing money away.

⇡ Technical specifications

	Huawei Ascend P7	Huawei P8 Lite	Huawei P8	Huawei P9 Lite
Touch screen	5 inches,	5 inches,	5.2 inches,	5.2 inches,
	1080 × 1920 pixels, IPS;	720 × 1280 pixels, IPS;	1080 × 1920 pixels, IPS;	1080 × 1920 pixels, IPS;
		Capacitive, up to 10 simultaneous	Capacitive, up to 10 simultaneous	Capacitive, up to 10 simultaneous
	touches	touches	touches	touches
CPU	Huawei HiSilicon Kirin 910T:	Huawei HiSilicon Kirin 620:	Huawei HiSilicon Kirin 930/935:	Huawei HiSilicon Kirin 650:
	four cores	eight cores	four cores
	ARM Cortex-A9 (ARMv7)	ARM Cortex-A53 (ARMv8)	ARM Cortex-A53 (ARMv8), Frequency 1.5 GHz;	frequency 1.7 GHz;
	frequency 1.8 GHz;	frequency 1.2 GHz;	four cores	four ARM Cortex-A53 (ARMv8) cores,
	28 nm process technology;	ARM big.LITTLE technology;	ARM Cortex-A53e (ARMv8), Frequency 2 GHz;	frequency 2 GHz;
	32-bit computing	28 nm process technology;	ARM big.LITTLE technology;	ARM big.LITTLE technology;
		32- and 64-bit computing	28 nm process technology;	28 nm process technology;
			32- and 64-bit computing	32- and 64-bit computing
Graphics controller	ARM Mali-450 MP4, 533 MHz	ARM Mali-450 MP4, 533 MHz	ARM Mali-T628 MP4, 600 MHz	ARM Mali-T830MP2, 600 MHz
RAM	2 GB	2 GB	3 GB	2/3 GB
Flash memory	16 GB + microSD	16 GB + microSD	32/64 GB + microSD	16 GB + microSD
Connectors	1 × micro-USB 2.0	1 × micro-USB 2.0	1 × micro-USB 2.0	1 × micro-USB 2.0
		1 × 3.5mm headset jack	1 × 3.5mm headset jack	1 × 3.5mm headset jack
	1 × microSD/micro-SIM	1 × microSD/micro-SIM	1 × microSD/nano-SIM	1 × microSD/nano-SIM
	1 × micro-SIM	1 × micro-SIM	1 × nano-SIM	1 × nano-SIM
cellular	2G/3G/4G	2G/3G/4G	2G/3G/4G	2G/3G/4G
		Two SIM cards in micro-SIM format	Two SIM cards in micro-SIM format	Two SIM cards in micro-SIM format
	(the second one cannot be installed when using a memory card)		(the second one cannot be installed when using a memory card)	(the second one cannot be installed when using a memory card)
Cellular connection 2G	GSM/GPRS/EDGE	GSM/GPRS/EDGE	GSM/GPRS/EDGE	GSM/GPRS/EDGE
	850/900/1800/1900 MHz	850/900/1800/1900 MHz	850/900/1800/1900 MHz	850/900/1800/1900 MHz
Cellular 3G	DC-HSPA+ (42 Mbps)	DC-HSPA+ (42 Mbps)	DC-HSPA+ (42 Mbps)	DC-HSPA+ (42 Mbps)
	WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100 MHz	WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100 MHz	WCDMA 850/900/1700/1900/2100 MHz	WCDMA 900/1900/2100 MHz (versions VNS-L21, VNS-L31; other versions have a different set of frequencies)
Cellular 4G	LTE Cat. 4 (150 Mbit/s)	LTE Cat. 4 (150 Mbit/s)	LTE Cat. 6 (300 Mbit/s)	LTE Cat. 6 (300 Mbit/s)
	LTE band 1, 3, 7, 8, 20	LTE band 1, 3, 7, 8, 20	LTE band 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12,	LTE band 1, 3, 7, 8, 20
	(2100/1800/2600/900/800 MHz)	(2100/1800/2600/900/800 MHz)	17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 28, 40	(2100/1800/2600/900/800 MHz)
			(2100/1900/1800/1700/850/
			2600/900/700/800/2300 MHz)
WiFi	802.11b/g/n + Wi-Fi Direct	802.11b/g/n + Wi-Fi Direct	802.11a/b/g/n + Wi-Fi Direct	802.11a/b/g/n + Wi-Fi Direct
Bluetooth	4	4	4.1	4.1
NFC	Eat	Eat	Eat	Eat
IR port	No	No	No	No
Navigation	GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS	GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS	GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS	GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS
Sensors		Illumination, proximity, accelerometer/gyroscope,	Illumination, proximity, accelerometer/gyroscope,	Illumination, proximity, accelerometer/gyroscope,
		magnetometer (digital compass)		magnetometer (digital compass), pedometer
Fingerprint scanner	No	No	No	Yes
Main camera		13 MP (4160 × 3120), back-illuminated matrix,	13 MP (4160 × 3120), back-illuminated matrix,	13 MP (4160 × 3120), back-illuminated matrix,
		autofocus, LED flash	autofocus, dual LED flash	autofocus, single LED flash
Front-camera		5 MP (2592 × 1952), no autofocus, no flash	8 MP (3264 × 2448), no autofocus, no flash	8 MP (3264 × 2448), without autofocus, with flash
Nutrition	Non-removable battery: 9.35 Wh (2460 mAh, 3.8 V)	Non-removable battery: 8.36 Wh (2200 mAh, 3.8 V)	Non-removable battery: 10.18 Wh (2680 mAh, 3.8 V)	Non-removable battery: 11.4 Wh (3000 mAh, 3.8 V)
Size	140 × 69 mm	143 × 71 mm	145 × 72 mm	147 × 72.5 mm
	Case thickness 6.5 mm	Case thickness 7.7 mm	Case thickness 6.4 mm	Case thickness 7.5 mm
Weight	124 g	131 g	144 g	147 g
Water and dust protection	Absent	Absent	Absent	Absent
operating system	Android 4.4.2 KitKat	Android 5.0 Lollipop	Android 5.0 Lollipop	Android 6.0 Marshmallow
	Emotion UI 2.3 shell	Emotion UI 3.1 shell	Emotion UI 3.1 shell	Emotion UI 4.1 shell
recommended price	14,990 rubles	15,990 rubles	23,990 rubles	20,990 rubles

⇡ Appearance, ergonomics, fingerprint scanner

The device is made in a style characteristic of the Huawei P line: a recognizable rectangle with rounded corners and a wide, stylized metal edging running along the edges of the case.

The smartphone weighs moderately - 147 grams, the hand does not get tired of it, the thickness is standard - 7.5 millimeters. The dimensions are quite acceptable by current standards - the smartphone fits in most pockets and does not stick out from them.