It is becoming a custom at Huawei, the “Lite” version of a smartphone comes out a little “preview”, even before the full presentation of the new range. An astonishing marketing choice, which undoubtedly aims not to drown the “light” model under an avalanche of technological innovations which do not necessarily concern it.
Ahead of its October 16 keynote, Huawei introduced the Mate 20 Lite, a mid-range smartphone with a large 6.3-inch screen. Its promise, an autonomy capable of making it easily pass the course of the day, for a price that does not exceed 400 euros.
Trendy design
In appearance, the Mate 20 Lite looks like any other device of 2018. A notch at the top of the screen, a border at the bottom, and a back which, if not made of glass, has the appearance . Small format fans are warned in advance, the Mate 20 Lite is not one of them. Two-handed use will be fairly inevitable.
With a 6.3-inch Full HD + screen, the Mate 20 Lite therefore belongs to the category of XXL smartphones. Using LCD technology, the panel chosen by Huawei is of very good quality. It has an excellent contrast ratio of 1808: 1, and a maximum brightness of 479 cd / m2, a little weak in front of certain reflections of the sun However, this remains satisfactory in most scenarios.
At the bottom of the smartphone, there is a USB-C port, compatible with fast charging, as well as a jack. News that should delight more than one.
Kirin 710: powerful and economical
Inside the Mate 20 Lite is Huawei’s new Kirin 710 processor, already used on the P Smart +. This new SoC offers mid-range performance and promises better autonomy management. 4 GB of RAM accompanies it.
In use, Huawei’s new processor delivers. We haven’t experienced a noticeable slowdown or crash in our few days with the smartphone. Everything opens quickly, and even resource-hungry apps like games run smoothly. EMUI 8.2 (the overlay Android operating system used by Huawei) has GPU Turbo mode, improving performance in video games.
There remains the question of autonomy. Is it as good as what Huawei claims, thanks to the high capacity 3750 mAh battery present in the device? The answer is yes. In its versatile review, the laboratory of EntertainmentBox measured an excellent endurance of 13 hours and 32 minutes for the Mate 20 Lite, a result that ranks it among the best devices on the market. In communication, we are satisfied with a very good result of 22 hours and 45 minutes, nothing exceptional, but more than enough.
Its beautiful autonomy is therefore the real strength of this Mate 20 Lite. During our five days by her side, we only had to recharge it … once. A real plus for those who do not always have an external battery on them.
A disappointing camera
As with the majority of its other products, Huawei highlights” Artificial intelligence “ shown on the Mate 20 Lite’s camera. Capable of recognizing up to 22 scenes (landscape, car, food, concert, etc.), the smartphone is supposed to improve the quality of the shots by adapting to outdoor conditions. This process works well during the day, less at night.
Equipped with a double camera module of 20 Mpix (f / 1.8) and 2 Mpix, this second sensor only used to measure the depth of field for portraits with bokeh effect, the Mate 20 Lite experiences quite great difficulties during variations in light. The autofocus is not fast enough and misses the focus. We even experience some problems of smoothing, too forced, which spoil the authenticity of an image, it is a shame.
When the right conditions are met, the Mate 20 Lite manages to surprise us positively.
Finally, it is quite rare to underline it, the Mate 20 Lite also offers at the front a double camera module of 24 and 2 Mpix. The latter’s sole mission, to create bokeh effects during selfies, or to allow the creation of Qmoji (a copy of Apple’s Animoji).
In video, the Mate 20 Lite is doing honorably well. The stabilization is satisfactory and the development takes place quickly. The camera can shoot up to Full HD 60 fps.
