"In the P10 family I would like the Lite". After presenting its two high-end mobiles in Barcelona during the MWC, Huawei has just launched its traditional Lite version of the P10, for those who want Huawei without emptying their A booklet.
Presentation
The Lite lineage is of particular importance to Huawei. Since the incredible commercial success of the P8 Lite in 2021, the Chinese company has put a lot of emphasis on this range. So much so that in 2021, the manufacturer brought out a revised and corrected P8 Lite. It is suddenly a little strange to see a P10 Lite arrive 3 months after this P8, but that doesn't really seem to bother Huawei, which is releasing two phones with very similar technical specifications in quick succession.
The P10 Lite arrives with a 5,2-inch (approximately 13,2 cm) IPS screen displaying a resolution of 1920 x 1080 px for approximately 421 pixels per inch. Behind, there is a HiSilicon Kirin 658 home mobile chip, accompanied by a Mali-T830MP2 graphics processor and 4 GB of RAM. Unlike the other two P10s, this one does not have a Leica dual photo sensor. Only a 12 Mpx (f 2.2) sensor throne on the back while a second 8 Mpx finds its place on the front. 32 GB of storage is on board and the phone also has a micro-SD card slot; which also serves as a second SIM slot. The connection is fairly standard: Wi-Fi 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS with A-GPS, Glonass, FM radio chip, fingerprint sensor on the back and an inexplicable micro-USB port while everyone else in the family has switched to USB Type-C. Everything is powered by a 3000 mAh battery and Android 7.0 serves as the OS under the manufacturer's own Emotion UI 5.1 overlay.
With the exception of RAM memory and storage capacity, this P10 Lite is, on paper, an almost exact copy of the P8 Lite 2021. On the other hand, it is sold for € 100 more, or € 349.
Ergonomics and design
In addition to copying the technical sheet of the P8, this P10 Lite also takes a large part of its design. Design which was already largely inspired by that of the Honor 8. Suffice to say that aesthetic question is a bit the game of 7 differences between the 3 mobiles. Same glass front, same fingerprint reader on the back - but square on the P10 -, same upper and lower bands which only let the screen occupy 70% of the front. In short, we will not give the P10 Lite a trophy of originality.
The P10 Lite, P8 Lite 2021 and Honor 8
However, if the recipe is worn out, it still works well and the phone still has a pleasant feeling of seriousness and will not stain in the middle of other more high-end phones. Its format facilitates use with one hand and the slight curvature printed on both sides of the phone allows it to enjoy a rather pleasant grip.
As on the P8 Lite, the fingerprint sensor is fast and efficient and its positioning on the back allows the phone to be taken out of a pocket and unlocked in a single movement. Finally, we notice that the mobile has a small tendency to heat up, especially in the upper left corner. Nothing to burn your fingers or make the grip unpleasant.
Front and back of the mobile
Screen
If by default the P10 Lite screen is not necessarily among the best calibrated, typing too high for temperature, it is easy to correct the situation a little by going to the display options and selecting the rendering " Warm ”in the“ Color temperature ”menu. "
With this option, the temperature drops from 8326 Kelvin to 6658 K, a value much closer to the ideal of 6500 Kelvin. This does not move the Delta E which remains at 3,1, very close to the threshold of 3 below which it is considered that the human eye no longer manages to perceive colorimetric drift.
The readability component is also doing quite well with a contrast ratio of 1419: 1, far from what Amoled screens can achieve, but rather a good average for the IPS. With a maximum brightness of 500 cd / m² and a rather contained reflectance (10%), the P10 Lite has no trouble remaining readable in most light situations. Nighttime reading enthusiasts will be happy to learn that with 4,6 cd / m² of minimum brightness, the P10 Lite will not hurt their retinas.
The tactile delay revolves around 100 ms and the afterglow around 13 ms. Enough to ensure good fluidity in use or in video.
Interface and navigation
As on all of its latest mobiles, Huawei has affixed its Emotion UI interface over Android 7.0 on the P10. By default, we therefore find an arrangement "à la iOS" where all the icons are nicely arranged one behind the other along the different pages of the virtual desktop. Those who wish can, by going to the settings, find the application drawer and thus gain a little customization.
Emotion UI in version 5 is more complete and better finished than before and allows everyone to navigate by offering numerous and complete customization possibilities. In addition to what is offered natively in Android 7.0 (the modification of the shortcuts panel and widgets, for example), Huawei has added some nice options such as the possibility of using the fingerprint sensor to navigate the OS or that of customizing the navigation bar.
Left: Navigation key and floating menu. Center: One-handed mode. Right: Movement navigation
You can also display a floating menu, control the mobile with certain movements, launch apps or features by drawing on the screen with your knuckles rather than your fingers, reduce the size of the screen to use it with one hand or even duplicate certain apps to identify with two separate accounts. Coupled with support for themes and icon badges, all of this allows for a mobile interface unlike any other.
Multimedia
In video, the P10 Lite has no problem. It reads most formats and definitions fluently. The application takes advantage of a windowing feature and playback speed control. Otherwise, few other features are present and we will prefer to opt for VLC for a more complete experience.
Video AudioWithout being exceptional, the headphone output of the P10 Lite ranks rather among the good students. The power is a little limited, but the distortion is almost zero and the dynamics are wide. The crosstalk would have deserved to be better marked, but it remains correct. The finding is more or less the same for the loudspeaker; the latter delivers a fairly ample sound, but which lacks punch and which saturates a little bit in the treble.
No surprise in terms of gaming, the Kirin 658 and Mali-T830 MP2 manage to run almost all the titles available on the Play Store and with appreciable graphic quality. We are not at the level of the tenors of the sector, but that is still quite correct.
Photo
While on the photo component the P8 lite 2021 had been able to deliver honorable performance for its price, the P10 Lite cannot claim the same distinction. The scenes captured in broad daylight are quite clean as long as you stay on the surface, but when you dive into the details a little, you realize that the machine loses the pedals a little and sometimes randomly smooths certain elements. not very complex. Faced with the new P8 Lite or even the Honor 6X, this light version of the P10 does not quite hold up. We can still underline that the rendering of the colors is a little better controlled and that it accentuates a little less than its congeners. The result is an image that looks a bit flatter, but still closer to reality. You can observe the performance of the P10 Lite in our face to face photo.
In low light on the other hand, the P10 Lite really loses the pedals. Unable to catch enough light, the phone cranks up the ISOs, which somewhat annihilates the outlines of certain elements. In addition, it is difficult to perceive certain elements as the phone struggles to clear gray areas. Admittedly, the noise is a little less present than on an Honor 6X or on a P8 Lite 2021, but we also distinguish less details and less contrast. And unlike the “standard” P10s, turning on Pro mode doesn't improve matters.
Finally, the focus and the trigger are not necessarily the most valiant, but they are still within an acceptable average. Video shooting (limited to Full HD) is fluid in all circumstances.
The front sensor, meanwhile, takes nicely detailed photos and, for once, we avoid too much smoothing.
Autonomy
Just like on the P8 Lite 2021, Huawei has not made a miracle in terms of autonomy here. The P10 Lite battles for around 12 hours in a row on our SmartViser autonomy test, which in normal use guarantees around a good day of autonomy. A result in the vein of what we can see today in the sector, but which is very far from what Samsung manages to do, with its Galaxy A5 in particular.
On the other hand, autonomy collapses in our streaming reading test where the mobile gives up the ghost after less than 7 hours of reading. A really weak score compared to the competition.
Otherwise the P10 Lite does well when it is put on standby; there is then a loss of barely a few percent after a day. Finally, it takes about 2 hours to fully charge the mobile from scratch.
Highlights
Unoriginal design but effective.
A live screen rendering after modification of the profile.
Plethora of software customization options.
Multimedia section.
Robust autonomy in standard use.
Weak points
Photos difficult to read and badly smoothed.
Default color temperature too cold.
Battery melting in streaming.
Conclusion
Note globaleThe P10 Lite may have roughly correct results on about all fronts - except for the photo - but it's hard to see how it could stand up to the P8 Lite 2021 which, in addition to having exactly the same advantages, also the luxury of doing better in photography. A shame for a mobile sold 100 € more expensive. The P10 Lite is therefore a solid phone, but one that has no reason to exist in the face of internal competition from the manufacturer. Very strange catalog that that of Huawei decidedly.
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