Huawei Mate 20 Lite hands-on review

Introduction

Huawei has been great at bringing the premium features from its flagships to its mid-rangers. The Huawei Mate 20 Lite is practically dripping with AI functions and assists, most of which are photography-related.

No, you didn't miss anything, the Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro are not official yet. The Lite phones blaze a path before their premium counterparts launch, giving us a taste of the latest design at a more affordable price point.

One of the first things you may notice is that the notch is wider. That's due to the extra camera on there, a 2MP depth sensor, which assists the 24MP selfie camera. It helps with face unlock, 3D portrait lighting and even the 3D Qmoji.

The Mate 20 Lite story really is a marriage of AI and photography. Okay, many think of AI as a gimmick (and it often is), but Huawei has enabled some really useful features like smart search. For example, type in "2017 sea sunrise" and the gallery will find the relevant images. Yes, Google Photos does this, but not everyone wants to use Google services for everything.

Before we go on, here's a quick rundown of the Lite's specifications.

Huawei Mate 20 Lite at a glance

• Body: 7.6mm thick, 175g; glass
• Display: 6.3" IPS LCD, 1,080 x 2,340px, 19.5:9 aspect ratio, 409ppi
• Rear camera: Primary 20MP, f/1.8 aperture; Secondary 2MP depth sensor
• Front camera: Primary 24MP, f/2.0 fixed focus lens; Secondary 2MP depth sensor
• OS/Software: EMUI 8.2 on top of Android Oreo
• Chipset: Kirin 710: octa-core CPU (2x2.2GHz Cortex-A73 + 2x1.7GHz Cortex-A53); Mali-G51 MP4 GPU
• Memory: 6GB of RAM; 64GB storage; microSD card slot (hybrid)
• Battery: 3,750mAh (sealed), fast charging
• Connectivity: dual SIM; Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.2; USB-C, 3.5mm jack
• Misc: Histen 5.0; dual microphones (noise reduction)