Huawei P40 Lite E Review

Huawei P40 Lite E Review

P40 Lite E is the latest member of the Huawei P40 series. It differentiates itself in design and specification from the existing lineup of the Huawei series. 

Huawei is one of the most active and fastest-growing manufacturers of the smartphone market in recent years. The Chinese company, which is among the three biggest manufacturers of the market, continues to add new devices to its portfolio.

Huawei, which announced its flagship P40 series last spring, continues to expand this series. P40 Lite E, which is one of the parts of these expansion studies, stands in a slightly different place than the other members of the series. You can find the details and comments about this phone in our Huawei P 40 Lite E review article.

P40 Lite E Review: Design

It must be said that the P40 Lite E is not a phone that will surprise people who see it by design. P40 Lite E, which is quite similar to other middle segment phones Huawei has released in recent years, does not offer anything extraordinary at first sight. The plastic case phone with curved corners fits comfortably in hand.

The P40 Lite E has a 6.39-inch display that we'll discuss later. This screen covers 82.4 percent of the phone's front panel. In the upper left corner of the screen, there is a hole in which the front camera is placed. The lower bezel of this screen, whose top and edge frames are quite thin, is thicker. The handset speaker of the device is also hidden in the upper frame.

At the top of the phone's left edge is the slot where the double nano-SIM card and micro SD card tray are placed. On the right side, there are a power button and volume control keys. At the same time, the second microphone welcomes the users on the upper edge, 3.5 mm from left to right on the lower corner, respectively. It includes a headphone jack, microphone, micro USB input, and speaker grill.

It is disappointing to prefer micro USB in an environment where USB-C input is becoming more common. It is also worth noting that at this point, the sound performance of the speaker is quite good compared to the segment that the P40 Lite E.

On the glossy back panel of the Huawei P40 Lite E, the round fingerprint scanner, which is placed in the middle-upper part, first hits the eye. In the upper left corner of the back panel, there is a triple camera system arranged vertically. The LED flash is located just below the camera. The Huawei logo can also be described as a complementary element on the back panel.

The design language of the P40 Lite E is quite similar to Huawei's other mid-range phones, as we mentioned above. It can be said that the P40 Lite E has a stylish yet conventional appearance.

P40 Lite E Review: Display

The Huawei P40 Lite E has a 6.39-inch display, as we mentioned earlier. The aspect ratio of this screen, where IPS LCD panel is preferred, is 19.5: 9. The pixel density of the screen with a resolution of 1560 x 720 pixels is 269 PPI.

The 6.39-inch screen has a round hole in the upper left corner, where the front camera is placed. Users can dim the area around this hole and hide the hole through the Display tab in the Settings menu if they wish. However, even if this option is not preferred, it should be said that the camera hole does not negatively affect the user experience.

The screen brightness of the Huawei P40 Lite E can be adjusted automatically. Besides, the blue light filter, which is now standard on every phone, is also available on the P 40 Lite E under the name of Eye Comfort. Users can activate this filter manually or depending on a calendar and can determine the color temperature to be applied when the filter is active.

The screen of the Huawei P40 Lite E performs reasonably well in terms of brightness and viewing angles. The screen doesn't have much trouble with color processing either. It is worth noting that although the text is slightly blurry due to the low resolution, this is not unusual for the category that the P40 Lite E.

P40 Lite E review: Hardware and Performance

At the heart of the Huawei P40 Lite E is Huawei's own Kirin 710F processor. As Teknoblog, we have reviewed some of the other phones with this processor introduced in mid-2018. So it is necessary to say from the beginning that Huawei does not offer anything new in this area.

In the Huawei P40 Lite E, the Kirin 710F processor is accompanied by 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal storage. It is possible to expand the internal storage area with the support of microSD card. MicroSD card usage does not affect the use of the second SIM card. It can be said that this is one of the positive points of Kirin 710F.

The Kirin 710F and 4GB RAM duo perform well enough for average users to meet their daily work. There is no problem while browsing social media applications, browsing the internet, using email applications, and listening to music via smartphone. Writing emails or using Instagram is not a problem when Spotify is in the background.

Kirin 710F offers users the "base" performance that will be sufficient for them. Although the processor can run modern games, it does not use the games' highest settings while doing this. Huawei supports this processor with GPU Turbo 3.0 technology that is developed to improve visual performance in games. This brings the game performance of the phone a little higher. Although the Huawei P40 Lite E does not let users down during the game, it cannot visually turn games into a feast.

On the Huawei P40 Lite E, users can unlock the phone using the fingerprint scanner or facial recognition method. The fingerprint scanner, located in the middle-upper part of the back panel of the smartphone, can be easily accessed with the index fingers of both hands. The scanner, which works quite fast, unlocks the screen within seconds after detecting the fingerprint. It can be said that the presence of the fingerprint scanner is significant and functional nowadays when we wander around with a mask.

It is not possible to say the same about the functioning of the face recognition feature. The facial recognition feature of the P40 Lite E does not work if you have sunglasses with very dark lenses, even if the environment is bright. It is not possible to take advantage of this feature in dark environments. This has not been a problem with different devices from Huawei in the same segment.

P40 Lite E Review: Battery

Huawei P40 Lite E provides the energy it needs with a 4000 mAh battery. It can be said that the battery capacity in question has become a standard for phones of this class. The combination of a very low-resolution display and a power-saving processor gives the P40 Lite E long battery life.

The battery of the Huawei P40 Lite E does not need charging for about 1.5 days, even in an active use scenario. Even when the intensity is slightly reduced, the total usage time is up to two days.

Google does not have mobile services on the Huawei P40 Lite E. We will talk about the apparent effects of this in the experience of use soon. While these services are sometimes active, sometimes they can drain the battery of Android phones in the background very quickly. It can be said that the absence of these services in P40 Lite E also contributes to the prolonged battery life.

The fast charging feature is not available on the Huawei P40 Lite E. The 10W charger that comes out of the box of the smartphone fills the phone's battery in a little over 2 hours via its micro USB port. It can be said that this is a bit high in today's standards.

P40 Lite E Review: Software

As mentioned above, Google does not have mobile services on the Huawei P40 Lite E. It is also not possible to access the Play Store from the phone, which does not have the Google applications available on almost every Android phone. To download apps to the P40 Lite E, it is necessary to use solutions such as Huawei's app store App Gallery, More Apps, or APK Pure. It can be said that the application download part is the most different point from the usual Android experience.

Before going into the details on this subject, it is useful to give information about the available software in P40 Lite E. It comes out of the smartphone box with the Android 9 and EMUI 9.1.1 user interface. It can be said that it is a bit annoying that both Android 9 and EMUI 9.1.1 are older versions.

It is also possible to experience the company's smartphone's overall user experience on the P40 Lite E. It is worth saying that the catalog of Huawei's app store App Gallery is gradually expanding. Applications of mobile operators in Turkey in the store, bank applications, shopping applications, and popular games available. Most of the applications that are not included here can be easily downloaded through solutions such as More Apps or APKPure.

It is worth noting that both frequently used applications such as Instagram and WhatsApp can be easily downloaded via these bypasses. Even, thanks to the twin application feature on the phone, it is possible to use more than one WhatsApp account. It is worth noting that this support also includes Facebook and Facebook Messenger.

The Tools folder, which we see on Huawei's phones with EMUI user interface, is also available in P40 Lite E. This folder contains tools such as Calculator, Recorder, FM Radio. The Phone Clone application, which is also part of this folder, speeds up users' transition from a different phone to P40 Lite E.

Apart from the lack of Google services, no difference in P40 Lite E's user experience will surprise people who are strangers of Huawei's new era. Huawei applications such as Health, Email, Browser, and Gallery still offer the usual experience.

It is one of the indispensable parts of Huawei phones, is also available in P40 Lite E. This app makes it easy to maximize the phone's performance. 

P40 Lite E review: Camera

The Huawei P40 Lite E has a triple camera system on the back. In this system, the 48-megapixel sensor takes on the main camera role. This sensor is accompanied by an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera and a 2-megapixel depth sensor.

It can easily be said that the 48-megapixel primary camera does a good job, especially in environments where light conditions are sufficient. Even when the environment is dim, the camera performs well. The camera application tries to capture the most successful frame from every scenario with the support of artificial intelligence.

However, a certain degree of deterioration begins in the photos in parallel with the decrease in the ambient light. The noise effect is noticeable in photographs in dark environments. It is worth noting that at this point, no one expects a low light performance from the P40 Lite E at the flagship level.

The performance of the ultra-wide-angle camera can be described as "standard" in the simplest terms. If the lighting conditions are useful in the environment, successful frames with quality and color reproduction can be captured with a wide-angle camera. When you go into details, small distortions can be noticed. Still, it can be said that the ultra-wide-angle camera, in general, gives what is expected of it.

As expected, the 2-megapixel depth sensor only adds depth to the photos. Its successful blurs the background in photos taken with portrait mode on the smartphone shows that this camera is doing its job.

The front of the Huawei P40 Lite E has an 8-megapixel camera. This camera does a good job according to its class. The camera with HDR support also offers beautification effects. 1080p video can be recorded with the front camera.

P40 Lite E has a standard camera application of EMUI 9.1. There are various modes and effects, and Pro and night modes are also included. The P40 Lite E is capable of 5x digital zoom in photos.

P40 Lite E review: Conclusion

Huawei P40 Lite E is a smartphone that does not expect too much of the audience, looking for an affordable device "average" that the users can say. Design is among the first things this user group looks at. While the design of the P40 Lite E is ordinary, this does not change the fact that the phone looks beautiful. This can be said to be an advantage for the P40 Lite E.

The cameras of the phone, whose screen quality is average, perform well when the conditions fulfilled. The addition of successful camera performance and extended battery life strengthens the P40 Lite E's message to the average user. The ability to offer dual SIM and microSD card support is also written in the plus digit of the P40 Lite E.

One of the factors that will make you think twice about Huawei P40 Lite E is the lack of Google's mobile services. As we mentioned above, this does not cause much trouble in general experience. However, for those who do not want to give up the comfort of the order they are accustomed to a phone with Google's mobile services may be preferable.