Introduction
Whether it's "soda lite" or "flagship lite," people are more sensitive of the list of ingredients than ever before. So, what's a Huawei P9 made of and will it taste the same without the secondary black & white camera and with less metal on the body?
The Huawei P9 lite boasts the same design as its pricier sibling, but only the frame is metal this time around, the back is smooth polycarbonate. And yes, the 12.3MP Leica dual camera is gone, replaced by a more casual 13MP shooter. There are some more technical differences which we'll cover later, but if neither camera can record 2160p video, is this a massive downgrade or something you can live with?
Of course, we're not watching our waistline with this diet, but instead our wallet's - specifically, we'd like it to stay nice and full. And a near 40% price cut is just what the doctor ordered.
Huawei P9 lite key features
- Aluminum frame
- 5.2" 1080p IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 423ppi
- HiSilicon Kirin 650 chipset: octa-core CPU (4xCortex-A53 @ 2.0GHz + 4xCortex-A53 @ 1.7Hz), Mali-T880 MP2 GPU
- 2GB or 3GB of RAM; 16GB of built-in storage
- Android 6.0 Marshmallow, Huawei EMUI v4.1 overlay;
- 13MP camera, f/2.0 aperture, 1/3" sensor (Sony IMX 214, 1.12µm pixels), manual controls; 1080@30fps video recording
- 8MP front camera, f/2.0 aperture; 1080p video recording
- Hybrid DualSIM/microSD card slot (up to 256GB)
- Cat. 6 LTE (300/50Mbps); dual-band Wi-Fi b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot, Wi-Fi Direct; Bluetooth 4.1 LE; NFC; GPS/GLONASS/Beidou; microUSB 2.0
- Fingerprint reader
- Loudspeaker with dedicated amp
- 3,000mAh Li-Ion battery
Main disadvantages
- Non-removable battery; no fast charging either
- Only 16GB storage (half of it reserved); you lose SIM2 if you use a microSD card
- No scratch-resistant glass
An untrained eye may miss the differences between the Huawei P9 and P9 Lite specifications. You'll see the chipset still has eight CPU cores, but they are all A53 now, and the GPU has half the cores. Also, there's no 4GB option for RAM and you start at 2GB, while 3GB is extra. Then there's the camera downgrade and also some connectivity has been dropped (e.g. USB Type-C and 5GHz Wi-Fi) and there's no fast charging for the 3,000mAh battery.
Still, battery capacity is unchanged and the FullHD screen seems the same. The 8MP selfie camera actually sounds better as it has a brighter aperture.
Huawei P9 lite
We're starting to taste a deal. However, a wise shopper does due diligence first, so let's get on with that - will the Huawei P9 lite pass the Pepsi Challenge or can consumers taste the difference.
Unboxing the Huawei P9 lite
Our Huawei P9 lite review unit came with a regular 1A charger. The phone does not support quick charging, but a 2A charger or at least a 1.5A one would have been appreciated.
Also in the box was a microUSB cable to go with the charger and an EarPod-like headset with a remote.
1A charger, microUSB cable and a headset packaged with the P9 lite
Hardware
The Huawei P9 lite has a 5.2" screen, same as the full-fat P9. However, it is physically a bit bigger - a couple of millimeters taller and wider, half a millimeter thicker.
This doesn't hugely affect the handling. Our grip felt equally comfortable and the polycarbonate back offers some extra grip. The P9 Lite weighs 3g more, 147g in total (about the same as an iPhone 6s), but the phone actually feels light. Note that the phone is a little top heavy, but not enough to have a negative impact on handling.
The Huawei P9 was the first time the series went with a full metal body, the P series before the P8 had a metal frame and a polycarbonate back, just like the P9 Lite does. So if you're looking to upgrade from an older generation, you'd feel right at home.
The Huawei P9 lite feels very similar to its pricier sibling
We have the White P9 Lite, but the phone also comes in Black and Gold. Huawei has taken care to paint the exterior uniformly, including the front (which many makers skip). On the "big" P9, the White color option was a special Ceramic edition. No such thing here, all three color options use the same materials.
This means glass on the front (with no word on scratch resistance, same as the P9), metal on the sides and satin-finish polycarbonate on the back. The P9 lite lives up to its premium mid-range status in both look and feel.
The front has a small lip around the glass, which lifts the glass a fraction of a millimeter when the phone is face down. Because of it, the transition from the front to the sides isn't very smooth, but from then on the curves flow into each other.
The glass, metal and polycarbonate build of the P9 lite
These rounded sides don't quite hide the extra thickness of the P9 Lite, but they do help the bezels appear thinner. This is a visual trick, the metal sides and the bezels within the glass add up. The P9 Lite isn't the narrowest phone with a 5.2" screen, it'd say it's about average.
Besides the screen, the front houses the 8MP selfie camera, proximity and ambient light sensors and a notification LED (a tiny dot in the top right corner). The LED is invisible when off, but not the most noticeable even when it's on.
There's nothing but the Huawei logo below the screen, Android buttons are on screen, the mouthpiece is at the bottom.
8MP selfie camera, sensors and notification LED above • Just the logo below
It's behind the grille on the left, the right grille hides the loudspeaker. Normally, we give the loudspeaker only a passing mention (unless there's two of them), but this one is backed by a 9 V Smart Amp similar to what we had with the more premium Huawei P9 or the Huawei Mate S. Make sure to check the loudspeaker results to see if it paid off.
On the top side of the Huawei P9 lite is the second mic for stereo sound recording and noise reduction. Also here is the 3.5mm headphone jack.
Mic on the left, speaker on the right • microUSB 2.0 • headphone jack and mic
The only hardware buttons are on the right - the Power button and the Volume rocker. They are comfortable enough to use and the Power button has a texture, which makes it easier to locate by touch.
The card tray is on the left. It's a single tray for two cards - either two nanoSIMs or one SIM and one microSD (it takes the place of SIM2).
Power and volume buttons • The power button has a distinct texture • Cart tray
The back of the P9 has a trademark dual camera look, but the P9 Lite has one camera and one flash. They are still placed on a separate plate from the rest of the back, a design element common in the P family.
Below that is the fingerprint reader. It has a small lip around it to help in the precise positioning of your index finger.
13MP camera with flash and below that, the fingerprint reader
Display
The Huawei P9 lite has a 5.2" LCD screen of 1080p resolution. So, just like the flagship P9, right? Looking a bit closer at the specs shows it's a mere IPS unit as opposed to the IPS-NEO screen used on the P9.
Neo or not, the P9 Lite screen keeps colors and contrast on the money even at extreme viewing angles. The image quality, in general, is quite impressive.
The screen is just as bright and contrast is just as high as on the flagship P9, black levels are quite similar too. Contrast is a solid 1,200:1, better than similar phones in this price bracket. It's bright too at 500 nits, few competitors can do better.
| Display test | 100% brightness | ||
| Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | ||
| 0.46 | 500 | 1094 | |
| 0.42 | 497 | 1192 | |
| 0.30 | 455 | 1542 | |
| - | 366 | ∞ | |
| 0.00 | 421 | ∞ | |
| 0.00 | 601 | ∞ | |
| 0.49 | 475 | 975 | |
| 0.00 | 362 | ∞ | |
| 0.44 | 441 | 998 | |
The minimum brightness is 9.8 nits, which shouldn't hurt sleepy eyes in the middle of the night.
The Auto brightness setting actually moves the brightness slider so you can see it in action. Unfortunately, this also means you can't use the slider to override the auto mode.
From the settings menu, you'll find a Color temperature setting. You can drag the slider from Warm to Cold to find a look that suits you. We found the default setting a bit cold and in fact dragging the slider all the way to Warm produced more accurate colors.
The default setting does okay - an average DeltaE of 7.7 and a max of 14.6 are average and similar to the Galaxy A5 (2016), which proved one of the less accurate Super AMOLEDs.
However, with the Color temperature set to Warm, we got much better readings - an average DeltaE of 4.3 and a max of 6.7. The Huawei P9 lite actually topped its pricier sibling, which got slightly worse readings. Same goes for most other competing phones, aside from the Nexus 5X screen, which comes with a factory calibration.
Sunlight legibility is above average for the class (it even bests some pricier phones). This is the only place where the flagship P9 screen does better.
Sunlight contrast ratio
- Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
4.615 - Samsung Galaxy S7 edge
4.439 - OnePlus 3
4.424 - Samsung Galaxy S7
4.376 - HTC One A9
4.274 - Samsung Galaxy A3
4.241 - Samsung Galaxy S6 edge
4.124 - Samsung Galaxy Note5
4.09 - Huawei Nexus 6P
4.019 - Vivo Xplay5 Elite
3.983 - OnePlus X
3.983 - Oppo R7s
3.964 - Samsung Galaxy A7 (2016)
3.918 - Samsung Galaxy A5
3.895 - Samsung Galaxy J7 outdoor
3.879 - Samsung Galaxy J2 outdoor
3.873 - Samsung Galaxy A8
3.859 - Apple iPhone 6
3.838 - Samsung Galaxy A9 (2016)
3.817 - Motorola Moto X (2014)
3.816 - Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016) outdoor mode
3.802 - Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
3.789 - Apple iPhone 6s
3.783 - Meizu Pro 5
3.781 - Microsoft Lumia 650
3.772 - Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016)
3.756 - Oppo F1 Plus
3.709 - Vivo X5Pro
3.706 - Apple iPhone SE
3.681 - Samsung Galaxy A7
3.679 - Meizu PRO 6
3.659 - BlackBerry Priv
3.645 - Apple iPhone 6s Plus
3.53 - Acer Jade Primo
3.521 - Microsoft Lumia 950
3.512 - Oppo R7 Plus
3.499 - Samsung Galaxy J7
3.422 - Meizu MX5
3.416 - Oppo R7
3.32 - Samsung Galaxy J2
3.235 - Sony Xperia X Performance
3.234 - Motorola Moto X Play
3.222 - Huawei P9
3.195 - Lenovo Vibe Shot
3.113 - Motorola Moto X Force
3.105 - LG Nexus 5X
3.092 - Huawei Mate S
3.073 - Microsoft Lumia 640 XL
3.065 - Apple iPhone 6 Plus
3.023 - Sony Xperia X
2.989 - Samsung Galaxy Note
2.97 - Huawei Mate 8
2.949 - LG G5
2.905 - HTC One S
2.901 - Sony Xperia Z5
2.876 - Microsoft Lumia 550
2.851 - Sony Xperia Z5 compact
2.784 - LG V10
2.744 - Xiaomi Redmi 3
2.735 - Sony Xperia M5
2.69 - Huawei P9 Lite
2.679 - Vivo V3Max
2.659 - Xiaomi Mi 4i
2.641 - Sony Xperia XA
2.609 - Xiaomi Mi 4c
2.574 - LeEco Le Max 2
2.567 - Microsoft Lumia 640
2.563 - Lenovo Moto G4
2.544 - Oppo F1
2.528 - Sony Xperia Z5 Premium
2.525 - Sony Xperia M4 Aqua
2.503 - Motorola Moto G
2.477 - Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus
2.473 - Huawei G8
2.471 - Sony Xperia Z
2.462 - Huawei Honor 7
2.406 - Sony Xperia E5
2.386 - ZUK Z1 by Lenovo
2.382 - HTC 10
2.378 - Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016)
2.378 - HTC One E9+
2.305 - Alcatel One Touch Hero
2.272 - Lenovo Vibe K4 Note
2.254 - Sony Xperia C5 Ultra
2.253 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (MediaTek)
2.249 - Sony Xperia C4 Dual
2.235 - Motorola Moto G (2014)
2.233 - LG Nexus 5
2.228 - Huawei P8
2.196 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 2
2.166 - OnePlus Two
2.165 - HTC One X
2.158 - LG Aka
2.145 - Archos 50 Diamond
2.134 - Xiaomi Redmi Note
2.119 - Xiaomi Mi 4S
2.095 - Acer Liquid X2
2.084 - Huawei P8lite
2.078 - Moto G 3rd gen max manual
2.026 - Xiaomi Mi Max
1.996 - Sony Xperia E4g
1.972 - OnePlus One
1.961 - Meizu m3 note
1.923 - Meizu m2 note
1.892 - BlackBerry Leap
1.892 - HTC Butterfly
1.873 - ZTE Nubia Z9 mini
1.759 - Sony Xperia U
1.758 - Asus Zenfone Selfie
1.68 - Motorola Moto E (2nd Gen)
1.675 - ZTE Nubia Z9
1.659 - Jolla Jolla
1.605 - Motorola Moto E
1.545 - Sony Xperia M
1.473 - Xiaomi Redmi 2
1.311 - Sony Xperia C
1.283 - Meizu MX
1.221 - Sony Xperia E
1.215
The P9 lite also has an optional glove mode. Also, the proximity sensor can disable the touchscreen (pocket detection).
Connectivity
The Huawei P9 lite is a dual-SIM phone (using a hybrid slot means you lose the extra line if you need more storage). It offers speedy LTE Cat. 6 for up to 300Mbps down and up to 50Mbps up.
Locally, it has 2.4GHz Wi-Fi b/g/n (no 5GHz or ac, however) and Bluetooth 4.1 LE. NFC is available on some models, but not all - check the model for your region.
Wired connectivity is handled by microUSB 2.0.
There's no Type-C here like the flagship P9 has. USB On-The-Go is not supported either so you can't connect peripherals. There's no wired TV-out option either.
Battery life
At least in the battery department, the phone doesn't deserve the 'lite' label. It has a 3,000mAh battery, same as the flagship variant. The Kirin 650 chipset used in the Huawei P9 lite is built on a 16nm FinFET process, same as HiSilicon's flagship 955 chipset.
The Endurance rating is very good - 79 hours with one SIM, 71 hours with two. If you need to guarantee that some background apps remain active, make sure to lock them. Otherwise the overly aggressive memory manager tends to kill them.
Web browsing and video playback times are excellent, 11 hours and more. The talk time is short in comparison, but still quite good.
Battery Manager is part of the Phone Manager and includes a selection of three power plans with a varying degree of limiting certain phone features. From here you can also control which apps can remain active after you send the phone to sleep and an estimate of how long the phone is expected to last in each mode.
The most frugal Ultra power saving mode essentially turns the P9 Lite into a feature phone (but more than doubles the expected battery life).
Battery manager
Marshmallow gets Emotional
The Huawei P9 lite runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, skinned with Huawei's own Emotion UI, in its v4.1 iteration. It has been pretty consistent between versions and recurring Huawei users should feel right at home if upgrading to the P9 lite.
The lockscreen has many images on rotation - every time you wake up the device, you're greeted by a different wallpaper. You may not see them often, however, as the fingerprint unlock will take you straight to the homescreen.
If you do decide to wake up the P9 lite via the power button, you get a large clock with a date, steps counter (if enabled) and a shortcut to the camera. You can also quickly start the camera by a double press of the Volume Down button.
You can pull up an iOS-style menu from the bottom, where you get yet another camera shortcut, but also quick access to the flashlight, calculator and voice recorder. The pull-up menu will give you eight more options for control over the changing covers (these look like music player controls, which may be slightly confusing).
The Lockscreen* Command center menu • Camera
The fingerprint reader is quick, but not the fastest we've tried. It does do tricks, however. You can use it to swipe down the notification area or flip between photos in the gallery. Yep, the reader works like a mini touchpad.
There are simple touch and hold gestures too - you can use it as a shutter key (handy for selfies), to answer a call or mute the alarm.
Lockscreen options
Beyond the lockscreen is the homescreen, which also doubles as an app drawer. You can set the screen to fit 4x5 (default) or 4x4 icons. There are also a couple of features that help to keep things tidy, e.g. icons can automatically move to fill up newly the open space when you delete an app just as on iOS.
Default homescreen • Folders • Settings
Theme options are available in the Emotion 4.1 UX. They can swap your wallpapers, icon pack, and lockscreen style (as a bundle or individually, if you prefer to pick and choose).
Themes
As part of the extensive Smart assistance package, you can also customize the bottom navigation bar. You can swap the task-switcher and back keys, or even add a shortcut for the notification area.
Default navigation bar • Alternative button arrangement • One-handed options
The notification area has two panes - one that holds all notifications sorted in a timeline, and another for all of your quick toggles. You can swipe between the two panes, but you need clean space to do it. Otherwise, the swipe will remove a notification instead.
Notifications • quick settings • toggles rearrangement
The swipe up control center from the lockscreen is not available, unfortunately.
The P9 lite's task switcher lets you swipe up and away unwanted apps. A downward swipe locks the app so that when you hit the Kill all button, it remains open.
Swipe up to kill • Pull down to keep
For certain scenarios, like in-car use, you can enable a Simple homescreen mode. It looks a bit like Windows Phone with large tiles for easy tapping. This mode even increases the font size in some apps. The P9 lite has voice commands, but it's a lot more limited than what the flagship P9 had (e.g. you can't setup a trigger word to wake the call hands-free).
Simple homescreen with a tiled interface
You can enable the so-called Floating dock - it's a virtual key you can move anywhere on the screen, allowing you to expand it to the primary Android keys - Back, Home, Task Switcher, Lock and Close all running apps. It will help you control your phone with just one hand.
Motion control on the Lite model is more limited, you only get flip to mute. There's no knuckle detection and you can't launch apps by drawing a letter.
Huawei had granular control over app permissions before Android brought it officially and its implementation is still ahead. You also get precise control over data usage. 4G LTE data is metered separately (in case your plan has limited 4G data) and you can block apps from using mobile data (or Wi-Fi, though that's the rarer use case).
You can similarly configure background data (this can improve battery life) and roaming data (say, let WhatsApp use roaming so you stay in touch and block others).
Managing which apps can connect to the Internet and how
This is part of Huawei P9 lite Phone manager, which also features a notification center. You can control which apps can send you the three types of available notifications - the shade notifications, the lockscreen notifications and the banner style notifications.
The Phone Manager also features harassment filter, battery manager with power-saving modes, and options to choose which apps to run in the background and which not (protected apps).
Phone Manager • Notification permissions • Notification permissions
Performance
The Huawei P9 lite is powered by a HiSilicon chipset, a Kirin 650. It's similar to the Kirin 955 in the flagship P9, though with more modest resources.
The processor is octa-core, but it's eight Cortex-A53 cores while in the 955 chipset half of the cores are faster A57s. Also, the GPU is still a Mali-T880, but only a dual-core setup instead of quad-core.
You can have a P9 lite with 3GB of RAM, same as the base P9. However, you start at 2GB, so you need to pay extra to match the flagship (and there's no 4GB option either).
Considering that many of the competitors still use a Snapdragon 615 (616/617), which also uses eight A53 cores and an entry-level Adreno GPU, the P9 is looking good.
The exceptions to that are the Nexus 5X and the Xiaomi Mi 4s, which use Snapdragon 808 - an older, but higher-end chipset.
While the Huawei P9 lite can't match the flagship P9 in performance (and no one expected it to), it's very competitive in its price range. It mostly beats the S615 phones (though the HTC One A9 comes close) and shows an overall performance similar to the S808 ones.
Basemark OS 2.0
Higher is better
- Huawei P9
2068 - LG Nexus 5X
1591 - Xiaomi Mi 4s
1545 - Huawei P9 lite
1242 - HTC One A9
944 - Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus
884 - Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
833 - Oppo R7 (retail)
757
AnTuTu 6
Higher is better
- Huawei P9
98069 - HTC One A9
60324 - Xiaomi Mi 4s
59850 - Huawei P9 lite
52768 - Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
35689 - Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus
35291
Multicore performance is excellent, beating even the Nexus 5X. The S808 chipset replaces four of the A53 cores with two A57s, but their combined force is about equal.
Of course, the A57 is faster than the A53 so the single-thread score goes in favor of the Nexus and Xiaomi. The flagship P9 uses Cortex-A72 cores (the successor to A57) is even faster and there's four of them, which really makes an impact on multi-core performance.
GeekBench 3 (multi-core)
Higher is better
- Huawei P9
6558 - Huawei P9 lite
3799 - LG Nexus 5X
3527 - HTC One A9
3209 - Xiaomi Mi 4s
3147 - Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
3061 - Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus
3038 - Oppo R7 (retail)
2683
GeekBench 3 (single-core)
Higher is better
- Huawei P9
1819 - Xiaomi Mi 4s
1254 - Huawei P9 lite
899 - Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus
689
The Huawei P9 and P9 lite both use 1080p screens, but the Lite model has only half of the GPU resources. Looking at the results, we think there may be a small clock speed advantage for the P9 as well.
The Kirin 650 with Mali-T880MP2 has an edge over the Adreno 405 crowd. Qualcomm has moved the Adreno 5xx GPUs, but such Snapdragons are rare in 5" segment (and those are usually expensive).
GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
- Huawei P9
18 - LG Nexus 5X
16 - Xiaomi Mi 4s
13 - Huawei P9 lite
7.8 - HTC One A9
6.4 - Oppo R7 (retail)
5.9 - Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
5.7 - Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus
5.5
GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Huawei P9
19 - LG Nexus 5X
17 - Xiaomi Mi 4s
12 - Huawei P9 lite
8.3 - HTC One A9
6.7 - Oppo R7 (retail)
5.9 - Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
5.7 - Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus
5.5
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
- LG Nexus 5X
11 - Huawei P9
10 - Xiaomi Mi 4s
8.1 - Huawei P9 lite
4.6 - HTC One A9
3.8
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)
Higher is better
- LG Nexus 5X
11 - Huawei P9
11 - Xiaomi Mi 4s
7.9 - Huawei P9 lite
4.9 - HTC One A9
4
Basemark X confirms the findings from GFX Bench - games will run slightly better on the P9 lite than on most similarly priced phones, except the few that went with the Snapdragon 808 (which has a premium GPU).
Basemark X
Higher is better
- Huawei P9
16942 - LG Nexus 5X
16609 - Xiaomi Mi 4s
12990 - Huawei P9 lite
7681 - HTC One A9
6617 - Oppo R7 (retail)
5382 - Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
4947 - Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus
4863
Basemark X (medium)
Higher is better
- Huawei P9
29583 - Xiaomi Mi 4s
19854 - Huawei P9 lite
15754 - HTC One A9
12250
We've been testing a Huawei P9 lite with 2GB of RAM. It's fairly snappy, but heavier apps sometimes need a moment when you switch into or away from them. Once loaded, the apps would usually run just fine.
Telephony
The Huawei P9 lite is a dual-SIM phone, which offers solid reception and call quality. You can set up individual ringtones for each SIM, even the "vibrate when ringing" option is separate.
Smart dialing • recent calls • in-call interface
During a call, there are shorcuts to pull up your calendar and notes so you won't forget to write down important info after the call is over.
The call log offers an option to merge entries either by contact or by time to reduce clutter. There's no way to filter calls by SIM card, however.
You can view calls to a contact from the info sheet. A couple of options let you dodge incoming calls - either by sending all calls from a number directly to voice mail or from adding them to the blacklist.
Blocked calls and messages go into the Harassment filter, which is more advanced than just blocking numbers on the blacklist. It also checks for keywords in texts, can block unknown numbers and call from strangers (we're not clear how the phone distinguishes between "unknown number" and "stranger").
Blocked calls and texts • Configuring the harassment filter
The Huawei P9 lite loudspeaker proved stronger than P9's, pushing the lite model to a Very Good rating. It would have made Excellent, but it's quiet in the human vocal range (relative to the other two tests). The output is very clean, even at full volume, great for listening to music.
| Speakerphone test | Voice, dB | Ringing |
Overall score | |
| 61.2 | 65.8 | 61.7 | Below Average | |
| 65.0 | 64.9 | 67.2 | Below Average | |
| 65.8 | 66.0 | 66.5 | Below Average | |
| 65.6 | 66.5 | 73.1 | Average | |
| 72.1 | 66.6 | 75.6 | Good | |
| 66.0 | 71.5 | 83.2 | Very Good | |
| 73.7 | 68.6 | 82.9 | Very Good | |
| 72.8 | 71.3 | 81.9 | Very Good | |
| 75.7 | 73.5 | 79.5 | Excellent |
Messaging
The Messaging app arranges message threads on a timeline. You can pin the important ones, so that they don't get burried if you get a lot of texts.
The app handles just SMS and MMS, there's no Internet messaging component, but you can still send smilies, photos and other multimedia.
The Messaging app has smilies
An interesting feature lets you cancel a message - you have 4 seconds to change your mind and double tap a message, which will prevent it from heading out.
You have 4 seconds to cancel a message
The Harassment filter can easily block spammy messages - either by number or by select phrases.
Text input is handled by Huawei's own Swype keyboard. The keyboard is fully themeable and you can change its height for both portrait and landscape views (they are separate settings too).
The Huawei Swype keyboard • Keyboard themes • Re-sizing • Swype gestures
As the name suggests, swipe input is available and it can do gestures too. You can do cut/copy/paste, add punctuation, change the case of a word and more. The keyboard supports simultaneous input in two languages for bilingual people.
App package
The P9 ships with an ad-supported version of WPS office, which can be used for some basic document editing on the go. It can handle text documents, spreadsheets and presentations as well as PDF files. It can also export to PDF.
WPS Office
Huawei has bundled the P9 lite with its Health app, which tracks steps and calculates calories burnt. It doesn't count floors climbed like the app does on the P9.
Health app • Starting an exercise • Day view • Setting goals
The Backup app can copy your contacts, messages. logs, documents, system data and select folders over to the internal storage or microSD card. A file manager is also present, and it supports batch actions.
Backup app • Backup location • Selecting folders • File manager
Video player
The Huawei P9 lite video player features simple gesture control - swipe left/right for rewind/forward and up/down to adjust the brightness or change the volume (swipe on the left half of the screen for brightness, on the right for volume).
There's a pop-up play option so you can watch a video while using other apps. When using a headset, you can enable SWS sound effects ("Super Wide Sound," a proprietary virtualization tech). There's also the option to change playback speed.
Video player • Watching a video • Pop-up video play
Simple gallery
The Huawei P9 lite's gallery app offers a Timeline view, which sorts your images by the date you've taken them. Alternatively, you can opt for the standard Album or Map views.
One feature we love is that you can swipe the fingerprint reader like a mini touchpad to move between photos. This makes it so much easier to show photos to others without covering the screen with your hand.
Opening a single image lets you quickly delete or rotate it. The info icon up top gives some pretty detailed information about the image, including a histogram.
Chronological view • Album view • Viewing an image • Detailed info
You can also go into a more capable editor with options for light and exposure adjustments (so you can bring out the shadows or the highlights), filters and beauty enhancements. You can adjust levels and add individual watermarks for time, location, weather, food and mood.
Editing options include an Instagram-like feature that places your location weather and other info on the image. This way you can tease your friends with sunny weather on your beach photos or include the elevation after a hike.
Adding time, weather and location info to photos as mementos
Pulling down from anywhere on the screen lets you take a quick photo without leaving the gallery. The image comes out in a square 1:1 ratio at 3,104 x 3,104px (another Instagram-inspired feature.
Camera quick access
Music player
The Huawei P9 lite comes with Huawei's custom music player app, which offers some fun features, but the execution could have been better.
Music player • Selecting tracks • Now playing
You can enable lyrics, which are displayed karaoke style. You can also place lyrics on the homescreen and the lockscreen, however, the homescreen lyrics get in the way of other apps yet you need to have them enabled before you can enable lockscreen lyrics.
On the plus side, you can also scroll through the lyrics and jump to that specific point of the song. Unfortunately, the player does not automatically download lyrics, you need to provide your own .lrc file.
Lyrics in the app • On the homescreen • On the lockscreen • Fastforward
Smart headset control gives the three-button remote some more options. The buttons - Volume up, Play/Pause and Volume down - handle their own functions, but double taps on the volume buttons can also add a song to favorites or toggle shuffle.
Smart headset control
Unlike the flagship P9, the Huawei P9 lite has FM radio on board. It doesn't do RDS, though (the feature that displays station name and other info). The app can play through the loudspeaker (it still needs the headset as an antenna) and has scheduled exit.
FM radio • All stations • Auto power off
Audio output is spotlessly clean, but pretty quiet
The Huawei P9 lite produced some of cleanest output we've seen lately in our audio quality test. The smartphone scored excellently across the board both with an active external amplifier and with headphones (where the only damage was a very minor crosstalk hike).
The bad news is volume levels were rather low in both testing scenarios. This means performance with higher impedance headphones might be compromised, but if you keep headphone size reasonable, things will sound pretty nice.
Overall, the general audio output quality and loudness is on par with the more expensive Huawei P8 and Huawei P9, which makes sense, as both use the same DAC hardware (HiSilicon Hi6402 DSP) like the P9 lite.
Here go the results so you can do your comparisons.
| Test | Frequency response | Noise level | Dynamic range | THD | IMD + Noise | Stereo crosstalk |
| Huawei P9 lite | +0.05, -0.31 | -97.8 | 99.3 | 0.0041 | 0.0090 | -97.2 |
| Huawei P9 lite (headphones) | +0.06, -0.43 | -97.2 | 98.7 | 0.0034 | 0.052 | -77.7 |
| Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016) | +0.09, -0.30 | -92.4 | 90.2 | 0.0051 | 0.034 | -92.3 |
| Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016) (headphones) | +0.30, -0.08 | -92.2 | 89.8 | 0.0092 | 0.226 | -54.8 |
| Meizu m3 note | +0.13, -0.00 | -91.9 | 91.9 | 0.0021 | 0.0082 | -91.3 |
| Meizu m3 note (headphones) | +0.02, -0.20 | -90.7 | 91.2 | 0.0028 | 0.050 | -53.4 |
| Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus | +0.02, -0.08 | -93.8 | 92.8 | 0.0037 | 0.034 | -91.3 |
| Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus (headphones) | +0.09, -0.03 | -93.5 | 92.6 | 0.070 | 0.075 | -49.0 |
| Huawei Honor 5X | +0.02, -0.08 | -93.4 | 90.1 | 0.0028 | 0.012 | -93.4 |
| Huawei Honor 5X (headphones) | +0.10, -0.03 | -92.9 | 89.8 | 0.0048 | 0.071 | -78.2 |
| Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016) | +0.02, -0.07 | -94.3 | 92.2 | 0.0065 | 0.010 | -95.0 |
| Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016) (headphones) | +0.42, -0.01 | -93.4 | 87.1 | 0.029 | 0.254 | -53.0 |
Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016) frequency response
You can learn more about the tested parameters and the whole testing process here.
Camera
The Huawei P9 lite has a 13MP camera based on an average-sized 1/3" Sony sensor with 1.12µm pixels and a fairly bright f/2.0 lens. For comparison, the 12.3MP camera on the other P9 has bigger 1.25µm pixels, but a narrower f/2.2 lens. Obviously, there's no secondary B&W camera here.
The camera UI is a custom Emotion job and will have you swiping up quite often - this brings up the mode selector, which has some rarely used options like Time-lapse, but also common ones like HDR.
Emotion camera • Shooting modes
Despite its Lite label, this P9 brings manual controls for both stills and videos. You can adjust shutter speed, ISO, exposure compensation, white balance and metering mode. Focus has three modes - continuous (let the phone do the work), single (lock focus, change it only when the user taps) and manual focus. You're not completely without a paddle when the phone decides the image is too bright or too dark, it pops up a sun icon, which you can tap to restore all settings to auto.
A more advanced automatic focus system is also available - object tracking. You tap on something in the viewfinder and the P9 lite will track its movement and make sure it stays in focus.
Pro camera mode
A swipe down brings out the settings menu. You can enable grid and spirit level, a sound trigger shutter (either 'Cheese' or just when things get loud enough).
The volume rocker is configured as a shutter key, but it's also used to quickly launch the camera from a locked phone - just double-tap volume down.
Baking time, weather or location info right into the photo
Recent flagships are moving back to 12MP cameras, but then there are plenty of average (or worse) 13MP cameras on mid-rangers in the market. Clearly, resolution isn't the main ingredient in quality, so it doesn't make sense to compare the 12.3MP camera on the P9 with the 13MP camera on the P9 lite.
It's not as sharp as the flagship camera, we didn't expect it to be. It is competitive in its segment, but there are a few premium mid-rangers that have fallen in price to P9 lite levels that outperform it.
Noise is relatively low and it and the noise reduction that hunts it isn't overeager. Still, there's softness in the images, especially in high complexity detail like foliage. White balance is on the cool side and colors are slightly oversaturated.
Huawei P9 lite camera samples
When the P9 lite camera hits its dynamic range limit, it tends to clip the highlights. With HDR mode enabled, you can recover highlights and get better detail in the shadows too. We just wish HDR was a toggle on the viewfinder instead of a separate mode.
Huawei P9 lite: HDR off • HDR on
The selfie camera has a clever trick - it detects your face and puts it in a small square near the camera. This means you're looking the right way (and not just staring at your on-screen image as people naturally do) and you can still make sure you have the perfect expression.
Don't forget that you can use the fingerprint reader to snap a photo. You can snap panoramas with the selfie camera as well.
The Huawei P9 lite has an 8MP selfie camera with an f/2.0 aperture (the P9 has a darker f/2.4 aperture, take that). Selfies don't come out as detailed as the 8MP camera resolution may suggest. There's also plenty of noise which becomes apparent at 100% zoom. However, at reduced magnification, photos appear sharp and fairly rich in detail.
Huawei P9 lite selfie • Wide selfie
To capture a panorama, you just need to slowly sweep the phone from left to right. The resulting images are very high resolution (over 3,000px tall) and stitching is excellent.
Huawei P9 lite panorama
Additional camera modes include Beauty (for both main and selfie cameras), Good food, Watermark (same as in the gallery), document scan, Light painting and all-focus.
All-focus mode is Huawei's version of photos that let you change the focal point after the fact. The phone takes a bit as it changes focus several times and takes a photo so you need to hold still. On the plus side, the results are much better than phones that take just two photos and use digital trickery to simulate refocusing. If you get close enough to your subject, you can get a nicely blurred background (or foreground, whichever you prefer).
All-focus mode: focus on the plant • focus on the background
The Huawei P9 lite is nearly half the cost of the flagship P9, but we think it still pays to compare the image quality between the two. The difference in pixel size isn't that different after all.
Still, the Leica lens must have helped since P9 lite photos lack the sharpness of the dual camera on the P9. Low-light photos are noisier and softer too.
Huawei P9 lite vs. Huawei P9 in our Photo quality comparison tool
Video camera
The Huawei P9 lite can record 1080p videos at 30fps. There's no 1080p @ 60fps option like the flagship P9 has and neither phone can record 4K 2160p.
A Pro mode for the video camera is available, which allows you to adjust focus, exposure compensation, white balance and metering while recording. Digital image stabilization and focus tracking are also available.
Pro video mode
Videos are recorded in MP4 files at 17Mbps resolution. Audio is captured at a good 192Kbps (48kHz) rate, in stereo of course.
The videos don't quite live up to the 1080p promise. The image isn't as sharp as some competing phones in this class. Colors are again slightly oversaturated and a bit on the cool side.
Audio sounds quite good and even wind noise isn't much of an issue (the video above was shot on a windy day).
Both the P9 and P9 lite shoot 1080p video maximum. Here, both P9s are closer in performance, but the P9 lite still lacks the sharpness of its flagship sibling. Even phones in its own price class manage better in good light, though the lite does well in low light.
Huawei P9 lite vs. Huawei P9 in our Photo quality comparison tool
There's a slow-motion mode, at just 640 x 480px resolution at 120fps (the P9 does 720p @ 120fps).
Final words
The "diet" label usually comes with a warning: "does not replace an exercise routine." In similar fashion, the Huawei P9 lite has to do the work, it just can't cut back on the sugar and call it a day.
And it does deliver. It has a sweet display, the build quality, chipset and battery life proved quite tasty as well. The camera is good if not great while the software is an acquired taste, which some of you may already have.
Does Huawei have the new summer craze on its hands?
Huawei P9 lite key test findings
- Aptly premium build quality; replacing the metal back with plastic doesn't hurt it much;
- Excellent display - as good as the P9's and better than most similarly priced phones;
- Great battery life, but achieved through heavy-handed management of background apps;
- Up to date Android 6.0 Marshmallow, but heavily skinned and modified; we like the added user options, but sometimes the OS is too restraining (see again: managing background apps);
- Above average performance from the Kirin 650 chipset; Still, we saw some slowdown when switching between heavy apps;
- Excellent audio output quality through the 3.5mm audi jack, but it's on the quiet side;
- Camera has excellent capabilities (if not a streamlined UI), but only average performance; better stills and video can be had elsewhere at this price point
Smartphone makers have a bad habit of making "lite" or "mini" versions that are semi-flagships at best, capitalizing on a name hyped up by millions of ad dollars without the matching hardware or software features.
The Huawei P9 lite is what it says on the tin - a cutback version of a flagship. Huawei removed just the right amount of awesome that the P9 lite doesn't eat into P9 sales without harming the premium experience. The result is one of the best 5" midrangers around.
While Huawei is gaining more ground in the western hemisphere, the software is eastern-style: no app drawer is the most recognizable feature, but the well-stuffed app package with heavily customized apps (and even system menus) is another.
If that's the style of phone you're after, Huawei's own Honor 5c could save you some money. Same screen, same chipset, same camera setup too. It's a slightly chunkier device, but you can lop off close to €100 from the price. And you still get Android 6.0 Marshmallow, while most of the others are on 5.1 Lollipop.
A more premium alternative is the Honor 7. Using a 5.2" IPS-NEO screen like the P9, it has an older but higher-end chipset (Kirin 935) and a 20MP camera with a large sensor.
Also from Huawei's stable is the P8. Not the P8lite, you can afford the flagship model. It has a metal body (yes, even the back), a flagship (if older) chipset, a 13MP camera with OIS and an 8MP selfie camera, High-Res audio and other premium goodies. The display is a top-notch 5.2" 1080p IPS NEO and a Marshmallow update is on the cards.
Huawei Honor 5c • Huawei Honor 7 • Huawei P8
Something like a Xiaomi Mi 4s is a more premium alternative. It has a slightly smaller screen, 5.0" 1080p, but is powered by a Snapdragon 808 (which has a much better GPU) and you get 3GB of RAM/64GB storage out of the box (with a hybrid dual-SIM slot if you need more). The camera is slightly better than the Huawei's but the battery life is marginally worse.
Xiaomi Mi 4s
The Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus is even cheaper than the Honor 5c. You still get a metal phone with a 1080p screen (5", but still), a Snapdragon 616 chipset, a 13MP/1080p main camera and a 5MP selfie cam and a fairly good battery life too.
Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus
The metal-clad vivo X6S has a 5.2" Super AMOLED (1080p resolution) and runs a Funtouch-modified Android 5.1 Lollipop on a Snapdragon 652, the mid-range chipset to have. A 13MP/1080p main camera and 8MP/1080p selfie camera, plus 32-bit/192kHz audio make this an attractive option (battery is small, though, at 2,400mAh).
vivo X6S
If it's the hardware specs that attracted you to the Huawei P9 lite, you should check out the Nexus 5X by LG. Sure, it doesn't have a metal shell, but the software is the complete antithesis of Huawei's - pure, stock Android.
With the Nexus 5X you get the Snapdragon 808 chipset for that GPU speed and 4K 2160p video. The camera is particularly great, especially the low-light performance, which can challenge flagships. Storage may be an issue, though, without a microSD slot and with a maximum of only 32GB (16GB base).
LG Nexus 5X
A sort of a middle ground is the Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016). Samsung fiddled with the software (5.1 Lollipop for now, should get 6.0 later), but you get a metal phone with a 5.2" 1080p Super AMOLED (with less accurate colors than we're used to from sAMOLED). The 13MP camera boasts OIS and 1080p video, both it and the 5MP selfie cam have bright f/1.9 apertures. Battery life is better than what the P9 lite has to offer, and much better than the Nexus 5X as well.
Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
The HTC One A9 is a One 10 lite of sorts (actually, it came first). All-metal HTCs have always been a mark for quality and this one has a very good (if a bit dim) AMOLED screen - 5" bit, 1080p in resolution. Its 13MP camera has OIS, while the selfie cam houses a 1st gen UltraPixel sensor with large pixels. Battery life isn't stellar, but you get a pretty sleek Android 6.0 Marshmallow with a moderate amount of HTC stuff.
HTC One A9
The Sony Xperia XA is the narrowest phone with a 5" screen yet. Yes, it's a bit smaller than P9 lite's screen and it has 720p resolution, but it's bright and offers high contrast (though not the color accuracy of higher-end Sony displays). It runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow (with few changes, mostly Sony multimedia apps) on a slightly faster chipset.
You get a good 13MP Sony camera with 1080p video and an 8MP selfie cam with autofocus (a rare feature). What the Xperia XA gains in image quality, it loses in battery life (the 2,300mAh battery scored only a 40h endurance rating).
Sony Xperia XA
While Western makers want to expand eastwards, makers like Huawei are contributing to an increasing traffic in the opposite direction. The partnership with Leica proved quite the attention-grabber for the P9 and while that hasn't rubbed off on the P9 lite in any way, the smartphone is great as more affordable version of the flagship.
Flagship smartphones will always have the appeal of a status symbol but the more practical users might find a viable alternative in premium midrangers, as long as they deliver quality while saving you money along with some perhaps unneeded features. The Huawei P9 lite has you covered on both accounts.
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