Huawei P8 Lite lures US buyers with $250 price tag, free shipping (hands-on)
A stylish design and two-year warranty are only some of the reasons to check out this contract-free Android cheapie.
Calling a "Lite" phone "stylish" sounds oxymoronic to me too, but despite that, the Huawei P8 Lite is a pretty good-looking $250 phone for the US market.
Announced for June 3 sales through GetHuawei.com and Amazon (and later through BestBuy and Fry's Electronics), the P8 Lite is Huawei's more midpowered take on the slick, metal Huawei P8 and P8 Max.
Attractive plastic design
- 5-inch, 1,080x720p HD screen
- Gorilla Glass 3 protection
- Unibody design
- 4.64 ounces
Straight-sided with curved corners, a white front and lightly textured backing sandwich the P8 Lite's gold-colored rim.
The phone looks and feels slim, with a smooth volume rocker and square power/lock button topping the list of the phone's subtle-but-stylish features. Below these sit two distinct SIM card slots; you can use one as a microSD card slot (32GB) if you prefer.
Its 5-inch display pairs with a 720p HD resolution. This is acceptable, and also what's expected, for a $250 phone. In fact, I'd be impressed with a budget-price handset that carries a 1,080p display.
Android 4.4, with octa-core processor
- Android 4.4 KitKat
- 1.5 GHz Snapdragon 615 octa-core
- LTE, GSM technologies
- 2,200mAh embedded battery
- 32GB microSD card storage
The P8 Lite runs Android 4.4.4 KitKat, instead of the more recent Android 5.0 Lollipop, and it's got Huawei's skin on top of that.
Navigation is a little different here. There's no app tray -- you just keep scrolling right on the home screen to see your apps laid out. The P8 Lite comes with some built-in folders, including one that organizes Google's apps and services.
Inside hums an octa-core processor from Qualcomm. I didn't get much of a chance to batter it with requests during my short hands-on time with the P8 Lite. If it winds up being a huge performer, that'll shoot the phone's value through the roof for buyers who love speeds and feeds. We'll know more when the review unit comes in.
There's also a question mark over battery life. The 2,200mAh capacity sounds adequate on paper. Keep in mind that the battery is non-removable, a fact that'll cause some to grimace.
Camera goods
- 13-megapixel rear camera
- 5-megapixel front-facing camera
- Quick-launch camera
- All-focus editing mode
The inside of the dark hotel room where I first saw the P8 Lite is a terrible place to investigate camera quality. So I'll just tell you what to expect in the 13-megapixel camera's native app.
There are modes for Panorama and HDR, but there's also something Huawei calls All-focus. Basically, you take the photo now and edit the focal points later. We've definitely seen something like this in rival phones. It doesn't always work, but when done well, it can give some photos an artistic edge.
Weirdly, the tool icons on the handset I looked at don't shift to landscape mode when you turn the phone. Hopefully that prejudice doesn't hang around for the final software version.
You can record 1080p HD video from the rear camera and 720p HD video through the front lens.
Customer service sweetens the deal
With the P8 Lite, Huawei continues to push its phones to a US audience still largely unused to buying unlocked phones on the open market.
To throw out a safety net -- and assuage any fears of abandonment in the event of trouble, Huawei is following in the footsteps of Amazon's ill-fated Fire Phone and HTC's recent Uh Oh warranty program with some extended customer service promises of its own.
US buyers get a two-year warranty policy and a domestically based call center. Repairs happen in the US, too, with Huawei footing the shipping bill both ways. Support options, like live chat (not launched at the time of my briefing), live in apps preloaded on the phone.
How it compares to the competition
A spate of capable smartphones for $250 and less makes for fierce rivalry by handsets like the Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3 (buy direct), Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime (Cricket) and Microsoft Lumia 640 XL (coming to AT&T...sometime).
Cameras with high-megapixel resolutions and large screens help redefine what a budget smartphone means, but testing is crucial. More than flagship devices, the performance of these lower-end models with high-reaching specs varies from phone to phone.
Even if the Huawei P8 Lite beats its strongest US competitors, sales may still be a challenge for a company that's selling its phone direct to consumers and a few big box stores, without the help of a carrier's network.