Huawei P8 Lite (unlocked) review: Though cheap, it lags behind competitors

Without a carrier to subsidize their prices, unlocked phones can get expensive. Not so with the Huawei P8 Lite, however. At $250, £180 or AU$300, it's incredibly affordable -- it costs about the same as some high-end devices with a contract. In the US, you can purchase it directly from Huawei's online store or other retailers like Amazon.

6.9

Huawei P8 Lite (unlocked)

The Good

The Huawei P8 Lite has a low price, a lightweight design, a sharp camera and dual-SIM capabilities.

The Bad

The handset runs the rather dated Android KitKat OS, and its camera settings don't rotate when the phone is held in landscape mode.

The Bottom Line

The Huawei P8 Lite's affordable unlocked price is compelling, but the Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3 is a much better deal.

Along with its low price, the device has some decent specs and features that make it a respectable mid-tier performer. It has a slim construction, a 13-megapixel camera that takes sharp photos, and its 5-inch display is clear and responsive.

But despite all this, the P8 Lite doesn't outperform its competitors. The Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3 and the Oppo R5 , for instance, are better alternatives when it comes to midrange and inexpensive unlocked phones.

Huawei's sleek P8 Lite takes a stab at budget style (pictures)

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Design and display

• 5-inch HD display with 1,280x720-pixel resolution and 293ppi
• 5.6 by 2.8 by 0.3 inches (143 by 71 by 7.7mm)
• 4.76 ounces (131 grams)

Though it doesn't have the same sleek all-metal body of its flagship counterpart , the P8 Lite is still an attractive and slim device. Available in black and white with either silver or gold accents, it has curved corners and a front and back side that lie completely flat. The side edges' metal trimming add a degree of luxury to the overall design, and because the control buttons are raised slightly above the surface of the handset, they are easy to feel for by touch. For a budget phone, the P8 Lite has considerable build quality and feels like a premium gadget.

On the top and bottom edges are a 3.5mm headphone jack and dual audio speakers, respectively. The right edge houses a volume rocker and a power/control key below it. There are also two tray slots for a microSD card (which is expandable up to 32GB) and a SIM card. You'll need to have a small pin to open these trays, which Huawei includes. The back side is made of matte plastic that is texturized with a subtle, horizontal hairline pattern. At its top, however, in the area that surrounds the camera lens and flash, the plastic is slick and glossy.

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The device's 5-inch screen has a 720p resolution. While that isn't as sharp as, say, 1080p, it's pretty standard given its price. The display is bright, has a wide viewing angle, and is responsive to the touch. Upon closer inspection, you can notice pixelation with app icons and images and text has visible aliasing on the edges of letters. But most people aren't going to look at their phone under a magnifying glass at any given time. In general, the display is clear and sharp enough to provide a comfortable viewing experience for images, videos and games.

During my time with it, however, my review unit got a bit glitchy at times. Though it only happened on occasion, I've seen a small white line flicker at the bottom of the screen. It usually stops after I launch or close an application, or when I pull the notifications shade down, but it irritating and distracting each time it happens.

Software and other features

• Android 4.4 KitKat
• EMUI 3.0 user interface
• 16GB of internal storage, expandable up to 32GB via microSD
• Dual-SIM

Android enthusiasts will be disappointed to know that the phone runs a rather dated version of Google's mobile operating system, 4.4 KitKat , instead of the more recent 5.0 Lollipop . (Don't let those geometrically shaped hotkeys fool you!) You'll still get Google's standard lineup of apps, though, such as the Chrome web browser, Gmail, Hangouts, YouTube and more. And by swiping up from the central home key, you can access the digital search assistant Google Now.

The P8 Lite features Huawei's EMUI 3.0 user interface (UI) -- a skin so thick that you could hardly tell this is an Android device. This is definitely not a negative thing; in fact, EMUI 3.0 looks quite nice. Though its squircle-shaped app icons are a bit childish, its overall aesthetic is clean and minimalistic. The thin, sans-serif typography also gives the UI a modern flair. Four themes let you change the wallpaper, widgets and app icons around the same motif, and there's a easy mode for your home screen that looks simpler and has larger icons.

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The UI also comes with some nifty tools of its own. You can flip the handset over to mute incoming calls or alarms, and if you press the down volume button twice, it'll launch the camera even if it's locked. One-handed navigation pushes the dialer to either the left or right side, and a phone manager app enables you to perform processor and storage cleanups from time to time to optimize the P8 Lite's performance. It also has a power saving tool to conserve battery life and a harassment filter where you can manage block messages, calls and contacts.

Inside the tools folder, you'll find an FM radio, recorder and more. Two other apps take advantage of your cameras and turn your front and rear-facing shooters into a mirror and magnifier, respectively. The mirror app also has a fun (but ultimately useless) feature where you blow against the microphone, and "steam" appears on your screen that you can wipe off with your finger.

EMUI does have its drawbacks, however. A lack of a central app drawer risks cluttering the home screen if you have a lot of apps. The one-handed navigation toggle doesn't apply to the keyboard, and you can't access the settings shortcuts shade by a two-finger downward swipe like you can with Android. These aren't deal breakers for the device, but they are something to consider.

Camera and video

• 13-megapixel rear-facing camera, records 1080p video
• 5-megapixel front-facing camera, records 720p video

Camera quality for the handset's 13-megapixel camera was clear and satisfactory. Well-lit pictures were bright, sharp and in focus. Colors were also true to life and close-up shots focused easily. Indoor photos with dimmer lighting did end up being a bit more blurrier as expected, but objects were still easy to make out.

Video quality also performed well. Touch-focus capabilities prevent things from getting blurry as I moved the camera around, and both moving and still objects remained in focus. Colors were also accurate, nearby audio picked up well, and there wasn't any noticeable lag between the viewfinder and my moving of the camera. For more information on camera quality, click the photos below to view them at their full resolution.

Features for both cameras include seven Instagram-esque filters that you can preview in real time; a beauty meter that blurs lighting and softens focus; and the ability to record 10-second audio notes with a picture. You'll also get panoramic shooting, geotagging, watermarking, a timer, smile detection, four ISO levels, five white balance options and meters to adjust saturation, contrast and brightness.

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With the rear shooter, you can take photos in five different sizes (ranging from 3,264x1,836 to 4,208x3,120 pixels) and it has HDR shooting; a "best photo" feature, which takes a bunch of pictures consecutively and the best one out of the group is chosen; burst shot; object tracking; and a tool called "all-focus" that lets you change the area of focus after you take photos. The front-facing camera has a "mirror reflection" setting that vertically flips your selfie and can shoot pictures in four resolutions (from 640x480 to 2,592x1,944 pixels).

Unfortunately, all these aforementioned settings and tools do not rotate with the screen when the phone is held in landscape mode. This doesn't render the camera unusable, but this oversight is annoying, and you need to tilt your head in order to read and change the settings on the camera.

Performance: Call quality and data speeds

I tested the GSM quad-band (850/900/1,800/1,900MHz) P8 Lite in our San Francisco offices and call quality was good. Though I could hear some static when my calling partner spoke, our connection was consistent, there were no extraneous buzzing noises, and audio didn't clip in and out. The external speaker was also at a loud enough volume so that I could still hear my partner when I held the device an arm's length away. Likewise, my partner said that my voice sounded clear and easy to understand.

4G LTE data speeds on Net10's carrier network were fast and consistent. Connection was steady and didn't timeout, and Ookla's speedtest app showed an average download and upload rate of 19.34Mbps and 15.72Mbps, respectively. CNET's mobile site loaded in about 7 seconds and our desktop version loaded in 5. Downloading and installing the 44.91MB game Temple Run 2 took 1 minute and 10 seconds, and it took 7 minutes and 15 seconds to download the 487MB movie "Gravity."

Processing speed and battery life

• 1.5GHz Snapdragon 615 octo-core processor
• 2GB of RAM
• 2,200mAh non-removable battery

Because this isn't a high-end handset, don't expect it to be instantaneously quick when it comes to executing all of its tasks. While I wouldn't consider it laggy or sluggish, you'll need to wait just a hair with things like launching an app, returning to the home screen, switching from landscape to portrait mode and vice versa and calling up the keyboard.

Its benchmark scores were also consistent with other midtier phones equipped with the same Snapdragon 615 CPU. Its best 3DMark Ice Storm (unlimited) score was 8,859 and its highest multicore Geekbench 3 result was 2,302 (single-core was 585). It score 18,877 with the Quadrant app and showed 293.33MFLOPs in 0.57 second. Powering off and restarting the P8 Lite took 31 seconds and the fastest the camera launched was 1.65 seconds.

In contrast, the Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3 performed better with its Geekbench and Quadrant benchmarks (scoring 2,586 multicore and 21,373, respectively), but had a lower 3DMark score at 7,756. The Oppo R5 also had a lower Quadrant score than the P8 Lite at 16,849, but had a higher Linpack score at 507 MFLOPs. All and all, however, all three devices scored around the same mark, making Huawei's handset on par with its competitors.

The phone's 2,200mAh battery had an adequate battery life to last an entire work day without a charge. During our lab test for continuous video playback, it lasted a solid 8 hours and 3 minutes, When completely drained, it took a bit too long, 3 hours in fact, for it to charge back to 100 percent with its stock charger. For battery usage comparison, the Idol 3's 2,910mAh battery lasted 13 hours and 18 minutes, and the R5's 2,000mAh lasted 7 hours and 24 minutes.

According to FCC radiation measurements, the P8 Lite has a SAR rating of 1.407W/kg.

Conclusion

With a capable 13-megapixel camera, slim design and $250 price point, the Huawei P8 Lite is a tempting device to consider. This is particularly true since most unlocked handsets that are cheaper than it come with a number of compromises, like the $120 Motorola Moto E and the $180 Moto G , which has a slower processor and no LTE, respectively. In fact, you'd usually expect phones in the P8 Lite's caliber to be about $500 and up.

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But even with its low price point, the phone isn't good enough to be the winning choice. The Oppo R5 , for instance, costs more at $460. That's more expensive, sure, but it's still not an obscene amount to pay for an unlocked device. Especially since the all-metal, ultra-thin R5 is more stylish by miles and has a sharper 1080p display.

The best alternative, however, has to go to the Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3 . It, too, costs $250, but it has a bigger 5.5-inch display (which also has a 1080p resolution), and a longer-lasting battery. And while both have a 13-megapixel camera, Alcatel's handset has an 8-megapixel front-shooter compared with the P8 Lite's 5-megapixel. Indeed, as far as bargain unlocked phones go, feel free to skip the P8 Lite.