Huawei P8 lite Review: Unlocked And Affordable

Huawei’s P8 lite features a sleek and sophisticated design with a metal frame and a hairline finish that add a degree of luxury to the design. The front and back of the phone are flat—even the rear camera and LED flash are flush with the cover. The P8 lite is almost bezel-free, making single-handed operation a bit easier.

Measuring 5.63 x 2.78 x 0.30 inches (HxWxD), the P8 lite strikes a good balance between gate screen real estate with a 5-inch display while still being very comfortable to hold or slip in your pocket. The P8 lite weighs 4.76 ounces.

The volume rocker and power buttons protrude slightly from the right edge of the P8 lite making them easy to find by touch. Below the power button, you’ll notice two trays. The top tray can accommodate a microSD card or a nanoSIM card. The bottom tray is for a microSIM card. Both of these trays require a small pin to open which Huawei includes in the box. For most users, this tray design will be just fine. If you find yourself regularly moving files using a microSD card however, this design is inconvenient. The right edge of the phone is clean and free from any buttons. On the bottom edge of the P8 lite, you’ll find the microUSB port as well as a set of speakers. You’ll find a 3.5mm headset jack on the top edge of the phone.

The back cover of the P8 lite is matte plastic with a subtle hairline finish that runs horizontally. This back cover has a pearlized finish that looks very attractive when it catches the light. As an added bonus, the matte plastic finish does an excellent job at avoiding fingerprints. A camera and LED flash are located on the top rear of the phone in an area that features a slick and glossy finish.

The 5-inch display found on the P8 lite has a resolution of 1280x720. Although this isn’t as sharp as some of the 1080p displays we’ve seen elsewhere, the 720p screen is acceptable given the price of this unlocked phone. The display is responsive and sharp. Viewing angles are good but you will notice additional glare when viewing from the side. When placed on auto brightness, we had no problem viewing the display. While running our standard battery test at 50% brightness, we noticed the screen wasn’t nearly as bright as some phones but it was still usable.

Huawei has integrated all of the phone’s navigation keys into the display. At the bottom, you’ll find the standard Android Back, Home, and Recent Apps buttons. Above these buttons, Huawei has placed a navigation row of four icons. You can customize this bar by rearranging the icons or adding a fifth icon. Out of the box, the icons are Phone, Contacts, Messaging, and Browser.

With extended use of the phone, it will get warm to the touch. We particularly noticed this when the display was on for multiple hours. Even so, the phone never got too hot to hold or place in our pocket during our tests.

We tested the phone using an AT&T SIM card and found call quality to be on par with other smartphones. We could hear our caller clearly and he could hear us. There was an occasional amount of static but it wasn’t so bad that it detracted from the conversation.