Huawei Mate 10 Lite: The Best Mid-Range Smartphone Yet? [Review]

Huawei is a well-known brand in Pakistan and one of the second most popular brand in terms of shipments worldwide. Just recently the company launched the Huawei Mate 10 series.

We got to try out one of the Mate 10s – the Lite version of the bunch – which caters to the requirements of everyday users.

There was a lot of excitement surrounding the Mate 10 Lite, since its one of the first phones to bring the 18:9 aspect ratio to midrange.

Huawei Mate 10 Lite is also the first smartphone to feature four cameras. With a price tag of Rs. 29,999, does it offer enough to justify paying that amount? Keep reading to find out!

Unboxing + Full Review

Design and Display

Huawei Mate 10 Lite features a slim metal unibody design. On the front you have the huge screen. The top sports the dual front facing cameras, the sensors and an LED flash.

On the right side, you get your power button and the volume rocker whereas on the left side of the phone you have the SIM slot.

On the top you can find the secondary noise cancelling microphone and on the bottom you have your 3.5mm headphone jack, microUSB port and the loudspeaker.

Moving on to the back of the phone, you will find the dual-primary camera a LED flash, fingerprint scanner and the Huawei branding.

Being such a slim phone, there’s a slight camera bump which means that when you put the phone down, the camera lens might get scratched if you’re not too careful.

Moving on to the display of the phone you start seeing the interesting features. You get a large 5.9-inch panel with a resolution of 1080×2160 pixels and a pixel density of 409.

The display itself is pretty sharp and nice to look at. The colors seemed a bit too warm to me but thankfully you can adjust them to your liking from the settings menu.

The screen is bright and easily visible outdoors. It gets bright enough to use it under direct sunlight and low enough that you are easily able to use it in complete darkness.

Being a 5.9-inch screen, the resolution is stretched tall and not wide. This means that it uses a 18:9 aspect ratio instead of the standard 16:9 that we are used to.

Since most videos are recorded in a 16:9 aspect ratio, there are black bars on the sides for most videos. Unlike with most other phones, you don’t get an option to resize the content, making you stuck with the black bars on the sides. Until content adopts, you can only view content on about 5,5-inches of the screen. You do, however, have an option to fit apps to the full screen but be prepared to lose content there too. Web browsing works great though and multi-tasking is easier with the longer screen ratio.

Performance

As far as the performance of the phone is concerned, let’s get the numbers out of the way first. The Mate 10 Lite uses Huawei’s own home-baked HiSilicon Kitin 659 octa-core chipset along with 4GB of RAM.

Navigating the UI was smooth and I didn’t notice any unnecessary stuttering or lag. Opening up applications was also done in a decent time and you weren’t left waiting for an app to open, which is the case with most mid-range smartphones that skimp on performance. Huawei’s skin has improved a lot over the past few years and plays a key role in the Mate 10 Lite’s performance.

The 4 GB RAM proved helpful in moving between apps and the overall performance of the phone. You can easily multitask without having each app refresh itself every time you open it. You do sometimes have to deal with the refreshing part only if you have around 8-10 apps open and you are trying to use a resource-hungry application. Even though you would expect 4GBs to be more useful, practically no one use that many apps simultaneously. So the phone is good as far as performance is concerned.

Camera

Now we’ll be heading towards the part of the phone that seems to be the highlight of the device – the cameras. Huawei has put a lot of thought into their new cameras and this time around it comes with 4 cameras.

The back camera of the phone features dual sensors, one of them having a 16MP sensor while the other one is 2MP and is used for depth-of-field. You also get phase detection autofocus and a single-LED flash. Huawei had to cut costs here and you can notice that with the lack of a dual-tone LED flash.

The pictures that it takes are really good in a lot of things. There’s lot of detail, good contrast and not overly saturated. Some images do look a bit over-sharpened but it’s more of a software enhancement issue and can easily be fixed in post processing.

The portrait mode on the Mate 10 Lite is also pretty great to work with. The bokeh is overall pretty even across all parts of the picture where it is applied and the actual bokeh itself looks pretty natural. You can even adjust it once the shot is taken in post-processing. However, not all portraits are perfect and sometimes you can easily see the points separating the subject and the background. Such an effect makes the subject look like a cardboard cutout.

On the flip side, the front camera’s portrait mode worked pretty well. It features a 13MP sensor along with a 2MP one which is also used for calculating the depth-of-field. The pictures taken without portrait mode are very detailed and it is a pretty wide-angle lens so you can fit more friends in the frame (if you have some) without any issue.

Turn on the portrait mode and things get interesting. There’s a nice bokeh in the background and it is implemented very smoothly and the effect is even better compared to ones taken with the primary camera.

You can check out the camera samples down below:

 

Battery

I originally had my doubts about the 3,340 mAh battery of the Mate 10 Lite with that huge screen but I was wrong. The battery performed really well, lasting a full day’s usage on mobile data while taking pictures, playing games, talking on calls, checking social media etc.

Even if the battery does fall below a critical percentage, you can turn on the ultra power saving to squeeze a few extra hours out of the battery.

Verdict

To be honest, I had my doubts about the phone itself. Given its international price, I wasn’t sold on the Mate 10 Lite and thought that there was no way this could grab the market. However, once Huawei Pakistan priced it at Rs. 29,999, I knew I had to take a second look and I’m glad I did.

The phone offers excellent value, a longer display with a high screen to body ratio (we can’t really call it bezel-less), great speaker, decent cameras, good battery life and an excellent build quality.

However, competition is getting tougher. Off late, a few smartphone manufacturers have entered Pakistani market ad each of them have a strong competitor priced around the same range. Huawei really takes the edge as far as the screen-to-body ratio and all-round performance is concerned.

In short, if you’re out in the market, looking for a phone that costs around 30k, you definitely need to consider the Huawei Mate 10 Lite.


  • One Minute Silence for Xiaomi, Oppo, ViVO, Q, Apple, Samsung, Infinix Etc Fans !
    Who Has spent a lot of Money : hahahaahahaah Check this Mate 10 Lite Is Budget Phone
    Chori Hone K Bad Bhi Itna Ghum Nahi Hoga Jitna Apple, Samsung, ViVO K Jane Se Hoga :p

  • Huawei really uplifted its game by pricing mate 10 lite under 30K. 4GB/64GB phone with quad cameras and excellent build quality, it definitely has an edge over Mi A1 and OPPO F5

      • Lol both are on Nougat and will get Oreo sooner or later. And A1 has 2A/5W charger. And do you think 2A charger will fast charge your battery?

        • Bhai Box main fast charger include nahi kiya anker ya transmort ka Qualcom Quick charge 2.0 support karega

          • Hahahaha matlab charger alag se khareedne parray ga. Aur acha charger 1000 se kam nahin milta. Wese fast charging deal breaker issue nahin hai. Aysay to mate 10 lite myn dual front camera with LED flash hai jo A1 myn nahin. Aur agar Mate 10 Lite ko bhi ziada power ka charger laga do to shayed dono mobile 0-100% same time myn hi charge hon.

              • Main OPPO F1 Plus ka fast charger last 6 months se Redmi Note 4 ko laga raha hun. Abhi tak toh kuch nahin hua. Aur agar aysa hota to Mi A1 aur iPhone X fast charging support hi na kartay.

          • SD625 fast charging support krta hai lakin usky liye Qualcomm se license lena parta hai jisky liye paisy dena party hain. Agr Xiaomi yeh paisy de deti hai tu fast charging active kr skti hai lakin phir yeh mobile 30k ka nahin milly ga.

        • aur iphoneX fast charge support karta hai magar box main 5w 1A ka charger hai is ka matlub woh support nahi karega

      • Bhai its just a gimmick thats not fast charging. Mi A1 charges 3000mah+ battery in 2 hours with fast charging while my xiaomi note 4 charges 4000mah battery within 2 hours without fast charging. Mi A1 main nahi hai fast charging.,,

        • Fast charging donoon mein hi nahin hai. Woh tu bus oereo beta testing mein kisi wajah s fast charging enabled ho gayi thi un se per stable version mein fast charging nahin hai.

  • After watching many reviews on the YouTube. Here are my Opinions for Mi A1 and Huawei Mate 10 Lite.
    Screen Size—– Huawei Mate 10 Lite
    Battery —– Both are almost same
    Gaming Performance —- Mi A1
    Overall performance — Both are almost same
    Front Camera —- Huawei Mate 10 Lite
    Back Camera —- Mi A1
    Microphone —— Mi A1
    Fast Charging —– Both phones don’t support fast charging.
    No gyroscope in Huawei Mate 10 Lite so no VR and 360 videos can be played in Huawei Mate 10 Lite.

      • Its not Tabrez. Snapdragon 625 supports QC but Xiaomi disabled the feature of fast Charging.
        Check on XDA forum or on YouTube

        • Yes you are right to make it budget friendly Xiaomi not paying fast charging license fee to qualcomm.

      • Bhai its just a gimmick thats not fast charging. Mi A1 charges 3000mah+ battery in 2 hours with fast charging while my xiaomi note 4 charges 4000mah battery within 2 hours without fast charging. Mi A1 main nahi hai fast charging.

  • Pros:
    1)
    4 cameras–> 2 back & 2 at front –> Definitely a great
    Selfie & Back camera phone …. Mi A1 has only dual back camera with
    optical zoom & image stabilizer

    Cons as compared to same price tag Xiaomi Mi A1 (Android One)

    1) Lite has no Fast Charging. Mi A1 has fast charging & a person using a Fast charging phone cannot to the other one
    2)
    Lite has Huawei modified Android ver with possible no or buggy update
    likely for Android ver 8 & no update above that definitely
    Mi A1
    has true Android Experience with Android updates never an issue as it
    has the stock Android version running on it & is supported
    officially by google
    3) Lite has a custom Huawei Processor HiSilicon. Mi A1 has the famously established & re-known Qualcom Snapdragon 625
    4) Lite has no protection for screen. Mi A1 has 2.5d glass
    5) Lite’s 5.9″ is a bit of an overkill. Mi A1 5.5″ with 1080p is great already
    6) Lite has a slightly bigger battery. But battery time is dependent upon OS. Mi A1 OS will definitely be superior is any case
    7) All Chinese smartphones have same resale price. So, doesn’t matter which one you buy Huawei or Xiaomi

    • resale value Huawei ki achi hai xiaomi ka koi naam tak nahi janta sindh side par tou Punjab main value hai

    • Bhai its just a gimmick thats not fast charging. Mi A1 charges 3000mah+ battery in 2 hours with fast charging while my xiaomi note 4 charges 4000mah battery within 2 hours without fast charging. Mi A1 main nahi hai fast charging..

  • Yesterday i went to mobile market to purchase mate 10 lite but in the end i bought j7 pro
    The main reason for me to buy j7 pro is its market rate if in future i have to sale my mobile ( which i usually do) samsung will give me good money as compare to huawei ( huawei is also a good brand but samsung is dominating here in sindh) and another reason for choosing j7p is its graphics were better as compare to m10l. Btw m10l was out of stock only golden and black color was availble and blue varient was out of stock

    • Lol. Mate 10 lite has better camera, screen, ram and memory. If you are buying phone considering resale value, you can never enjoy features unless you buy note or S series.

      • Imagine after 3 months of usage and you decided selling your device how much money will it give it to you i bet samsung will give you 6 to7000 more and further more j7pro durability was a deal maker for me i compared both devices but super amoled was way better than the ips. Plus mate10lites bigger size was annoying. Huawei is better but samsung will remain best and no1

        • Well you are clearly overestimating samsung and underestimating Huawei here. Moreover companies doesn’t make phones considering how much customer will get at the time of resale after 6 months. Samsung is clearly ripping off customers just because of ridiculous perception of resale.

      • 30K and sure, why not. Even infinix hot 5 for Rs.13k supports fast charging and has a gyroscope. Not offering these basic features in 2017 for more than double the price is laughable. Seriously, what do you like about this phone? It’s a complete ripoff in my opinion.

        • Infinix Heat & Burn Issue (As Advised By Sareena Mobile Market Seller)
          Infinix Not Resale
          Infinix Fast Charging harmful for Battery
          Infinix have not Better Camera as like Leica Lens
          Infinix 5.2 Mate 10 5.9
          Infinix 720 x 1280 Pixels (~267 PPI) Mate 10 1080 x 2160 pixels, 18:9 ratio (~409 ppi density)
          Infinix Using MediaTec Chepset Mate 10 Using Own CheapSet
          Hot 5 2GB RAM Mate 10 4GB RAM
          Hot 5 (8MP & 5MP) Mate 10 (16+2MP & 13+2MP)
          Huawei Main No Need for Fast Charging (30MIN Enough for 45% Battery)
          Huawei No Hang No Fault No Apps Crack Issue No Virus Attack Etc
          Aur Kitni Burai Karo Infinix Ki Bhai : Majority Main
          Samusng Apple Huawei Nokia K ELAWA Koi Nahi Phochta Kisi Ko Bhi

          • Eh, I have three Infinix devices in my home and not a single one of them has has any heating issues. And definitely not any burns LMAO.

            As for resale, you really consider that to be a deciding factor when looking for a phone? FFS, it’s a 13k phone. Just use it for a year and get a new one, keeping it as spare when your daily driver gets snatched at gunpoint. That’s the beauty of cheap Chinese phones. They’re disposable.

            Wrong claim about the battery as well. Don’t be so gullible. Do your own research rather than believing whatever BS anyone feeds you.

            Mate 10 Lite doesn’t have a Leica camera either. The model that does retails for Rs. 90K so…

            > Hot 5 2GB RAM Mate 10 4GB RAM

            Yes, it also costs more than twice. For Rs1000 more, you can get the Hot 4 Pro with 3GB Ram, which is more than enough for anything you’ll ever do on a phone.

            Hot 5 (8MP & 5MP) Mate 10 (16+2MP & 13+2MP)

            Just because it has four cameras doesn’t mean it’s good. Check out the samples on YouTube. Oppo F5 has way superior cameras.

            Resolution again it’s more than twice the price. Also you do realize that Huawei Kirin chipset is just modified Mediatek, right?

            > Huawei Main No Need for Fast Charging (30MIN Enough for 45% Battery)

            No it doesn’t. That’s physically impossible with the 10W charger included in the box. Believe me I know, I’m a electrical engineer.

            > Huawei No Hang No Fault No Apps Crack Issue No Virus Attack Etc

            A lot of tall claims there with no backing.

            All of this in defense of Huawei not including something as simple as fast charging and gyroscope in a Rs. 30K phone. Hadd he yaar.

  • What about the face unlock feature? When will it be coming to mate 10 lite. And Oreo update?


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