The Huawei P40 Lite lands in South Africa this month as the first member of the P40 range to reach our shores. But does the phone live up to Huawei’s reputation for great cameras and battery power? After spending some time with the device, here’s what we can tell you about the mid-range smartphone...

Great camera smartphone at a mid-range price

Smartphone manufacturers continue to surprise consumers with the standard set by their cameras. To match (and possibly exceed) the expectations set by modern devices, Huawei packs in a quad-camera setup on the P40 Lite. This setup includes a 48MP wide-angle lens, an 8MP ultrawide-angle lens, a 2MP macro lens and a 2MP bokeh lens. This variety of lenses gives you the freedom to snap everything from wide landscapes to extremely close-up macro shots.

Meanwhile, the 48MP main lens gives you the detail and resolution you would want for everyday snaps and travel photos. The camera also captures the colours and subtleties of your surroundings, while the phone’s macro and aperture modes avoid the over-processed look of earlier versions. The P40 Lite’s camera doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of the latest premium smartphones, but at the phone’s price range it offers excellent quality. 

Outstanding battery life paired with a stand-out design

Keeping up with Huawei’s reputation for exceptional battery life and interesting designs, the P40 Lite is a stylish device that gives you all-day battery life on a single charge. The 4200mAh battery also supports 40W super-fast charging, so even when your battery is low, it doesn’t take very long to charge up. In fact, you can get up to 70% charge within just 30 minutes.

In terms of design, the P40 Lite features a modest 6.4-inch display with a high screen-to-body ratio and a punch-hole cutout for the selfie camera lens.

However, if you choose the Sakura Pink version of the smartphone, you get a back cover that makes the phone stand out in the best way possible. The simple layout for the quad-camera also avoids the gaudy or overbearing profile seen on some phones with multi-lens cameras. While its price makes it a mid-range smartphone, the battery and design give it a decidedly premium feel. 

Huawei Mobile Services

Since Huawei cannot use Google Mobile Services (GMS), the company has decided to expand HMS throughout its global users. HMS is a set of applications and services providing many advanced features like Huawei ID, push notifications, payments and other services from Huawei for its device ecosystem. And to deliver a smarter, faster and better seamless experience. 

HMS includes the following apps and services:

• Huawei AppGallery
• Huawei Browser
• Huawei Mobile Cloud
• Huawei Themes
• Huawei Music
• Huawei Video
• Huawei Reader
• Huawei Assistant and more

Other features and specifications for the P40 Lite include: 

• A 2310x1080p LCD display

• 6GB RAM

• 128GB on-board storage

• A 16MP selfie camera

• An octa-core processor (Kirin 810)

• A side-mounted fingerprint sensor

Get the P40 Lite from Vodacom

The P40 Lite is an affordable, stylish device with many appealing qualities. It is important to note that the phone, like the rest of the P40 range, will not include Google Mobile Services and Google apps. At the time of writing, Pokemon Go and Netflix were also not available. 

If you don’t rely heavily on these services or are happy with watching YouTube and Netflix content through the websites rather than the mobile apps, the P40 Lite provides a good deal when it comes to value-for-money. The P40 Lite is available on Vodacom4U for R7 299 on prepaid.

Check out the latest deals for the Huawei P40 range here.