Huawei Mate 10 Lite Review 2018
Huawei Mate 10 Lite Review 2018
The Huawei Mate 10 Lite is a mid-range phone sold across the globe (but not in the United States) as the more affordable sibling to the high-end Mate 10 series.
The phone features a 2:1 screen – one that's taller than traditional 16:9 screens we used to see on virtually every new phone until about last year. It is built of solid metal and it runs on Huawei’s own Emotion UI interface on top of Android 7.0 Nougat. The Mate 10 Lite also has a dual camera system on both the front and the back, with a 2-megapixel secondary camera on both sides that allows shooting photos with a blurred background – an effect that resembles the look you get with a dedicated DSLR camera.
We spent a few days using the Mate 10 Lite to find out how good of a phone it really is. Read on for our experience with Huawei’s new mid-ranger.
Design
Premium and sturdy, the Mate 10 Lite is built of solid aluminum and made to last.
The first thing to notice about the Huawei Mate 10 Lite is that it really does not feel as big as you would expect a 5.9-inch phone to be. In fact, its physical size is about the same as that of the OnePlus 5 – a phone with a 5.5-inch screen, but with a traditional 16:9 aspect ratio. Huawei achieved this by putting a taller, 2:1 display on the Mate 10 Lite (more on it later). This is still not a phone that you can conveniently operate with one hand, of course, but it is manageably big.
The Mate 10 Lite is built of aluminum and feels sturdy, substantial, and made to last. It is slightly curved around its sides, very much like an iPhone 6/7/8, and its back is flat. The physical volume and power buttons are all on the right and feel nice and clicky.
Huawei Mate 10 Lite Review
Huawei Mate 10 Lite Review
Huawei Mate 10 Lite Review
Huawei Mate 10 Lite Review
On the back you have a fingerprint scanner. It unlocks the phone with just a tap even from stand-by, as it should, and it is impressively fast. (Interesting fact: Huawei was the pioneer of this one-tap fingerprint log-in feature.)
Right above the fingerprint reader you have the dual main camera system. Its position is a bit too close to the finger sensor, and you may often hit the lower camera, accidentally smudging it when trying to unlock the phone. It’s not a big deal, but it is one little detail that does not feel completely right. The dual camera system itself sticks out quite a bit, but it is perfectly centered, and you can lay the phone on its back without it wiggling.
Unfortunately, there is no water-proofing on the Mate 10 Lite, so be careful not to get it wet.
On the bottom there is a single speaker (more on audio quality later), a headphone jack (thankfully), and a… microUSB port for charging. Yes, we are as disappointed as you probably are reading about a microUSB port in 2018, and we wish Huawei did not cheap out here. USB-C should definitely be a part of all phones in 2018, except for maybe the very cheapest ones.
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+ 12 images
Front view | Side view
Huawei Mate 10 Lite6.15 x 2.96 x 0.3 inches
156.2 x 75.2 x 7.5 mm
5.78 oz (164 g)
Huawei Mate 10 Lite
HTC U11 life5.87 x 2.87 x 0.32 inches
149.09 x 72.9 x 8.1 mm
5.01 oz (142 g)
HTC U11 life
Honor 7X6.16 x 2.96 x 0.3 inches
156.5 x 75.3 x 7.6 mm
5.82 oz (165 g)
Honor 7X
Motorola Moto X45.84 x 2.89 x 0.31 inches
148.35 x 73.5 x 7.99 mm
5.75 oz (163 g)
Motorola Moto X4
To see the phones in real size or compare them with other models, visit our Visual Phone Size Comparison page.
Display
Having a 2:1 screen on an affordable phone is nice, but colors could be better.
The Huawei Mate 10 Lite has an ample, 5.9-inch display with a 18:9 (2:1) aspect ratio making it taller than the 16:9 screens on phones from the past years. This screen is about as wide as a 16:9 5.5-inch display, which is great since it is not too wide in the hand while still fitting more content. Speaking of handling, the screen is slightly curved towards the edges, which makes a big difference in terms of how pleasant it is to swipe on it.
But how good is it in terms of color and quality?
First, it is an LCD screen, so you don’t have quite the lush colors that you get with AMOLED, but it still looks fine. One compromise it makes, however, is with color quality. The most notable issue is that the screen is very bluish by default. You do have a color temperature slider that you can play around with in settings to alleviate this a bit, but you will not have a complete fix.
Brightness gets to around 500 nits and with no excessive reflections, the screen is not too hard to see even outdoors on a sunny day.
Fun fact: Huawei Mate 10 Lite has a display very, very similar to that of the Honor 7X, and while we cannot verify if it’s exactly the same one, the both do look almost identical.
The Huawei Mate 10 Lite is a mid-range phone sold across the globe (but not in the United States) as the more affordable sibling to the high-end Mate 10 series.
The phone features a 2:1 screen – one that's taller than traditional 16:9 screens we used to see on virtually every new phone until about last year. It is built of solid metal and it runs on Huawei’s own Emotion UI interface on top of Android 7.0 Nougat. The Mate 10 Lite also has a dual camera system on both the front and the back, with a 2-megapixel secondary camera on both sides that allows shooting photos with a blurred background – an effect that resembles the look you get with a dedicated DSLR camera.
We spent a few days using the Mate 10 Lite to find out how good of a phone it really is. Read on for our experience with Huawei’s new mid-ranger.
Design
Premium and sturdy, the Mate 10 Lite is built of solid aluminum and made to last.
The first thing to notice about the Huawei Mate 10 Lite is that it really does not feel as big as you would expect a 5.9-inch phone to be. In fact, its physical size is about the same as that of the OnePlus 5 – a phone with a 5.5-inch screen, but with a traditional 16:9 aspect ratio. Huawei achieved this by putting a taller, 2:1 display on the Mate 10 Lite (more on it later). This is still not a phone that you can conveniently operate with one hand, of course, but it is manageably big.
The Mate 10 Lite is built of aluminum and feels sturdy, substantial, and made to last. It is slightly curved around its sides, very much like an iPhone 6/7/8, and its back is flat. The physical volume and power buttons are all on the right and feel nice and clicky.
Huawei Mate 10 Lite Review
Huawei Mate 10 Lite Review
Huawei Mate 10 Lite Review
Huawei Mate 10 Lite Review
On the back you have a fingerprint scanner. It unlocks the phone with just a tap even from stand-by, as it should, and it is impressively fast. (Interesting fact: Huawei was the pioneer of this one-tap fingerprint log-in feature.)
Right above the fingerprint reader you have the dual main camera system. Its position is a bit too close to the finger sensor, and you may often hit the lower camera, accidentally smudging it when trying to unlock the phone. It’s not a big deal, but it is one little detail that does not feel completely right. The dual camera system itself sticks out quite a bit, but it is perfectly centered, and you can lay the phone on its back without it wiggling.
Unfortunately, there is no water-proofing on the Mate 10 Lite, so be careful not to get it wet.
On the bottom there is a single speaker (more on audio quality later), a headphone jack (thankfully), and a… microUSB port for charging. Yes, we are as disappointed as you probably are reading about a microUSB port in 2018, and we wish Huawei did not cheap out here. USB-C should definitely be a part of all phones in 2018, except for maybe the very cheapest ones.
VIEW MORE
+ 12 images
Front view | Side view
Huawei Mate 10 Lite6.15 x 2.96 x 0.3 inches
156.2 x 75.2 x 7.5 mm
5.78 oz (164 g)
Huawei Mate 10 Lite
HTC U11 life5.87 x 2.87 x 0.32 inches
149.09 x 72.9 x 8.1 mm
5.01 oz (142 g)
HTC U11 life
Honor 7X6.16 x 2.96 x 0.3 inches
156.5 x 75.3 x 7.6 mm
5.82 oz (165 g)
Honor 7X
Motorola Moto X45.84 x 2.89 x 0.31 inches
148.35 x 73.5 x 7.99 mm
5.75 oz (163 g)
Motorola Moto X4
To see the phones in real size or compare them with other models, visit our Visual Phone Size Comparison page.
Display
Having a 2:1 screen on an affordable phone is nice, but colors could be better.
The Huawei Mate 10 Lite has an ample, 5.9-inch display with a 18:9 (2:1) aspect ratio making it taller than the 16:9 screens on phones from the past years. This screen is about as wide as a 16:9 5.5-inch display, which is great since it is not too wide in the hand while still fitting more content. Speaking of handling, the screen is slightly curved towards the edges, which makes a big difference in terms of how pleasant it is to swipe on it.
But how good is it in terms of color and quality?
First, it is an LCD screen, so you don’t have quite the lush colors that you get with AMOLED, but it still looks fine. One compromise it makes, however, is with color quality. The most notable issue is that the screen is very bluish by default. You do have a color temperature slider that you can play around with in settings to alleviate this a bit, but you will not have a complete fix.
Brightness gets to around 500 nits and with no excessive reflections, the screen is not too hard to see even outdoors on a sunny day.
Fun fact: Huawei Mate 10 Lite has a display very, very similar to that of the Honor 7X, and while we cannot verify if it’s exactly the same one, the both do look almost identical.
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