Huawei has just released a new member of the P40 series family, the P40 Lite 5G, their most affordable 5G smartphone so far.
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At the end of April 2020, Huawei launched the Nova 7 series in China, bringing various new devices and introducing the Kirin 820 5G, first seen on the Honor 30S. One of these Nova 7 models, the Nova 7 SE, which features this new mid-range 5G SoC, is now launching in Europe, under the name of “P40 Lite 5G”. However, this device has nothing to do with the existing P40 Lite, coming with a different SoC and a better camera, to name a few differences.
The P40 Lite 5G looks like any other Huawei mid-range device right now, coming with a 6.5” LCD screen, with a resolution of 2400×1080 pixels and with a 16MP punch-hole front camera, just as the regular P40 Lite or the P40 Lite E, to name a few, or even the Nova 5i.
On the back, we find a rather impressive quad-camera array, composed of a main 64MP camera, coupled with an ultra-wide-angle camera of 8MP, a 2MP bokeh camera and a 2MP macro camera. Of course, as per usual, we find all the various AI tricks modern Huawei smartphones have, thanks to the new Kirin 820 5G and its integrated NPU. However, this time around, the manufacturer has added quite a lot of interesting features on this mid-ranger, such as 4K video recording, 960fps slow-motion and even dual-view video, which allows users to capture two different video views at the same time, one without zoom and the second view zooming up to 6x. This multi-view video mode was first seen on Huawei’s P30 Pro, being a nice way to fully utilize the quad-camera array while recording.
As the name implies, the P40 Lite 5G is compatible with 5G networks, which are becoming more common across big cities in Europe, with carriers in countries such as the UK, Spain, Italy or Germany having already launched various 5G networks and 5G subscriptions. The P40 Lite 5G is also currently the cheapest 5G smartphone from the manufacturer, at 399€, with the next “cheapest” model being the regular P40 at 799.99€. Contrary to other manufacturers, Huawei’s offering is also dual-SIM, with 5G on one SIM card and 4G on the second one, instead of just offering a single-SIM variant with 5G.
As previously mentioned, the P40 Lite 5G is powered by Huawei’s latest mid-range SoC, the Kirin 820 5G, manufactured in a 7nm process, and coupled with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. This new mid-range SoC features the same image signal processor (ISP) seen on the Kirin 990 and Kirin 990 5G, ISP 5.0, which pioneers block-matching and 3D filtering (BM3D), allowing for efficient noise reduction and producing higher-quality pictures, even in the dark. Interestingly enough, in China, the Nova 7 SE only comes with either 8GB+128GB or 8GB+256GB, with the European version switching the 8GB of RAM by 6GB only.
Battery-wise, the manufacturer has fitted a 4000mAh battery, coupled with Huawei’s 40W SuperCharge, capable of charging the phone from 0 to 70% in barely 30 minutes. Software-wise, the device comes with EMUI10.1 out of the box, and, obviously, no Google Mobile Services or Google Play Store, instead replacing these by Huawei Mobile Services and AppGallery.
In terms of colours, Huawei has brought three variants, being “Space Silver”, “Crush Green” and the usual “Midnight Black”. For the “Space Silver”, the colour is more along the lines of pinkish-white, with a really nice effect, which should appeal to more than one customer. For some reason, the manufacturer has decided not to bring the fourth colour variant to Europe, “Midsummer Purple”, although we might see it in the future.
The P40 Lite 5G is already up for pre-order in most major European markets, such as Spain, France, Germany or Italy, with the first units shipping in the first days of June. Huawei is charging 399.99€ in most of these markets, gifting the new FreeBuds 3i (worth 99€) with pre-orders, except in Germany, where the brand is being much more generous by gifting the FreeBuds 3 (worth 139€).
Here are the full specifications of the P40 Lite 5G:
- Kirin 820 5G
- 6GB of RAM
- 128GB of internal storage, expandable with Huawei Nano Memory cards, up to 256GB
- 6.5” LTPS LCD, 2400×1080 pixels resolution, punch hole front camera
- 162.31x75x8.58mm, 189 grams
- No IP rating
- Fingerprint reader integrated to the power button, on the side
- Front camera, 16MP, f/2.0 aperture
- AI Quad-camera:
- 64MP main camera, f/1.8
- 8MP ultra-wide-angle camera, f/2.4
- 2MP bokeh camera, f/2.4
- 2MP macro camera, f/2.4
- 4 000mAh battery, USB Type-C charger, 40W SuperCharge, 0-70% in 30 minutes
- No wireless charging
- EMUI10.1/Android 10
- Dual-SIM, 5G on main card, 4G on secondary
- WiFi: 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz, Bluetooth 5.1, Type-C USB 2.0, GPS, AGPS, Glonass, BeiDou, Galileo, QZSS
- Ambient light sensor, proximity sensor, gyroscope, compass
- NFC support
- 3.5mm headphone jack
- Available in three colours: Space Silver, Crush Green, Midnight Black
- 6GB+128GB for 399€
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