Huawei P9 lite review: On a diet

Telephony

The Huawei P9 lite is a dual-SIM phone, which offers solid reception and call quality. You can set up individual ringtones for each SIM, even the "vibrate when ringing" option is separate.

Smart dialing • recent calls • in-call interface

During a call, there are shorcuts to pull up your calendar and notes so you won't forget to write down important info after the call is over.

The call log offers an option to merge entries either by contact or by time to reduce clutter. There's no way to filter calls by SIM card, however.

You can view calls to a contact from the info sheet. A couple of options let you dodge incoming calls - either by sending all calls from a number directly to voice mail or from adding them to the blacklist.

Blocked calls and messages go into the Harassment filter, which is more advanced than just blocking numbers on the blacklist. It also checks for keywords in texts, can block unknown numbers and call from strangers (we're not clear how the phone distinguishes between "unknown number" and "stranger").

Blocked calls and texts • Configuring the harassment filter

The Huawei P9 lite loudspeaker proved stronger than P9's, pushing the lite model to a Very Good rating. It would have made Excellent, but it's quiet in the human vocal range (relative to the other two tests). The output is very clean, even at full volume, great for listening to music.

Messaging

The Messaging app arranges message threads on a timeline. You can pin the important ones, so that they don't get burried if you get a lot of texts.

The app handles just SMS and MMS, there's no Internet messaging component, but you can still send smilies, photos and other multimedia.

The Messaging app has smilies

An interesting feature lets you cancel a message - you have 4 seconds to change your mind and double tap a message, which will prevent it from heading out.

You have 4 seconds to cancel a message

The Harassment filter can easily block spammy messages - either by number or by select phrases.

Text input is handled by Huawei's own Swype keyboard. The keyboard is fully themeable and you can change its height for both portrait and landscape views (they are separate settings too).

The Huawei Swype keyboard • Keyboard themes • Re-sizing • Swype gestures

As the name suggests, swipe input is available and it can do gestures too. You can do cut/copy/paste, add punctuation, change the case of a word and more. The keyboard supports simultaneous input in two languages for bilingual people.

App package

The P9 ships with an ad-supported version of WPS office, which can be used for some basic document editing on the go. It can handle text documents, spreadsheets and presentations as well as PDF files. It can also export to PDF.

WPS Office

Huawei has bundled the P9 lite with its Health app, which tracks steps and calculates calories burnt. It doesn't count floors climbed like the app does on the P9.

Health app • Starting an exercise • Day view • Setting goals

The Backup app can copy your contacts, messages. logs, documents, system data and select folders over to the internal storage or microSD card. A file manager is also present, and it supports batch actions.

Backup app • Backup location • Selecting folders • File manager