Huawei P40 Lite / nova 7i review

EMUI 10 and Android 10

The Huawei P40 Lite boots the new EMUI 10, which is based on Android 10. It was stripped of all Google services and has no access to the Play Store. Instead, Huawei offers its new proprietary Mobile Services complete with Huawei's AppGallery.

The Huawei P40 Lite has a side-mounted fingerprint scanner, and it's among the best in terms of speed and accuracy. Face Unlock is surprisingly not available.

Like all EMUI-driven devices, you can set up a magazine lockscreen style that changes the picture every time you wake up the screen. Sliding from the bottom will bring out quick shortcuts to some commonly used utilities.

On the homescreen, you will find all of the installed and system apps, but there's a toggle in the settings menu that lets you choose between the standard layout or a homescreen with an app drawer. It's a personal preference, and it's good to be able to choose.

Lockscreen • Tools • Homescreen • Homescreen style • Some apps

There is a replacement for the Google Feed in this version of EMUI, and it's called Today. On this leftmost page, you will find a Search field, shortcuts to favorite contacts, photos, etc, Smart Care graphic (which is their analog of Google's Digital Wellbeing) and a News Feed filled with local news through a service provided from Huawei.

Today page

The homescreens are business as usual, and you can populate them with apps, folders, and widgets.

The notification shade in EMUI 10 is the most heavily redesigned UI element with the toggles now adopting a more conventional circular shape and a blue color for the On state, very much like on Samsung's One UI and sort of like Google's own Android 10 design. There's a brightness slider and a row of toggles upon the first pull, and you pull down again for more toggles.

App/contacts search • Notification shade

Multitasking is a familiar affair, and the task switcher allows for split-screen mode. You could even have a video playing on top of the two windows if for some reason you find that useful.

Recent apps • Split screen • Split screen

The P40 Lite default OS navigation is an iPhone-like gesture - swipe up for Home, swipe up and stop midway for Task switcher, or swipe from the left or right edge of the screen for Back. You can opt for the classic virtual buttons, of course.

From the phone manager app, which is now called Optimiser, you can access shortcuts to storage cleanup, battery settings, blocked numbers, Virus scan powered by Avast, and mobile data usage.

Huawei's Music app offers a way to listen to stored MP3s, and it also includes Huawei's own music services in compatible regions. Same goes for the proprietary Video app - it plays your local videos, but it also includes Huawei's video streaming service similar to YouTube.

Huawei's Health app is pre-installed, and it offers step counting, among many other things. The gallery is an entirely custom job, too, but it has the usual chronological and albums views plus an AI-powered highlights selection. There's a file manager app and a note-taking app.

Huawei is yet to launch its TomTom-based Maps app, but here is hoping this happens soon enough. And since the P40 Lite lacks a replacement for Google's location framework, apps like Pokemon Go and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite can't work.

Optimiser • Music Player • Gallery • Video • Files

Huawei does not provide Google services pre-installed on the Huawei P40 Lite, as we mentioned a couple of times already, nor have they encouraged or assisted in the side loading of the Google Play Store by the users. You can sideload some of the Gapps like Maps, Gboard, and Chrome, but Gmail and Play Store won't work without Play Services, which you can't get to work easily.

The App Gallery's catalog - the Play Store alternative from Huawei. Some apps are there, while others - aren't.

App Gallery

You can also use the Phone Clone app, which will copy everything from your old phone including all installed apps except for Google's (and some banking apps) on to your new P40 Lite. And that's surely a nice start, but it's not a real deal as you won't get future updates to these apps automatically.

So, your safest bet is to resort to using third-party app stores though. The Amazon App Store should do a fine job - it has plenty of the popular apps - both free and paid, so you'll manage just fine using Amazon's solution.

Or, if you don't need any paid apps, APKPure is another app repository and it works great for free apps and games. APKPure has a Store page with paid apps, too, but those are just links to the Play Store which obviously won't work on the Huawei P40 Lite.

Both Amazon AppStore and APKPure are great for keeping your apps up to date.

We go in greater detail into which apps work and which don't in another dedicated article, so you might want to check it out.

You can also download AppGallery on your current phone to see the app selection and gauge the general user experience.

Amazon AppStore • Amazon AppStore • Amazon AppStore • APKPure • APKPure • APKPure

There is potentially another alternative. It's a more time-consuming approach that requires some extra tinkering, and it's called the microG Project - the XDA-approved open-source framework for getting apps designed for Google Play Services to run on phones without actual Google Play Services. But this goes beyond the scope of this review.

Finally, we've kept the best part for the end. There is one very easy way to install Play Store and Play Services via an app. You can read more about this method here. We tried it and the Chat Partner app successfully installed Play Store and Play Services, then we downloaded Maps from the Play Store. And voila - Pokemon Go is now running flawlessly. HBO Go streams, too. Your mileage may vary of course.

Performance and benchmarks

The Huawei P40 Lite is the second smartphone we meet utilizing the HiSilicon Kirin 810 SoC - Huawei's latest mid-range chip and we already know this one is a beast in the mid-range bracket.

The Kirin 810 chipset is manufactured on TSMC's 7nm process and is a notable upgrade over the Kirin 710. It has a different octa-core processor with newer cores - there are 2x Cortex-A76 clocked at 2.27GHz and 6x Cortex A55 ticking at 1.8GHz.

The GPU though is probably the most interesting part - it's a six-core Mali-G52 up from the 710's four-core Mali-G51.

The P40 Lite is available in only one variant with 6GB RAM and 128GB internal storage.

The benchmark scores are impressive for this class for sure. The new Kirin processor easily outperforms every competitor and consistently ranks at the top of the charts.

GeekBench 4.4 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Huawei P40 Lite
  7846
• Honor 9X Pro
  7836
• Samsung Galaxy A71
  7039
• Xiaomi Redmi K30
  7008
• Redmi Note 8 Pro
  6999
• Xiaomi Mi 9T
  6863
• Honor Play
  6696
• Realme 5 Pro
  6106
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T
  5620
• Huawei P30 Lite (perf. mode)
  5549
• Samsung Galaxy A51
  5401
• Honor 9X
  5345

GeekBench 4.4 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Huawei P40 Lite
  2844
• Honor 9X Pro
  2831
• Xiaomi Redmi K30
  2558
• Xiaomi Mi 9T
  2537
• Samsung Galaxy A71
  2536
• Redmi Note 8 Pro
  2472
• Realme 5 Pro
  1913
• Honor Play
  1899
• Samsung Galaxy A51
  1668
• Huawei P30 Lite (perf. mode)
  1576
• Honor 9X
  1559
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T
  1519

GeekBench 5.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Honor 9X Pro
  1911
• Huawei P40 Lite
  1862
• Samsung Galaxy A71
  1733
• Xiaomi Mi 9T
  1703
• Xiaomi Redmi K30
  1692
• Honor Play
  1647
• Redmi Note 8 Pro
  1622
• Samsung Galaxy A51
  1294

GeekBench 5.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Honor 9X Pro
  594
• Huawei P40 Lite
  591
• Xiaomi Redmi K30
  548
• Samsung Galaxy A71
  542
• Xiaomi Mi 9T
  542
• Redmi Note 8 Pro
  493
• Honor Play
  386
• Samsung Galaxy A51
  347

Same goes for the six-core Mali-G52 - it turned out to be a snappy performer and the only GPU that could beat it is a flagship-grade one, like the 12-core Mali-G72 from the now older, high-end Kirin 970 chip inside the Honor Play.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Honor Play
  55
• Huawei P40 Lite
  49
• Honor 9X Pro
  48
• Redmi Note 8 Pro
  40
• Xiaomi Redmi K30
  37
• Samsung Galaxy A71
  37
• Xiaomi Mi 9T
  34
• Realme 5 Pro
  31
• Huawei P30 Lite (perf. mode)
  19
• Honor 9X
  19
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T
  16
• Samsung Galaxy A51
  15

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Honor Play
  36
• Huawei P40 Lite
  30
• Honor 9X Pro
  30
• Xiaomi Redmi K30
  27
• Samsung Galaxy A71
  27
• Redmi Note 8 Pro
  24
• Xiaomi Mi 9T
  24
• Realme 5 Pro
  22
• Huawei P30 Lite (perf. mode)
  13
• Honor 9X
  12
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T
  11
• Samsung Galaxy A51
  8.9

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Honor Play
  21
• Huawei P40 Lite
  18
• Honor 9X Pro
  18
• Xiaomi Redmi K30
  15
• Samsung Galaxy A71
  15
• Redmi Note 8 Pro
  14
• Xiaomi Mi 9T
  13
• Realme 5 Pro
  12
• Huawei P30 Lite (perf. mode)
  6.9
• Honor 9X
  6.5
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T
  5.9
• Samsung Galaxy A51
  5.6

Aztek Vulkan High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Redmi Note 8 Pro
  9.4
• Samsung Galaxy A71
  9.3
• Huawei P40 Lite
  8.6
• Honor 9X Pro
  8.3
• Samsung Galaxy A51
  5.6
• Huawei P30 Lite (perf. mode)
  3.4

Aztek OpenGL ES 3.1 High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Huawei P40 Lite
  12
• Honor 9X Pro
  12
• Redmi Note 8 Pro
  10
• Samsung Galaxy A71
  10
• Samsung Galaxy A51
  5.6
• Huawei P30 Lite (perf. mode)
  4.2

Finally, the Huawei P40 Lite easily aced the AnTuTu 8 test and posted an outstanding score and won by a rather large margin.

AnTuTu 8

Higher is better

• Huawei P40 Lite
  325777
• Honor 9X Pro
  312668
• Redmi Note 8 Pro
  279355
• Xiaomi Redmi K30
  272229
• Samsung Galaxy A71
  263396
• Xiaomi Mi 9T
  257146
• Honor Play
  238754
• Honor 9X
  187528
• Samsung Galaxy A51
  175363
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T
  167395

The Kirin 810 is still the most powerful mid-range chip we've seen so far, with very good thermal performance and deserves praise for its powerful sustained performance.