Huawei P40 Lite / nova 7i review

A quad-camera is on the back of the P40 Lite

The Huawei P40 Lite has a quad-camera on its back and it looks very promising. The primary is a 48MP PDAF f/1.8 snapper, joined by an 8MP fixed-focus with f/2.4 ultra-wide lens, then comes a 2MP f/2.4, macro shooter, and finally - a 2MP depth sensor. There is also a single LED flash around.

The main camera uses a 48MP by Sony, probably IMX582 or IMX586. It has a Quad-Bayer array for pixel binning, and the resulting image is 12MP in resolution. You can shoot in 48MP though, and under the right circumstances (good light), you will get a native 48MP photo - this is achieved through demosaicing (reconstructing by interpolation) the missing color information.

But demosaicing is something a lot of phones can do, and probably that's why Huawei is trying to one-up those with the 48MP AI Ultra Clarity option, which improves the photo quality through supersampling. It takes six seconds to snap a single photo, and you must keep the phone steady, but it will be worth it. The 48MP AIUC samples have much more detail than the regular 48MP images, and if you downscale these to 12MP - they are superior in detail to the regular 12MP shots, especially in high intricacy areas such as foliage. Samples coming up in a bit!

Huawei's AI mode is available, and it can be turned quickly on or off via a toggle сn the viewfinder. It will recognize a variety of scenes and adjust image parameters accordingly, though the real-life effect it from it, as a general rule, is the pumped-up contrast and boosted colors.

There is also Huawei's Night mode - it will produce very good night-time pictures (with some limitations). It creates pseudo long exposures by stacking multiple frames gathering light along the way. We're talking four-second-long hand-held exposures, which would otherwise result in a blurry mess.

The camera app

Other than that, the camera app would be familiar to anyone who's picked up a recent Huawei smartphone, which means options are a bit scattered.

Pro mode is available via the mode selector, and there you can adjust the parameters yourself - ISO (50 to 5000), shutter speed (1/4000s to 30s), exposure compensation (-4 to +4EV in 1/3 stop increments), and white balance (presets and light temperature).

Ever since artificially defocused backgrounds became all the rage, Huawei phones have been offering both a Portrait mode and an Aperture mode. In Aperture, you can choose the simulated aperture in the range from f/0.95 to f/16. Post shot, you can change the aperture and the focus point within the Gallery.

In Portrait mode you can enable and disable the background blur, you can change the simulated lighting, and you can also add some beautification on a scale from 0 to 10.

Image quality

The default 12MP photos coming from the P40 Lite's main camera are sharp and detailed. We observed accurate colors even if the skies were sometimes oversaturated.

The dynamic range was always great, and we never used HDR, which is a thing we always liked in Huawei smartphones.

Areas of high complexity such as foliage and the building blinds are not as nicely presented either by an aggressive noise reduction or as a result of not so competent pixel binning. There are noticeable oil-painting-like areas here and there.

Huawei P40 Lite 12MP photos

Shooting in 48MP AI Ultra Clarity takes about five or six seconds, and each photo eats up about 6MB (down from 20MP on previous models). If you want superior quality - this is the way. This 48MP AI mode works only with abundant light, and you must switch to it manually from settings.

The 48MP AI photos are with exceptional quality and excellent detail. If you downscale these to 12MP - they are far superior in detail to the normal 12MP snaps. Indeed, if the per-pixel quality is of great importance, then you should try this 48MP AI UC mode.

Huawei P40 Lite 48MP AI Ultra Clarity photos

There is a toggle for 2x magnification on the viewfinder just like on many 48MP or 64MP shooters. The P40 Lite has no dedicated zoom camera, meaning it is a digital zoom. It takes about a second for a zoomed photo to be saved (in 12MP), and it's one of excellent quality. There is some multi-stacking and/or debayering happening in the background, as the zoomed images look a lot like the real deal. We hope more makers do this thing instead of just providing a cropped and upscaled image.

Huawei P40 Lite 12MP 2x zoomed photos

Huawei P40 Lite zoom can go as far as 6x, but quite expectedly the photos are bad.

Huawei P40 Lite 12MP 6x zoomed photos

The 8MP ultrawide photos are detailed and sharp even if their colors are a bit washed out. The corners are pretty soft probably due to the automatic lens correction, and the dynamic range is rather low. Still, those are quite good for social networks.

Huawei P40 Lite 8MP ultrawide photos

The 2MP images from the macro camera are really nice with enough detail and punchy colors, but only if you hit the sweet spot, a.k.a. the 4cm distance. If the object isn't moving and the distance is right, then you will get cool images like these.

Huawei P40 Lite 2MP macro samples

The fourth snapper on the Huawei P40 Lite is for depth information when shooting portraits, so here are a few. The portraits are excellent, with competent separation and complex blur.

Huawei P40 Lite 12MP portraits

You can choose between different background effects if that's your thing.

Different portraits effects

The low-light photos have very good detail and color saturation, balanced exposure, and the noise reduction isn't that harsh. Overall, we consistently liked what we got at nighttime.

Huawei P40 Lite 12MP lowlight photos

Huawei's signature Night Mode is available, and shots take a couple of seconds and a steady hand. It does improve the overall exposure and pops some detail in the background and the sky. But the images turned out soft and have this oil painting look. But for a non-flagship phone, the Night Mode does a commendable job.

Huawei P40 Lite 12MP Night Mode photos

You can use the ultra-wide camera at nighttime, but you better not. The photos are smudgy, noisy and lacking in detail.

Huawei P40 Lite 8MP ultrawide lowlight photos

Now that you're done with the real world samples, head over to our Photo compare tool to see how the Huawei P40 Lite stacks up against other smartphones.

Huawei P40 Lite against the Huawei P30 Lite and the Redmi Note 8T in our Photo compare tool

Selfies

The Huawei P40 Lite has a 16MP f/2.0 camera with a fixed focus. It snaps some very good shots when there is plenty of light even if lacking in detail. Colors are very accurate here, and the contrast is nice.

Huawei P40 Lite 16MP selfies

The portrait mode for selfies isn't as proficient as the one for the main camera as there is no depth sensor here. But it still does a good job and will snap good portrait selfies for the social networks.

Night Mode is available for the selfie camera, surprisingly. It does a good job in capturing more light and popping more detail on the subject, and the best part - it takes less than a second to shoot!

Selfie portrait • Selfie portrait • Low-light selfie • Night Mode selfie

Video recording

The Huawei P40 Lite can record in 1080p@30fps with its main and ultra-wide-angle cameras. There is no electronic stabilization for either snappers.

Both the main and ultra-wide camera deliver good dynamic range, nice contrast, no visible noise, and punchy colors. The resolved detail is good, but far from the best even in this mid-range class.

Here's a glimpse of how the Huawei P40 Lite compares to rivals in our Video compare tool. Head over there for the complete comparison.

1080p: Huawei P40 Lite against the Huawei P30 Lite and the Honor 9X Pro in our Video compare tool