Huawei Mate 20 lite: Smartphone for young professionals

The first Mate with a notch

At first glance, this does not, in fact, appear to be a very ‘light’ version. Take the FullView screen of the Mate 20 lite: at 6.3 inches: not only is it extremely large, but with its FHD+ resolution, it also offers decent sharpness in this price category.

Thanks to its notch in the display, the front of this Mate closely resembles the Huawei P20. However, the screen edges of the newcomer are slightly thicker and the fingerprint sensor is on the back rather than the front.

More intelligible thanks to artificial intelligence

The Mate 20 lite runs on a Kirin 710 chipset with artificial intelligence. This AI provides better conversation quality, among other things. On the one hand by applying noise cancelling in noisy locations and on the other by automatically improving clarity when the person you are talking to whispers.

Another example of AI is that calls are no longer interrupted when the connection is unexpectedly lost, for instance when you get into a lift or go through a tunnel. Instead, the call is put on hold and automatically resumes as soon as the connection is restored.

Two cameras, front and back

The lion’s share of the AI functions is related to the cameras. And the Mate 20 lite has no fewer than four of them. 

Just like the 2017 Mate 10 lite, the new Huawei telephone boasts a double main camera. This is a 20-megapixel version which, as usual, is flanked by a 2-megapixel camera. This extra camera mainly provides a realistic depth effect, for example by blurring the background in a portrait photo, the so-called bokeh effect. The pictures are clearly somewhat less bright and detailed than those of the Huawei P20 Pro and noise occurs faster when the light conditions are poorer. But for a mid-range device, the photos are certainly not disappointing.

On the front, the Mate 20 lite even has a 24-megapixel lens, which is also supported by a 2 MP ‘depth-of-field’ camera. So there is nothing whatever to say about the selfies taken on this device.

Artificial intelligence does a lot of the work for you when taking photos. The camera recognizes over 500 scenarios (such as animals, beach photos, food, etc.) and then automatically selects the best possible settings. Another thing worth mentioning is the Super Slow Motion function for video images slowed to 480 frames per second.

Plus…

The Mate 20 lite has a 3,750 mAh battery that is 10 per cent more powerful than the battery in its predecessor. Charging is extra fast thanks to the support of Quick Charge. 

The device has 4 gigabytes of RAM, 64 GB of storage memory (which can be expanded with a microSD card) and the processing system is Android 8.1 Oreo. There is room for two SIM cards, which can be handy for separating business and private calls.

Prices and versions

The Mate 20 lite is available in two colors: Sapphire Blue and Black.
Proximus price: €330,57 excl. VAT.