If you’re in the market for an affordable
5G phone you’re spoiled for choice. The latest offering is the Honor 30 Lite
(aka Youth), which will be available in China starting on July 8 at a price of
CNY 1,700 (US$ 240/€ 215) for the base model. The phone’s 5G prowess comes from the
MediaTek Dimensity 800 chipset. With four Cortex-A76 and four A55 cores (all
clocked at 2 GHz) plus a Mali-G57 MC4, this 7 nm chipset is no slouch.
The default configuration comes with 6GB
of RAM and 64GB storage, the top-specced model is 8/128 GB. The phone runs
Android 10 with Magic UI 3.1 out of the box (and it goes without saying: there
are no Google services here).
On the front the Honor 30 Lite boasts a
6.5” LCD with 1080p+ resolution. It has 90 Hz refresh rate and 180 Hz touch
sampling rate for smooth animation and instantaneous reactions. A 16 MP selfie
camera is inside a teardrop notch on the top edge. It can be used for face
unlock or you could use the side-mounted fingerprint reader instead.
Around back there’s a 48MP main camera
with a large 1/2” sensor and f/1.8 aperture. To its left is an 8 MP ultrawide
snapper, to its right a 2 MP depth sensor. The main cam can record 4K video
with EIS and supports Super Night Mode.
The phone is powered by a 4,000 mAh battery,
which can be charged at 22.5 W through the USB-C port (53% charge in 30
minutes). There’s also a 3.5mm headphone jack here. Wireless connectivity
features Wi-Fi 5 (ac) and two SIM slots. Keep in mind that this phone supports
only NM memory cards, so you’ll lose one of the SIM slots if you decide to
expand the storage later on.
You can make a reservation on vmall for
the phone, sales start on July 8 (next Wednesday). The base 6/64 GB model is
CNY 1,700, you can double the storage for CNY 200 more or go for the top 8/128
GB version for CNY 2,200 total.
