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Interface and reliability
- EMUI 4.1 isn't best looking or usable
- Android Nougat and EMUI updates coming ‘early 2017’
Android Nougat has been doing the rounds for several months now but you won’t find it here. Instead, the Huawei P9 Lite is a bit behind the curve.
The phone runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow skinned with EMUI 4 - a relatively recent version of Huawei’s own Emotion interface. This is a combination that although functional isn’t the most inspiring. Unlike the near stock Android that powers the Moto G4, or the Cyanogen UI that currently runs on the Wileyfox Swift 2 X, it’s not as clean or refined.
If you’ve used a Huawei or Honor handset before, you’ll know that EMUI, unlike Samsung’s TouchWiz or HTC’s Sense UI, is less about finesse, more about being a big, bold and heavy overlay.
The skin’s overly bright, cartoony design has been toned down in recent years, and now it’s more muted. It also hides plenty of customization options, with the ‘Themes’ app letting you give the phone a whole new look and feel.
Whichever theme you opt for, however, it’s not particularly clean. EMUI introduces many of Huawei’s own apps for features Google’s stock Android already offers, such as the video player and music app.
There’s a fair bit of bloatware too. As well as the welcome pre-installs of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, there’s plenty you’re not going to want, including a whole folder of games you’ll likely have no affinity towards - including Puzzle Pets and Ice Age: Scrat-ventures.
Despite all these additions, EMUI 4 doesn’t feature an app drawer, meaning all your apps are laid out across a range of home screens. It’s a design that will be familiar to former iPhone users, but one that could be a pain point for more traditional Android owners.
All this isn’t to say there’s aren’t some nice UI elements. There are, plenty of them. As well as EMUI being one of the most customizable skins going, it’s got a few simple features that are missing elsewhere.
These include the phone’s ability to track your steps and relay the information to the lock screen as standard. It’s a nice touch and one that’s surprisingly accurate.
Movies, music and gaming
- Speakers lacking at higher volumes
- Screen great for gaming and movies
- Traditional 3.5mm headphone jack remains
With plenty of grunt and a solid screen, the Huawei P9 Lite makes a decent gaming companion.
Launching Hill Climb Racing 2, the game is quick to load and smooth to play thanks to the phone’s Kirin 650 chipset. It also looks great, with the game’s bright, bold colors displayed perfectly by the 5.2-inch Full HD panel.
More demanding games were handled with similar ease. Taking to the track with Asphalt 8, the P9 Lite didn’t stutter once. It does have a fault though - sound.
The phone’s speakers don’t encourage out-loud listening. As soon as the volume starts edging up, output quality works its way down, and pretty quickly. Overall, sound is tinny and lacking depth.
That’s because the speakers are not all that they seem. Despite two speaker grilles being on the base of the phone, only the one to the right of the micro USB charging port pumps out sound, the other is there purely for aesthetics
It’s a trick we’ve seen on a number of devices. Fortunately, the 3.5mm headphone jack is still present and very much real. Found on the top of the phone, this joins Bluetooth as the preferred listening options, with Huawei’s own music player making audio sessions a pleasing experience.
Completing the entertainment triangle, the P9 Lite is a fine companion for streaming sessions.
Watching episodes of Uncle on BBC iPlayer, the screen made viewing an enjoyable and immersive experience. It’s not the biggest, but it’s bright, detailed and ultimately engaging.
Benchmarks and performance
- Octa-core chipset paired with 3GB of RAM
- Strong Geekbench benchmark results
Keeping things in the family, Huawei has fitted the P9 Lite with its own Kirin 650 chipset, a 64-bit octa-core offering with the speediest four cores clocked at 2.0GHz. This is paired with 3GB of RAM to create a phone more than capable of tackling whatever apps or games you throw its way.
It’s not going to trouble the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge or OnePlus 3T when it comes to raw power, but it’s fast enough. App launches are, for the most part, responsive and speedy, there’s the occasional hesitation, but these are rare and minor.
The P9 Lite is already behind the curve though. The similarly affordable Honor 6X has now dropped with the 2.1GHz Kirin 655 chipset at its core, an on-paper improvement.
The on-paper specs don’t always tell the full story though. Running the Geekbench 4 tests, the Huawei P9 Lite averaged a multi-core score of 3361. This puts it marginally ahead of the competition, as the Honor 6X managed a score of 3275, while the Moto G4 Plus is further back with a score of 3047.
In real world tests, however, there’s little to separate the three, or the Wileyfox Swift 2 X that, despite a lowly Geekbench score of 2016, gave us no issues when we tested the device.
