| Pros | Cons |
| Good screen | Competition is better |
| Solid design | Made of plastic |
| Low price | Mediocre front camera |
“The Huawei P Smart 2019 packs in loads of tech for the money and has a design that looks mid-range, especially from the front, but it's hard to recommend when the Honor 10 Lite exists.”
The Huawei P Smart is an odd phone to review, because it does a lot right and comes in at a very low price for what it offers (starting at around £15 per month on contract or from just under £200 SIM-free).
For that money you get a big, sharp screen, a dual-lens camera and an up to date version of Android. Sounds great right? And it is, except for the fact that the Honor 10 Lite exists.
That’s a marginally cheaper phone from a sub-brand of Huawei and it offers very similar specs and features. But there are some differences between them and the Huawei P Smart 2019 is certainly a brilliant buy otherwise. So read on for a full overview of the phone and a look at whether it’s worth your money in a world where the Honor 10 Lite exists.
The Huawei P Smart 2019 has a 6.21-inch 1080 x 2340 screen with a pixel density of 415 pixels per inch. It also has a tall 19.5:9 aspect ratio, a tiny teardrop notch at the top and a slim strip of bezel below the screen. Exactly the same description could be used for the Honor 10 Lite.
Still, this is a top screen for the money. It’s LCD, where pricier phones tend to use OLED, but that aside it’s big, sharp and generally looks good, while keeping bezels to a minimum so that it’s manageable with one hand. Along with the Honor, this is one of the best smartphone displays you can get for under £200.
The design is one area where the P Smart 2019 is a bit different to the Honor 10 Lite, but not necessarily for the better, as while that phone’s back often has beams of light streaming across it, the Huawei P Smart 2019’s doesn’t.
It’s not a bad design by any means though, like the Honor it’s clad in plastic, but it has a glossy ceramic-like finish, and in some shades it transitions between two different colours from one end to the other. Certainly, as budget phones go this is one of the better looking ones.
There’s no difference in the power, with both phones using a mid-range Kirin 710 chipset. This is an octa-core chipset with four cores clocked at 2.2GHz and four at 1.7GHz. It’s paired with 3GB of RAM and allows for competent performance. Apps won’t load quite as fast as with a flagship and multi-tasking won’t be quite as smooth, but day to day you’re unlikely to notice much difference.
It will struggle more with demanding tasks like games, but it has a slight trick up its sleeve there, as there’s a GPU Turbo mode which kicks in on supported titles, boosting the phone’s performance.
You get a dual-lens camera on the back of the Huawei P Smart 2019 and, guess what, it’s much the same setup as the Honor 10 Lite.
There’s a 13MP main lens with an f/1.8 aperture, paired with a 2MP depth sensor. That second lens is handy for creating a striking bokeh effect (the popular effect used in portrait shots where the background is blurred).
The camera is also powered by AI, with it able to recognise 22 categories and 500 scenarios, automatically adjusting the camera’s settings in real-time to suit, so you can get away with just pointing and shooting while the phone does the hard work.
The front camera also has AI skills, helping you get the most out of your selfies, but this is just an 8MP lens, while the Honor 10 Lite has a 24MP one.
The Huawei P Smart 2019 has both face unlock and a fingerprint scanner, giving you two high-tech ways to secure your phone.
Other highlights include Android 9 Pie, which is the latest version of Google’s operating system at the time of writing. You also get an eye comfort mode which filters out blue light, and smart background sound recognition for clear calls.
There’s a 3,400mAh battery in the Huawei P Smart 2019 (and we don’t have to tell you what other phone also has a battery of that size). Battery life is therefore also similar, meaning you get average to just above average life. It will easily last a day and may stretch a bit further, but typically you’ll want to charge it once a day.
Memory comes in at 64GB plus a microSD card slot, which makes for a good combo given the cost of this phone, and connectivity options include 4G, Bluetooth 4.2 and NFC (allowing for contactless payments).
Ultimately, the Huawei P Smart 2019 is a very good budget phone. It’s one of the best handsets that you can get for under £200 but it’s entirely too similar to the Honor 10 Lite, which is both marginally cheaper and marginally better.
As such, it’s very difficult to recommend this phone, or to score it. If the Honor 10 Lite didn’t exist this would easily be a 4-star phone, maybe even a 4.5-star one, but as it does we can’t go above 3.5 stars. It’s a great handset, but one that there’s very little reason to buy unless you prefer the design, find it at a reduced price or can’t get hold of the Honor 10 Lite.
