Honor 10 Lite: Another mobile phone priced less than ₹15,000 hits the Indian market

• The Honor 10 Lite just launched in India starting at the price of ₹13,999 but will only be available for sale online.
• The phone is powered by the Kirin 710 chipset and runs on EMUI 9 based on Android 9.0 Pie out-of-the-box.
  
• Even though it’s the ‘Lite’ version of the Honor 10 flagship, it retains the 24-megapixel front facing camera.

The first thing you notice about the Honor 10 Lite is the water drop notch — a miniaturized version of the normal notch. Most users have probably seen the same design on the OnePlus 6T. But, the Honor 10 Lite only costs between ₹13,999 to ₹17,999.

The Honor 10 Lite is the latest in phones that offer a ‘flagship’ experience at a mid-range price. The phone is going up against the Nokia6, Poco F1, Asus Max Pro M2, and the RealMe2 Pro striving to be an ‘affordable flagship’.

The phone also has 13-megapixel and 2-megapixel rear dual cameras while retaining the manual mode for shooting that gives photography enthusiasts control over the specifics.

The ‘Lite’ version of Honor 10 is literally light weighing only 162 grams. But that’s mostly because the glass back and metal frame on the Honor 10 have been replaced with a plastic body on the Honor 10 Lite.

The phone has a 4GB RAM and 64GB storage option as well as a 6GB RAM and 64GB storage variant. The Honor 10 Lite will be available to buy starting January 20, 2019 exclusively via Flipkart or from their official website.

So then, where’s the catch?

The ‘Lite’ version of the Honor 10 is meant to easier on the pocket without losing the bang of its 24-megapixel front facing camera.

The phone has a 6.1-inch screen, Full-HD Plus resolution display, runs on EMUI 9 based on Android 9.0 Pie and has both 3GB and 6GB RAM options.

But, since it is the ‘Lite’ version of the Honor 10 phone, there are a few cutbacks.

The most obvious one is that the phone runs on the Kirin 710 chipset rather than the Kirin 970 — the ‘high-end’ octa-core system on a chip (SoC) that was introduced on the Huawei Mate 10. It’s essentially a mid-range phone that has mid-range power, which is fair enough.

For the user, that basically means that apps might open a little slower and there maybe a few issues when you’re trying to play heavy-duty games.

In a way it’s good news because the less power means it won’t eat away at the 3,400mAh battery as quickly. But the battery size is underwhelming since competitors like Xiaomi and ASUS are launching phones with 4,000mAh and 5,000mAh batteries.

Also, the phone has a micro-USB charger instead of a type-C port. The former maybe okay for entry-level phones but the type-C port has been around long enough for mid-range phones to level up their game.

That being said, the Honor 10 Lite will have the GPU Turbo software. So ideally, at least while gaming, performance and battery life will geared towards keeping your phone as fluid as possible.

But unlike the Honor 10, there’s no 128GB storage option. Although, depending on your usage, that shouldn’t be too much of an issue for the average user.