The Honor 90 Lite may stand alone in terms of direct competition but comes in at an affordable price of under £200.

 

Since Honor broke away from Huawei and became independent they have produced a range of affordable devices that tick most of the boxes a phone should offer. 

 

This is not the first time we have reviewed an Honor phone as we have covered the Honor Magic 5 Lite, Honor Magic 4 Pro and Honor 70 so let’s see how this new device stands up. 

 

First Impressions

 

The Honor 90 Lite comes in at £199 which puts it in the budget category when considering phone prices. Just a thing to consider the Honor 90 Lite is nothing like the Honor 90 the only similarity is the use of MagicOS UI. 

 

The 90 Lite model comes with a 6.7-inch FHD+ IPS LCD display but comes with a rather low refresh rate of only 90Hz. Open the phone up and you will see a MediaTek Dimensity 6020 that is paired with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. All of this is powered by a 4,500mAh battery.

If you like taking a photo then you are given the following camera setup – 100MP main camera, 5MP ultrawide and 2MP depth sensor to the rear and on the front a 16MP selfie camera. We will dig deeper into the camera spec later in this review. 

 

Overall, this phone competes with the likes of the Oppo A78 5G, Samsung Galaxy A14 5G and Motorola Moto G73 5G which are all in that £200 mark. Let’s see if the Honor 90 Lite stands tall compared to the others. 

 

Design/Key Features

The Honor 90 Lite won’t win any prizes for design they keep things simple with a well-built, plastic body that is 7.5mm thick and is lightweight at only 179g in the hand. 

The phone comes in 3 colour options Midnight Black, Cyan Lake and Titanium Silver which some might say looks more light blue in certain lights. In this review, we got sent the Silver version. 

 

The front of the phone has minimal bezels and the central hole-punch selfie camera that thankfully does not have any annoying shiny surround that some other devices at the same price.

Move to the rear of the phone and you have that main camera module which houses the twin sensor clusters. 

In addition to the front and back the right side of the phone is where the volume and power button combo. Which also doubles up for fingerprint authentication which was very reliable in use. 

What I did find annoying was the provision of the single mono speaker at the bottom of the device this offers a loudspeaker but also comes out tinny at the same time. You will also notice there is no 3.5mm headphone jack meaning no wired headphones for you only Bluetooth connection.  

 

Far more annoying is the provision of a single mono speaker on the bottom of the device, which provides a loud and clear if sometimes thin and tinny output. You won’t be able to rely on a 3.5mm headphone jack for your audio needs, either.

Display

The Honor 90 Lite in regards to display won’t blow anyone away it comes in at 6.7 inch IPS LCD with FHD+ resolution (1,080 x 2,388). The LCD component is decent and we saw a 95.5% gamut coverage against a 98.4% gamut volume. Which was quite acceptable for the cost of the phone. 

What we did notice was the refresh rate was a major downfall it offers only 90Hz compared to 120Hz you might come to expect on rival devices. In reality, it’s only a marginal difference but some users will notice especially when watching YouTube or playing games.  

Software

The Honor 90 lite runs on Android 13 which is the most current but with a custom Honor Magic UI 7.1 software placed on top all this means is you have a number of pre-loaded apps such as Netflix, Facebook, Booking.com and a few games.

None of which won’t impact the overall Android experience and I expect most of us will continue to use the Google UI we are used to.

Performance

Open up the phone and you are provided with a Mediatek Dimensity 620 chip which is an entry-level 7nm CPU that is a little short compared to the Snapdragon 695 found in more expensive models.  

When using the phone for general browsing, casual usage and even light gaming. The Honor 90 Lite performs just right and the offering of the 8GB of RAM does help. It’s not perfect and you will get the odd pause/stutter here and there but you will only notice them if you are used to running a more mid-range device. 

Battery Life

The Honor 90 Lite comes with a 4500mAh battery life and the stamina is generally excellent and usage is moderate throughout the day with moderate usage I would still finish the day at 50% battery left in the tank. So in theory you could get 2 days of usage between charges which is quite impressive. 

However, when the user tries to use more intensive media this is where you will come up short. So just consider what you plan on doing before you buy the phone.  

What you will notice is Honor fails to provide you with a charger which is a little odd but if you have the standard USB-C cable around the house you should be fine. In terms of charging this phone supports up to 35W charging. We got a full charge in just 1hr & 10 minutes. 

CAMERA REVIEW BY JAMES ROBERTSON MILLIGAN @LIFESIZEPHOTOGRAPHY

We took this phone to the furthest point of the southwest of England to put the phone camera through its paces!

Well first off the camera bezel on the back of the phone is quite a nice design and doesn’t overly protrude from the back of the phone like I have seen on most cameras these days but what caught my eye was the little stamp stating 100MP!!

Now that caught my eye.. to be honest, most Android phones now sit around that on the megapixel scale and have done for some time, but have Honor got this right and made an impact in the 100MP market… well I can honestly say….. YES, they have come up trumps with this and it works beautifully.

 

The camera is easy to use, sleek, and smooth and comes with all the right features as you would expect, however, I think some of these they could get rid of such as “Multi video” and “aperture” in the Pro section you have the usual such as HDR, Slow-Mo, panorama, and my new favourite feature is time-lapse, I have only just started using this on my iPhone 15 Pro and if you start using it, you will love it too!. On the main camera screen, you can flick between different camera settings and again this is effortless and sleek with little and no lag switching between modes, the autofocus locks on perfectly and quickly with no niggles.

So anyway let’s get to the crucks and see some photos that were taken using this little gem!

Low light/nighttime

In low light, it was almost dark the camera really did its job, the picture came out so clean and crisp! this is a thumbs-up!

Photo Mode:

The clarity of the image speaks for itself!

Pro Mode:

Again.. faultless!! the pictures just make you feel you are still there!

Selfie Mode:

we all love a selfie for our socials, well I decided that Mrs Lifesize Photography should be in the image, and you know what, she is a fussy madam with her photo being taken, she said this looks quite good so Honor that is a bloody good achievement!

Wide angle:

I love a good wide-angle shot to get as much of the landscape area in as much as possible, this phone.. again nailed it.

Portrait

so as always, my trusty stead decided he wanted to be in the photo as always!! now this is the only area where the camera was a letdown, on portrait you are supposed to get that subtle background blur and a crisp main image, sadly this missed the spot!
So in conclusion the camera on the Honor 90 lite has nailed it completely as a photographer I do have to use my phone at times if I’m in areas that do not allow photography or it’s awkward to pull my DSLFR out, I would be very happy to pull this one out to use as a replacement to my DSLR. The camera was so easy to use and a joy! Is it up there with the likes of the Google Pixel Pro and the Samsung S23 range I would say YES!! Even though the portrait was a letdown but hey that’s not the end of the world I score this a straight 5/5!

Verdict

The Honor 90 Lite is a budget-friendly phone that elevates as a viable option. The phone comes with a well-balanced set of specs and a solid design it just won’t blow you away.  

The phone does perform well when it comes to performance and battery life and the camera is not too bad if you only want to use the phone for basic means. However, that cluttered UI and no charger make other £200 devices more attractive options. 

 Product Rating   

Design/Build: 4.0 out of 5.0 stars

Battery Life: 5.0 out of 5.0 stars5.0

Connectivity: 5.0 out of 5.0 stars5.0

Features: 4.0 out of 5.0 stars

Camera: 5.0 out of 5.0 stars5.0

Call Quality: 5.0 out of 5.0 stars5.0

Value for Money: 4.0 out of 5.0 stars

 

Overall ranking: 4.5 out of 5.0 stars – 4.5 stars  

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