Huawei P Smart 2019 Review

Huawei P Smart 2019 Review: Overview & Price

The Huawei P Smart 2019 is Huawei’s latest budget smartphone, with a clean design, plenty of internal storage and a beautiful display this phone offers a complete smartphone.

In this Huawei P smart review, we go over what makes the phone special, from its low cost to its incredible display and camera capabilities.

Priced at £200 in the UK, Huawei really has pulled it out the bag once again with this phone, giving users plenty of value when it comes to the phone’s capabilities.

The Huawei P smart camera can take incredible shots both day and night, giving you the ability to produce Instagram worthy shots with ease.

When compared to the Huawei P Smart 2018, it really is clear to see some impressive upgrades.

Check out the cheapest Huawei P Smart 2019 deals…

Of course for a phone at this price range, Huawei has had to make some sacrifices to keep it at an extremely low cost, however they have certainly covered the basics and more.

That being said you may be wondering if the Huawei P Smart 2019 is waterproof? Find out shortly.

Let’s take a look at why you should consider this phone for a low cost, high performing smartphone…

Huawei P Smart 2019 Review: Design & Display

The design of the new Huawei P Smart 2019 is definitely one of the highlights of this phone, it is simply stunning! We absolutely love the Aurora Blue colour, as it is so unique to Huawei devices.

However, you will need to either get a case or keep wiping the back, as it is a magnet for fingerprints, a minor inconvenience though for such a beautiful handset.

The phone is plastic so you will find that it does not feel as premium as say the Huawei P20 Pro or Huawei Mate 20 Pro, but as mentioned previously Huawei has made some sacrifices to bring you such a cheap smartphone.

The overall build quality of the phone is good and besides it being made from plastic, it actually feels good in your hand. Buttons are clicky and nice to press, and the phone has rounded edges giving it a soft, smooth look.

Around the back of the phone you will find the dual-camera setup which is not raised so the phone will sit flush on a work-top or desk, there is also a fingerprint sensor which is extremely responsive and snappy.

The sensor makes it super easy to bring up the notifications tab by simply swiping it, the sensor also makes it secure for storing passwords and makes online banking so much easier.

On the right-hand side of the phone you will find the power button and volume rocker.

Towards the bottom of the device, you will find that surprisingly there is a 3.5mm headphone jack, which is nice to see as most of the more premium Huawei devices culled this generations ago.

This means that you will not need to fork out for wireless headphones, as the phone does come with headphones included.

So is the Huawei P Smart 2019 waterproof? Unfortunately not, so be sure not to take this device near water or certainly don’t drop it in the tub.

Another surprising find is that there is also a micro-USB port, this is a scarcity in most modern phones too as the more common USB-C port usually takes preference.

Just alongside the micro-USB port you will see the ports for the speakers, there is also a very small LED light, which notifies you when the phone is fully charged by lighting up green, easy to glance at if the phone is not within reach.

So the Huawei P Smart 2019 has a 6.21-inch IPS LCD display with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio, this is a lot of real estate however it would be significantly more if Huawei had stuck to their 16:9 aspect ratio.

A full view display is present here, which gives the phone a nice tall and slim look; the screen is sharp and accurate with bright colours and awesome brightness.

Although the display is edge-to-edge there is no denying that there is a noticeable chin bezel running across the bottom of the handset, however, up top you will only find a small teardrop-shaped notch.

The “Dewdrop” notch, which has also been seen in the OnePlus 6T houses the selfie-camera, if this small notch does become annoying there is an option to hide it in the settings menu.

The overall quality of the display is great and watching Netflix on this phone is delightful, we found ourselves watching 3 full episodes of the big bang theory and were happy with experience.

The 1080 x 2340 HD+ panel delivers 85% of the NTSC colour gamut, ensuring that colours are bright and vibrant.

One thing we did notice about the display is that the contrast is not the best we have seen, blacks look more grey than anything and viewing angles aren’t too good either so make sure you are viewing the phone parallel with your eye line.

The phone has an ‘Eye Comfort Mode’ which will actually shift the colour temperature to the warmer end of the scale to make viewing much easier when it low light conditions.

Huawei P Smart 2019 Review: Performance

The phone has some pretty impressive specifications especially for its price range; it comes with the Hisilicon Kirin 710 processor that is the same used in the Huawei Mate 20 Lite, which has a price tag of £380.

Coupled with an impressive 3GB of RAM and 64GB internal storage the phone really does pack a punch under the hood.

We would have loved to see 4GB of RAM in this phone but thanks to the turning of Huawei and the GPU Turbo 2.0 update, the phone performs just fine even when exposed to intense usage.

The average user won’t run into any performance difficulties when using the phone and everything is super responsive in snappy.

Scrolling through screens and flicking through apps is effortless for the phone, however, you might find that when moving into split-screen the phones do drop some frames but nothing enough to impact your performance for more than a couple of seconds.

We love the fact that this phone comes with 64GB of internal storage too, giving users plenty of room to store lots of photos and music, which for a phone at this price point is rare.

As always we tested the phone out on some of our favourite games, the first being ‘RuneScape’ which ran effortlessly in max graphics.

There was no lag or stutter even after playing the game for over an hour, it was nice to see the phone really do what it says on the tin and not be a disappointment when it came to practicality.

After a while, though we did start losing some frames and the phone started to slow down, if you are looking for a phone specifically for gaming then we recommend you check out some of the higher-performing Huawei phones as this phone simply is not built for extended periods of gaming.

Huawei has blessed the phone with Android 9.0 Pie, coupled with Huawei’s own interface on top giving you plenty of features to play around with.

The interface allows you to really customise the phone to your preference, with customisations over home screens and animation behaviour, as well as automated power on/off times.

See Related:

*Huawei P20 Lite Review*
*Huawei P20 Pro Review*
*Huawei P20 Review*
*Huawei P10 Review*
*Huawei P Smart 2018 Review*

Huawei boasts about the blue light filter, which is built into the Huawei P Smart 2019, essentially making the screen less straining for your eyes.

One feature we loved is the ‘HiTouch’, which allows you to simply press two fingers on the screen against a relevant image, and the feature will automatically search for it on platforms like Amazon to give you the best price and a place to purchase.

Those that love to shop or see something they love on Instagram or Twitter will love this feature as it means you can find hard to come by clothing super easy.

The ‘HiVision’ feature allows you to translate text by simply pointing your camera at some text, and it will automatically translate it into your chosen language after a second, this is great for travellers and can make looking at welsh road signs a whole lot easier!

The Digital Balance feature also tracks unhealthy habits that you may be doing on your smartphone, for example, it will give you a report on how often you have used Instagram that day, or how long you have been watching YouTube videos.

This is a shocking feature that will really help with kicking an Instagram addiction as its surprising to see how long you actually spend on social media each day.

The feature will also dim the screen brightness when it gets to a certain time to allow your brain to wind down and eyes to rest when you’re getting ready for bed.

We found this helps a lot as on personal phones if you check your phone in the middle of the night it really wakes you up, whereas this feature really dims the screen so it will not interfere too much if you want to check a SnapChat at 11 pm.

Huawei P Smart 2019 Review: Camera

Huawei is notorious for their cameras, and phones like the Huawei Mate 20 Pro and P20 Pro really do give novice photographers the capability to capture stunning images.

This phone is great too and even has a dual-camera setup; there is a primary 13MP f/1.8 sensor and a secondary 2MP depth sensor.

Images look good with bright colour and good contrast, dynamic range is good and the detail has increased a lot since last year.

During this P Smart Review, we found an awesome feature of the phone’s camera – the AI mode.

This mode will automatically adjust images based on the scene. For example, if you’re taking a picture of a high building it will adjust the sky colour to make it look more enhanced and better.

Portrait mode is great although you will drop down to an 8MP when in this mode, we do however recommend using portrait mode in good lighting conditions as the phone can draw in natural lighting to make the image a whole lot better.

If you are out at night and need to take a shot of something cool, then don’t worry just flip it into the dedicate ‘Night Mode’. This will draw in as much light as possible and give you a detailed image even when there is not much ambient light at all.

The notch at the top of the device supports the 8MP fixed-focus selfie camera. Selfies look the best with overall good amounts of detail, skin tones are clear and colours look great.

The selfie portrait mode is the best mode to use when taking some beautiful selfies as it gives the most detail and contrast.

The P Smart selfie camera also supports basic face unlock features which help a lot with the overall security of the phone, making it very hard for intruders to gain access to your phone.

Video recording is average and can be recorded in up to 1080p@30fps, although there is no electronic stabilisation so your footage may look a little shaky if you don’t have a steady hand.

Given how cheap the Huawei P Smart 2019 can be attained on a contract deal here in the UK, we really feel like it offers superb value for money.

Overall the camera functionality of this phone is good and more than capable of giving you some amazing images, providing that you are in the right mode for the setting you are in.

Huawei P Smart 2019 Review: Battery Life

The Huawei P Smart 2019 has a 3400mAh battery which is rather efficient and powering the phone and will keep the phone running for around 2 days.

This is, of course, dependent on how you are going to be using the phone; under intense circumstances such as heavy gaming sessions you might find the battery drains a lot quicker.

The phone does not support quick charging but it is, however, a lot faster than last years model, the phone will charge to around 40% in around half an hour.

For a full charge of the phone you can expect to be waiting around 2 hours from 0-100% with the supplied charger, which is not too bad considering the 2 days endurance.

Summary

Huawei has done an incredible job of bringing consumers a fantastic phone at a more than affordable price.

The Huawei P Smart 2019 offers some amazing features, such as 3GB of RAM, 64GB internal storage and the Kirin 710 chipset.

The phone is far from perfect and still could be improved, but for a phone, at this price point we feel the value for money here is second to none, and users would generally find that a phone like this is much more beneficial to them rather than a low-end Samsung device.

Huawei always deliver exceptional results on their phones and this is no exception, the p smart camera is great.

As well as great battery life it is easy for us to recommend this phone to anyone looking for a budget, yet high performing smartphone which looks stunning and performs very well!

Huawei P Smart 2019 64 GB 6.21-Inch 2K FullView Dewdrop SIM-Free Smartphone with Dual AI Camera, Android 9.0, Single SIM, UK Version - Black 

We loved this phone, however, one thing we would have loved, is if the Huawei P Smart 2019 was waterproof.

In 2019 we think that this is crucial and a bare minimum for phones released in this day and age.

We hope you have enjoyed our p smart review, and feel free to check out our Huawei P Smart 2018 and Huawei P20 Lite review before making any purchase decision.

You can check out the best Huawei P Smart 2019 contract deals at the top of this post too…

Huawei P Smart 2019 Review: Full Specification

Launch: 2018, December

Body:

• Dimension: 155.2 x 73.4 x 8mm (6.11 x 2.89 x 0.31 inches)
• Weight: 160g (5.64 oz)
• Sim: Hybrid Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)

Display:

• Type: LTPS IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colours
• Size: 6.21 inches, 94.7² (-83.1% screen-to-body-ratio)
• Resolution: 1080 x 2340 pixels, 19.5:9 ratio (-415 PPI density)

Platform:

• OS: Android 9.0 (Pie); EMUI 9
• Chipset: Hisilicon Kirin 710 (12nm)
• CPU: Octa-core (4×2.2 GHz Cortex-A73 & 4×1.7 GHz Cortex-A53)
• GPU: Mali-G51 MP4

Memory:

• Card slot: microSD, up to 512 GB (uses SIM 2 slot)
• Internal: 32/64GB, 3GB RAM

Camera:

• Primary:
  – 13MP, f/1.8, PDAF
  – 2MP, depth sensor
• Features:  LED flash, HDR, panorama
• Video: 1080p@30/60fps
• Secondary:
  – 16MP or 8MP, f/2.0
• Features: HDR
• Video: 1080p@30fps

Sound:

• Loudspeaker: Yes
• 3.5mm Jack: Yes
  – Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic

Comms:

• WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n/ac, dual-band, WiFi Direct, hotspot
• Bluetooth: 4.2, A2DP, LE
• GPS: Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS
• NFC: Yes (POT-LX1)
• Radio: FM Radio
• USB: micro USB 2.0, USB on-the-go

Features:

• Sensors: Fingerprint (rear-mounted), accelerometer, proximity, compass
  – Charging 5V/2A 10W

Battery:

• Non-removable Li-Ion 3400 mAh battery

Misc:

• Colours: Midnight Black, Aurora Blue, Saphire Blue, Coral Red
• Price: As seen in the above post

Tests:

• Performance: Contrast ratio: 1345:1 (nominal), 3.069 (sunlight)
• Camera: Photo / Video
• Loudspeaker: Voice 69dB / Noise 73dB / Ring 86dB
• Audi Quality:  Noise -93.1dB / Crosstalk – 81.9dB
• Battery life: Endurance rating 88h