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Verdict
The Honor 20 Lite is another well-balanced, desirable budget phone with a stand-out camera, however there hasn’t been an awful lot of progress from the Honor 10 Lite.
It runs on the same chipset, seemingly the same display, and it looks rather similar too. The main spec boost comes from a generous 128GB of storage, which is great at this end of the market.
The addition of a third camera lens is also an impressive feature to pack into a budget phone, and it’s possible to get some great images from it, but we’d argue the third wide-angle lens yields markedly inferior results, which might discourage you from using it.
All in all, the Honor 20 Lite is every bit as impressive a budget phone as the Honor 10 Lite, with a slight edge in a couple of areas. But that edge is rather blunted by a considerably higher price tag.
Who's this for?
The Honor 20 Lite is for younger users and those looking for a stylish and capable smartphone that won’t bleed them dry.
It’s an accomplished all-rounder that will handle any media you throw at it, courtesy of a large display and capable chipset – storage is way more generous than most of its rivals, too.
Meanwhile the Honor 20 Lite’s triple camera is one of the most flexible snappers at this end of the market. It’s capable of taking genuinely fine pictures, which makes it ideal for budding photographers and Instagram fanatics alike.
Should you buy it?
The Honor 20 Lite is a fine all-round budget smartphone with a stack of storage, an excellent camera for its class, and a large edge-to-edge display, but it simply doesn’t represent a sizeable enough improvement over the Honor 10 Lite to warrant the accompanying price bump.
Competition
Moto G7 Plus
The Moto G7 Plus is the current king of the $200/£200-plus budget phone mini-category, and the most capable phone in the prestigious Moto G family.
Motorola has given the G7 Plus some stand-out features, like fast charging, solid cameras, and a premium design that beats pretty much all of its rivals.
We’re also massive fans of the way Motorola handles software, sticking largely to the Google script and avoiding needless bloatware. The Moto G7 Plus remains the master of its domain.
Read our full Moto G7 Plus review
Honor 10 Lite
Launched just six months prior to the Honor 20 Lite, it’s perhaps unsurprising how similar the Honor 10 Lite is. It has got the same chipset, the same 6.21-inch LCD display, and a similar design.
It has also got a very similar suite of camera tricks, though that camera doesn’t include a third wide-angle lens like the Honor 20 Lite. The older phone’s storage amount isn’t as generous either.
Still, with prices for the Honor 10 Lite now well below £200, it represents a significantly better buy than its successor.
Read our full Honor 10 Lite review
Samsung Galaxy A7 (2018)
At the time of writing it’s possible to pick up the Samsung Galaxy A7 (2018) for a little less than the Honor 20 Lite, which makes it a genuinely appealing alternative.
For the money you’re getting another triple-camera smartphone, but with a more vibrant Super AMOLED display and a notch-free design. Conversely, you don’t get quite the same snappy performance, and there’s only half the amount of onboard storage.
While Samsung’s latest custom UI is an improvement on EMUI, it’s still not quite the home run we’d like.
Read our full Samsung Galaxy A7 (2018) review
