Huawei has been pretty quiet after introducing its flagship smartphone last year, the Mate 9. The Chinese company is readying another flagship for the first half of 2017, the P10, which is why the new P8 lite (2017) might go unnoticed.

Curiously, Huawei chose to name the new smartphone P8 lite, so it's just the “2017” tag that differentiates it from the previous model launched two years ago.

Not to mention that the new Huawei P8 lite (2017) is even better than the P9 lite, which is supposed to be a slightly downgraded version of the company's last year flagship.

First of all, the smartphone runs the Android 7.0 Nougat operating system right out of the box, which we can't say about many of Huawei's handsets. On top of that, the P8 lite (2017) is powered by an octa-core Kirin 655 processor, coupled with a Mali-T830 MP2 graphics processing unit.

Huawei also packed 3GB of RAM inside, along with 16GB of storage that can be further expanded via microSD card (up to 128GB). It also sports a 5.2-inch display with full HD (1080p) resolution.

The phone doesn't feature a dual-camera setup, but the 12-megapixel single lens camera on the back promises great pictures.

The main camera features LED flash, f/2.0 aperture and PDAF (phase detection autofocus). There's also a secondary 8-megapixel camera in the front for selfies and video calls.

According to Huawei, the P8 lite (2017) will be powered by a non-removable 3,000mAh battery, which hasn't yet been rated for usage.

The smartphone has been quietly unveiled by Huawei, but the Chinese company said the P8 lite (2017) would be available for purchase in select European countries by the end of January.

It's also worth mentioning the smartphone will cost around €239 outright and that other regions like Latin America might get it under a different name, Huawei P9 lite (2017), GSMArena reports.