The Huawei P20 Pro has been making headlines recently, mainly for the camera. But what’s this phone really made of? Well, I hope that’s what you came here to find out, because that’s what this review is about.
The Camera
Or cameras… because this thing has three! Seems Huawei felt having 2 cameras was just not enough… And they are Leica lenses, which should mean amazing pictures, but I’m not falling for that marketing gimmick.
The first and biggest thing about the cameras is that they are complicated, or maybe I just don’t truly understand them. Each lens is very different from the next. The three lenses are (listed from top to bottom on the back of the phone):
-
source: Huawei 8PM telephoto lens with f/2.4 aperture
- 40MP with f/1.8 and built on a 1/1.7” sensor.
- 20MP monochrome lens with f/1.6 (Black & white only)
So you need to understand all different kinds of algebra in order to take full advantage of these cameras. And if you are a casual photographer or someone who can’t be bothered understanding all this science talk, then you are paying probably 1000 AED more for the privilege of saying you have 3 Leica cameras…
Ok, jokes aside, the cameras on paper are amazing and can be a package that could compete with the likes of the iPhone X, Galaxy S8/9, and even Pixel 2XL. To start off, its good to point out that I love to click picks and am, IMHO, relatively good. This makes me want to really get to the guts of a camera and understand what the features are so that I can extract the best out of the equipment I am using.
Unfortunately for me, the Huawei Cameras are not easy to figure out. I don’t know which lens I am using at what time. I think I am just supposed to point, shoot and pray it’s good.
But a camera setup like this does require a change in mindset. Huawei seems to be banking a lot on software and AI. They have a hugely highlighted AI feature. For many people it will be perfect because it gives them the Instagram-friendly, over-saturated, colour-popping pics. But that’s not my style, I like to get the truest picture possible. So, after trying the AI for a while, I switched the AI feature off and went with the regular mode.
The Camera also has an insane low-light mode (Night Mode). This is a technically complex picture that Huawei manages by leveraging the lenses in a very software/AI driven way. When this feature works, the results can be outstanding. The camera takes about 3 seconds to take all the pics and another second to stitch them all together.
While you should stay relatively still, this feature works in such a way that you do not need a tripod. Great low-light pics, handheld. There is a problem where the pics come out a bit over sharpened, but it’s a minor trade-off.
The aperture and portrait modes work quite well, not as good as the Google Pixel 2, but on par (and sometimes better) than the flagship offerings from Apple and Samsung. Not sure why they needed to add both as separate modes. Aperture gives you a bit more control and the focus of the pictures can be edited later, however portrait is point and click, and the pictures cant be modified later.
The phone has gotten a DXO Mark of 109, which is, at the time of writing this, the highest rating in a smartphone. You can read their full review here: https://www.dxomark.com/huawei-p20-pro-camera-review-innovative-technologies-outstanding-results/
In all this excitement I almost forget about the Front Facing camera… it has one… it’s 24 MP… but it’s quite forgettable.
Design and Build
The Huawei P20 Pro is quite the looker. It’s got a sleek curvy design that does look beautiful. It is however one of the fingerprintiest phones I have ever used, and that’s even considering the Jet-Black iPhone 7.
The 3 big cameras do mean that it has a relatively big camera bump which can be annoying if you use the phone flat. Slap a case on and the bumps disappear.
The earpiece has a metallic look to it and the power button is a little indented with a slight colour on it. All subtle features that might polarize some users, but I did enjoy these subtle differences.
The design of the phone is quite defined by the screen, but more on that later.
The rest of the phone is solid, the buttons are nice and clicky and the phone feels sturdy and well built in the hand. It definitely feels like a premium phone.
Features, Specs and Performance
This phone is stuffed to the tits full of features, here are the list of those that sometimes are missing in other flagships:
- IR Blaster
- 3 Rear Cameras (yeah it’s so many that it needs another mention)
- IP67 – which means the phone should survive under water for a few minutes.
- Case – It comes in the box, most flagships don’t.
- Front fingerprint reader & face unlock
- Dual SIM
The P20 Pro comes with Huawei’s custom Processor, the Kirin 970. It’s an old processor that’s been around for almost a year now, while the competitors are using the best in class processors, hardly a few months old.
That doesn’t necessarily mean the P20 Pro is a slouch, because it’s actually quite good, but it does have some major flaws. The phone uses some kind of stalker AI to keep a tab on what apps you tend to use often and serve those to you quickly.
This means that apps used regularly launch super-fast. However, when it comes to games and heavy-duty apps, the phone seems to fall a bit short. Games don’t run all that great and I even had YouTube and some other apps crash while testing the phone.
Maybe it was because the phone was new and still setting up, but I’m not sure because it hasn’t happened since the first couple of instances.
On the plus side, the big 6GB ram is great, because this phone can multitask quite well. The Fingerprint scanner and face unlock features are blazing fast and hardly miss a beat. I actually think they are both faster than the iPhone 8’s Touch ID and the iPhone X’s Face ID. Though the P20 Pro’s face unlock is not remotely as secure as Face ID.
What the Huawei P20 Pro is missing
Surprisingly the phone doesn’t have an SD Card expansion slot. Even the second sim doesn’t double as an SD Card slot. This might be because the phone comes in one configuration – 128GB. This ideally is enough for most people.
The keen eyed might point out, but what about the 40mp pictures, won’t that fill up the phone? Well chances are you will be taking pics in 10MP mode, and even the 40MP pictures (due to the tech used to “merge” pixels together) actually only take up about 8 to 10mb per picture, so overall not bad.
For the UAE market you also don’t get any cool features like Apple Pay or Samsung Pay, obviously because this isn’t one of those brands. But at a competitive price point it’s something worth noting.
Besides the body being made of glass, the P20 Pro doesn’t actually support wireless charging. Now I actually don’t like wireless charging (atleast at the current level of the tech), but it’s a strange feature to miss out on especially since it’s got the body for the perfect support. It can be a turn off for the wireless generation, but it doesn’t bother me and isn’t really a negative.
The P20 also joins the ever growing bandwagon of smartphones losing the headphones jack. Sad times indeed.
Display
The Huawei P20 Pro comes packed with a respectable AMOLED screen. It’s got deep and dark blacks with a broad viewing angle and doesn’t suffer from the colour shifting that many top end screens face.
The resolution of the phone is a bit strange with a density of 408 ppi. As a comparison, the Galaxy S9 has a density of 574 ppi and the iPhone X has a density of 458 ppi. The screen is basically a 1080 panel, with a resolution of 1080 x 2240 pixels.
This might put some people off, but honestly you won’t notice the difference when you look at it unless you have a phone with a QHD display to compare side by side. Remember lower resolution usually means better battery life. More on that later.
As far as brightness goes, it didn’t do it for me. The screen is reflective and could have been overall better in sunlight. Still it isn’t the biggest issue as its still very usable and if you use it at a reasonable angle, the screen is easy to view.
Obviously, there is one thing that stands out about this screen… and that’s the notch. I’m from the small group of people who actually seems to like the iPhone X’s notch, but unfortunately the notch on the Huawei P20 Pro isn’t as appealing. It is smaller overall but something about it doesn’t work for me. You can also see our review of the Nova 3e which also has a Notch
After a while though, you get used to it and drown it out. If it still bothers you, you can dive into the settings and “hide” the notch. This actually works like a charm because the screen deals with blacks so well that the notch seems to not exist at all, it’s my personal default way of using this phone
Audio
The P20 Pro comes with a dual speaker setup. The main speaker is a downward facing speaker which is actually very loud, but like any speaker, quite easy to block. The earpiece doubles as the second speaker and it’s very obvious when you look at the phone.
The good thing is that it faces you, the bad thing is that it focuses more on the highs. But what should be said is that the audio sounds quite good. It gives a relatively full sounding experience for a phone and left me impressed.
Somehow Huawei managed to make the sound not seem lopsided, which is how most phones with such a setup end up sounding.
Battery
The battery in the Huawei P20 Pro is an amazing 4000mAh battery, YASS!
A nice, big battery like this with the Kirin 670 processor and the well spec’d screen means potentially 2 days battery on light/average use! Now that’s a huge win.
I used the phone pretty heavily, with photographs, games, videos, browsing, etc. and the phone still had about 20% battery by 10pm. On the other hand, my iPhone X would have been charged twice and drained my car battery by then.
The phone does support quick charge and the charger in the box is quite good, about 75-80% battery in 45 mins. Impressive for that size battery.
Software
The software on the Huawei P20 Pro is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, it’s one of the fewest phones that comes with Android 8.1 right out of the box, which means no updates required and it’s the latest software available.
On the other hand, I am not a fan of the EMUI. Huawei is trying very hard to make the phone look and feel like an iPhone. This is most evident with the software skin. They have two modes which I would like to name, the iPhone and the Android, because the former makes all the apps sit on the home screen with pages (no app drawer), while the latter is a more usual android setup.
The fact that they are using EMUI also means double. No it’s not a badly written sentence, it means double the apps. Two Mail Apps, two calendar apps, two gallery apps, two app stores etc etc. You have the standard google ones and then you have the Huawei ones. Sometimes less is more, or 2 is too many.
After playing with the phone for a while, I decided to install the Google Now launcher for a more stock Android experience… only to find out I can’t install it on this device. Apparently it’s not supported. Hmmm… ok! Moving on.
Last point about Software is, as I have already mentioned before, AI. The P20 Pro comes packed with AI. From the app launching, to battery management, to camera and display management. It seems like there is AI stuffed in every nook and cranny.
As a bonus feature, hidden in the battery options there is a “Darken interface colors” that basically makes all the white apps black, which is a great addition in my opinion and once I turned that on, the phone just settled in perfectly.
Other Info
The Huawei P20 Pro comes in one configuration, 128 GB with 6GB of RAM. It’s something that is quite rare in smartphones these days, but I think it’s great. This is a good configuration and should be the minimum anyone should get at this price point.
The phone costs about 2,999 AED and is available in the following colours:
- Black
- Twilight
- Midnight Blue
When I first got the phone, I was on the fence, but after spending about a week with it, I can say that the P20 Pro has got a lot of character, it’s fun to use while still being a bit of a challenge.
The EMUI interface actually grew on me and the Huawei software features all seem to work. I can actually safely recommend this phone, it’s got something for everyone. I eventually fell in love with it.
Let me know what you think about the phone: what is your favourite feature and what is missing. If you got the phone? I would love to hear your experience with it.
