Huawei’s P60 Pro has landed in the region, and the company is banking on positioning its latest device as a photography beast, and cutting straight to the point, IT IS!
We’ve used the Huawei P60 Pro as our daily driver for a while now, and here’s what we found out.
Design and Display
The Huawei P60 Pro comes in two colors: Black and Rococo Pearl. We got the Rococo pearl color, the variant which has a marble pattern and a unique print to each smartphone shipped. Bottom line, this specific finish is subjective and you will either like it or hate it. Personally, I would go with the traditional black color. The P60 Pro definitely feels high-end and has a curved body that is easy to hold and navigate. The device weighs 200g and is 8.3mm thin.
On the back, the camera module is on the left side with the main sensor taking centerstage. The telephoto and ultra-wide-angle lenses are arranged at each side of the main camera’s sovereign placement, forming a design that highlights the Eye of Light and brings back the novelty of traditional cameras to a new era of mobile imaging.
There is one USB-C port, and a dual-SIM slot that also supports Huawei’s nano-memory cards.The P60 Pro has an IP68 rating, which has become more or less standard these days.
Covering the Quad- curve Display is Huawei’s own Kunlun glass. The 6.67-inch OLED panel comes at a 2700 x 1220 resolution, and HDR support. The corners of the HUAWEI P60 Series Quad-curve Display is now more rounded and gentler at its edges giving it a more immersive field of vision, and better touch sensitivity.
Additionally, the display is packed with a 1-120Hz LTPO Adaptive Refresh Rate, which can intelligently adjust the screen refresh rate according to the user’s browsing needs while maintaining the smartphone’s power output. Overall, the display quality is superb, the color reproduction is great and striking.
The fingerprint scanner is an in-screen at the bottom of the display, and is fast and accurate. Face scanning is also available. Of course, we’d go with the fingerprint option for added security.
Software, performance and battery
Huawei has equipped this P60 Pro with the older Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 at 4G only, due to the sanctions imposed on the company. On paper, or even during the benchmark test, the device falls behind the recent flagships, however, in day to day usage, the Gen 1 has proven to be excellent in our tests, proof that Huawei has done a good job in optimizing the software with its hardware. The device comes with either 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, or 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.
The phone runs on Huawei’s EMUI 13.1 and as we mentioned before, Huawei does a superb job optimizing this interface. Of course by now everyone is aware the Google Play store and apps are non existent on Huawei phones, and the company have been developing its own App Gallery for sometime now, with apps like Petal Maps replacing Google Maps.
The HUAWEI P60 and P60 Pro is powered by a 4815 mAh high-capacity batteries, supporting 66W wired HUAWEI SuperCharge and 88W wired HUAWEI SuperCharge. HUAWEI P60 Pro can also be charged to half in just 10 minutes with HUAWEI SuperCharge under Turbo Mode. During our test, the phone held up pretty well, and we were able to get more than a day of power early while using social media, browsing, taking some photos and watching some videos.
Camera
This is where the magic happens, and where this phone is aiming to capture the photography lovers. The Huawei P60 Pro packs the company’s Ultra Lighting XMAGE triple camera setup featuring a 48MP main sensor with a variable aperture of f/1.4 to f/4.0 with Phase Detection AF, Laser AF, and OIS. The other two sensors feature a 48 MP Ultra Lighting Telephoto Camera (F2.1 aperture, OIS), and a 13 MP Ultra-Wide Angle Camera (F2.2 aperture).
It’s worth noting that the HUAWEI P60 Series is equipped with the industry’s largest F1.4 physical aperture, and introduces the High Transmittance Lens Group, which greatly improves rate of light passing through the lens. At the same time, the camera comes with an improved RYYB SuperSensing sensor.
Another top notch update is the Auto Adjustable Physical Aperture for dynamic light intake. HUAWEI P60 Series comes with an intelligent F1.4-F4.0 Auto-Adjustable Physical Aperture feature that adjusts according to the scenario’s needs and settings. For instance, when capturing a photograph of a vast scenery during your holiday trip, the AI switches to F2.0 aperture to capture as much light as possible while retaining details with a sufficient depth of field.
This camera excels in so many area, from zoomed in shots, to low light shots and macro shots. The images are processed well, and balanced to provide the best possible output on a smartphone. The optical zoom focuses quickly and the detail captured is just amazing.
Overall shots were full of life and dynamic, with superior detail preserved in all shots taken. During dark conditions, the P60 Pro performed very well too.
Zoom capability
Night shots
General photos, wide and macros
Software wise, there is an upgraded Camera Interface, from a Camera Quick Menu and Camera Zoom Ring. The new Camera Zoom Ring makes the zoom more precise and functional. The Camera Quick Menu also displays icons of the most used modes, for easy and quick access.
Other features
Low Light Telephoto Portrait: HUAWEI P60 Pro’s Ultra Lighting Lens Group, together with the industry’s largest F2.1 periscope telephoto aperture, as well as the RYYB SuperSensing sensor, allows for increased amount of light entering the telephoto camera lens by 178% when compared to past editions.
Two-in-One Telephoto Shooting: The camera also introduces the Long Travel Slide Zoom Lens Group, which can flexibly control the focusing distance. This means a single lens can achieve clear imaging for both long distance zooms to macro close-ups. This rids the need for photographers, especially those beginners or amateurs, from having to operate complex equipment.
Super Moon Scene: With XMAGE, users can now enjoy Super Moon Mode to shoot the moon while preserving the details of the objects in the middle ground, allowing both the moon and the scenery to be captured clearly and beautifully.
Overall the camera is a beast here, and as a testament to that, DXOMARK ranked this phone as its top performing device with a score of 156.
Verdict
HUAWEI’s reputation as one of the best manufacturer of photography smartphones has definitely put the P60 Pro on the top of the list of worthy buys. The phone’s impressive low light, zoom, and manual mode features outmatch some of the other flagships on the market. If you are looking for a photograph power house and don’t mind the non 5G specs / chipset, then this choice is a no-brainer.
