Forgot about buying or carrying around that heavy DSLR and choose for the new revolutionary professional photography experience by Huawei. The Chinese mobile vendor has unveiled its flagship android smartphones, the Huawei P20 and Huawei P20 Pro. It boasts super premium design, powerful hardware, Artificial Intelligence-powered software and most importantly, Leica triple camera setup.
With a DxOMark (camera quality) rating of 109 for Huawei P20 Pro and 102 rating for Huawei P20, these two smartphones are way ahead of its competition, especially against Samsung Galaxy S9 series and Google Pixel 2 series. So, one thing is sure, any picture you take with this cameras would be on par with that of a DSLR, or even better in certain conditions.
First the pricing and availability, the Huawei P20 is priced at 649 Euros (approximately 52,000) and the Huawei P20 Pro will retail for 899 Euros (approximately 72,000). Both smartphones will be available first in the European market. We could expect the mobiles to launch in India in the coming months.
Huawei P20 with Dual Camera
Huawei P20 got a super premium built with its curved body made from glass panels. You get to choose from five colour options including Black, Champagne Gold, Twilight, Pink Gold and Midnight Blue. In the front, you get the gorgeous 5.8-inch FHD+ LCD FullView display boasting a screen resolution of 1080 by 2244 pixels and an aspect ratio of 18.7:9. Well, there is also a top-notch cut, just like the Apple iPhone X which packs the front camera and other sensors. The front portion, below the screen, houses the fingerprint scanner.
Under the hood, the Huawei P20 is powered by company’s own octa-core HUAWEI Kirin 970 processor paired with 4GB of RAM. You get 128 GB of internal storage to carry all your photos and other contents. You can further expand the storage using microSD card. There is also a dedicated AI component or Neural Processing Unit (NPU) built right into the chipset, which helps in photography and system tasks. It also comes with Google ARCore support, allowing you try out many recently released Augmented Reality apps.
Huawei P20 runs on a heavily customised EMUI 8.1 OS, which is based on Android 8.1 Oreo. Luckily, the company has adopted Project Treble in its OS, thus enabling faster software updates.
Dual Camera
Huawei P20 sports a Leica dual camera setup at the back. It’s a combination of the 12-megapixel RGB sensor with f/1.8 aperture and 20-megapixel Monochrome sensor with f/1.6 aperture. They support four-way autofocus or laser focus, deep focus, phase focus, and contrast focus. The rear cameras have a large image sensor with a pixel size of 1.55 micrometres. This allows more light to get absorbed and as output, you get clearer, highly detailed, superior quality photographs, even in low-light. The phone also uses AI image stabilisation to avoid blurs or handshakes.
The cameras in Huawei P20 will let you shoot super slow motion videos at 960 fps in HD (720p) resolution. Thus with all these features, there is no doubt that this camera scored an impressive 102 rating from DxOMark.
Huawei P20 also comes with a 24.8-megapixel selfie front camera that also AI-powered. It features f/2.0 aperture and supports fixed focal length. The front camera uses chipsets NPU module to enable Light Fusion that enhances your selfies. It also uses AI-driven 3D facial modelling technology that allows you take some stunning perfect looking selfies.
On both front and back camera, the Huawei P20 utilises built-in AI at the chipset level. It can identify in real-time, 19 different categories (like food, close-up, night shot, portraits etc). Then it can automatically apply optimal lighting and other camera adjustments to make your photos stand out.
Connectivity and Extras
For audiophiles, the Huawei P20 incorporates a Dolby Atmos sound system and can deliver Bluetooth audio quality with HWA to support Hi-res audio files. This also marks the end of 3.5mm headphone jack on Huawei’s premium smartphone.
As for connectivity, Huawei P20 comes in both single SIM and dual SIM options with full support for 4G LTE, VoLTE, 3G and 2G networks. Other connectivity options include WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC and USB Type-C port. Finally, fuelling the device is a 3,400mAh battery which supports SuperCharge quick charging technology.
Huawei P20 Pro with Triple Camera
Huawei P20 Pro boasts almost the same design of its younger brother Huawei P20. Its body is made from toughened curved 3D glass panels. However, the highlight is its gorgeous gradient colour finish. You get the gradient colour with Twilight and Pink Gold colour variants. There is also Black and Midnight Blue normal colour variant to choose from. The phone is also rated IP67 for dust and water resistance.
Coming to the front, Huawei P20 Pro boasts a 6.1-inch full HD+ OLED FullView display with a screen resolution of 1080 by 2240 pixels and an aspect ratio of 19:9. There is a top notch cut, just like the Apple iPhone X which packs the front camera and other sensors. The front portion below the screen also houses the fingerprint scanner.
Under the hood, the Huawei P20 Pro is powered by the same octa-core HUAWEI Kirin 970 processor, but paired with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The chipset also houses neural processing unit (NPU) which can do some amazing things while using the phone camera or apps.
Leica Triple Camera
The main highlight of Huawei P20 Pro is its Leica triple camera setup at the rear. Its a combination of the 40-megapixel RGB sensor with f/1.8 aperture, 20-megapixel Monochrome sensor with f/1.6 aperture and 8-megapixel Telephoto lens with f/2.4 aperture. This combination offers unparalleled sharpness, colour accuracy, focus and contrast for every photo you take. It also features four-way autofocus, 3X optical zoom and 5X hybrid zoom. Actually, this camera setup can achieve an ISO 102400 light sensitivity, which is on par with many DSLR cameras. It can shoot super slow motion videos at 960 fps in HD (720p) resolution. It also utilises built-in AI at the chipset level.
For selfie addicts, the Huawei P20 Pro packs the same 24.8-megapixel selfie front camera that’s AI-powered. It features f/2.0 aperture and supports fixed focal length. With all these camera tricks, it has bagged an impressive DxoMark score of 109, beating out all its rivals.
Other hardware and software specification remains exactly the same as that of Huawei P20. However, you get a bigger 4000mAh battery with Huawei P20 Pro that too supporting SuperCharge quick charging.
Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS
There is still, another super premium variant to Huawei P20 Pro dubbed as Porsche Design “Huawei Mate RS”. It boasts in-screen fingerprint, which is in addition to the regular fingerprint scanner at the back. The 6-inch OLED display has been boosted up to 2K resolution and is curved in the sides. It packs the same HUAWEI Kirin 970 processor but carries either 256GB or whooping 512GB of internal storage. Pricing of Huawei Mate RS will go all way up to 2,095 Euros or approximately Rs 168,404.