Phones

Hands-On Huawei P30 Pro Camera – How good is it?

I’m well aware that the P30 Pro form Huawei ain’t gonna be officially available in the States but being one of the most advanced and most beautiful phones in the world we gave it a go. No ifs and buts, it’s just brilliant. Full stop.

Huawei already sold about 16 million P20s which is impressive for a not so cheap phone. So what’s the main weapon for the new one? Its The same as the old one: the camera. On the P30 Pro we have a quad camera module, but it’s surprisingly well integrated on the back, non intrusive, even elegant. And it packs a lot of firepower. A 40mp 27mm f/1.6 main camera, a 20mp f2.2 16 mm wide angle and an 8mp periscopic f3.4 125mm telephoto, giving the phone a serious 5x optical zoom. And if that wasn’t enough they also added a time of flight depth sensing camera for a better and more natural bokeh effect, and also for a new Measure Tool and for ar effects.

Galaxy S10 vs P30 Pro Wide Format
Galaxy S10 vs P30 Pro UltraWide Format

The smaller sibling, the P30 has just 3 cameras- the 40mp main camera but with a slightly weaker f/1.8 exposure, a 16 instead off the 20mp f2.2 wide angle and an 8mp telephoto f/2.4 capable of just 3x optical zoom. Another first is the replacement of the green pixels of the RGB color scheme with some yellow ones, this pattern being called RYYB – I don t know much about this but we will investigate. And last but not least the low light capabilities were ramped up from a mere 102400 on the P20 pro up to 409600 iso! That’s Sony Full frame A7s territory!

P30 Pro Night Photo
Galaxy S10 vs P30 Pro Night Selfie

Were the images good or at least usable? Oh, yes they were! We pushed it at the very limits and it is astonishing how little light is this phone using to be able to see in the dark. And that in the pro mode, in which when you pass the 6400 iso limit you have no control of the other settings or a preview of what you shoot. In the automatic photo mode the camera does a more than decent job in low light conditions, but if you’re still not satisfied with it, you also got a dedicated night mode shooting more photos at different exposure levels and than merging them into one image to rule them all.

Back to the zoom capabilities P30 pro provides a 5x optical zoom, a 10x hybrid zoom, good enough according to our tests and a staggering 50x digital zoom, which probably nobody will use. One interesting gimmick is that the ultra wide angle camera is capable of macro photography from a respectable 2.5 cm distance.

Galaxy S10 vs P30 Pro Optical Zoom

The main camera benefits of optical stabilization, unlike the rest of the module, but it should be enough for most of the shooting scenarios. And the video mode. Finally it got the attention it deserves. It now boasts both an electronic aka artificial intelligence stabilization and the old school reliable optical stabilization. The low light capabilities were also extended in the video mode, same with the 5x optical zoom.

Ok, well stop here with the camera unless you want us to talk about it till next week. The second and equally important aspect is the design… of the thing. We have no less than 5 superb colors: Pearl white, breathing crystal, black, amber sunrise, Aurora and Black. That breathing crystal color is gorgeous and the build quality is on par. On the opposite side we got a 6,1 inch OLED FHD+ screen on P30 and a 6,47inch OLED FHD+ curved display on the Pro.

Both of them sport a 32mp f/2.0 selfie camera. Which is great. It’s not exactly a fancy 2 cameras setup, but the software bokeh looks good enough and it gains in terms of sheer resolution, speed and light. And know the news: it’s hidden in a very discrete and fashionable water drop notch placed in the middle of the upper screen. For some this may be a better option than Samsung Infinity O lateral punch in the screen, at least for the sake of symmetry.

Galaxy S10 vs P30 Pro Selfie

And the goodies regarding the screen area don’t stop here: we got an in-display fingerprint sensor which we tested thoroughly again and again and it worked great every time. What about the battery? A 3650 mAh unit on the P30 and a 4200 battery on the pro, 40w supercharge and 15w wireless charging, the last feature being available only on the pro. Another notable difference is the water and dust-proof standard, IP68 on the pro model vs IP53 on the smaller one. In the engine bay we got the 7nano already known and tested Kirin 980 accompanied by 6gb ram and 128 gig of storage on the P30 and 8GB of ram with 128, 256 and 512 versions on the pro.

I liked it. In a few words it’s robust, it’s beautiful and powerful. It’s a serious challenger for any iPhone or Samsung out there. P10 was a decent phone, P20 was a good one but P30 seems to be in a different league. It’s amazing how fast Huawei is bridging the gap. Oh, there’s is also a new watch we couldn’t care less about. They say its better than the previous one. Was there a previous one?!

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