Huawei P30 Pro Full Review - A Comprehensive Test Review of Huawei P30 Pro
In just a few years, the Shenzhen-based electronics manufacturer Huawei in Sweden has gone from being a well-known figure, but what the market share in the telephone market is to a relatively small player to becoming one of the largest manufacturers in the Swedish market.
Nor is it only in Sweden that we see Huawei's successes, but Huawei has made great strides forward globally, too, with the North American market as a notable exception, and is now dependent on which study is trusted by either the second largest manufacturer after Samsung or the third largest after Samsung and Apple.
For some years now, Huawei has had a clear focus on the camera, which started with a modest collaboration with Leica optics manufacturer in Huawei P9 three years ago and which has been developed and expanded year by year. Last year, the P20 Pro model was voted the best phone camera on the market by many technology and camera sites, and Huawei had reached the top within just two years - at least in terms of the camera.
Now that we put our teeth into the successor of the Huawei P30 Pro, we are promised an even better camera, a better screen, a faster system chip, a better battery life and everything else that is normal development. Does the P30 Pro measure up to the very best competitors, such as Samsung's brilliant little - and in our opinion the best phone that money can buy - Galaxy S10 Plus? We intend to find out in this review.
When the lid is lifted off, we, as in almost all cardboard boxes, now meet by the phone itself in its own compartment at the very top, in P30 Pro's case turn the screen up. The phone is wrapped in plastic, but we do not find any permanent screen protector pre-installed, unlike the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus.
Below the screen we find a smaller carton containing a transparent soft plastic shell, a pin for ejecting SIM card slides as well as documentation in the form of a quick start guide and safety information about, for example, SAR values.
We cannot say that we are completely satisfied that the screen resolution is so low on a phone with a price tag of just under SEK 9,000, but with that said it is definitely not a dealbreaker. At least not for us. We can, without effort, see a certain pixelity, but when the phone is used in a normal way, at the same time it is not something that bothers us.
Those with sharper eyesight than us, on the other hand, may see this as a bigger problem, and then especially when reading text on the screen, which along with a phone with a 1440p screen appears a little blurry.
Unfortunately, we see in the Huawei P30 Pro that the choice has fallen on an optical fingerprint reader, which has significantly lower security than ultrasonic scanners. Huawei's honor should be said to have made its fingerprint reader furious - clearly faster than Samsung's ultrasonic reader - but we almost immediately encounter the typical problems with optical readers, such as failed readings and sensitivity to how hard / loose you push.
In addition, if you work a lot with your hands and have hardening of the skin on your fingertips, and maybe rough / damaged skin, it can be virtually impossible to unlock the phone with an optical fingerprint reader, unlike an ultrasound-based one and especially a traditional capacitive one. , which can both read off a fingerprint in depth, past the very outermost (and possibly damaged) skin layer.
The reception has met our expectations and matches competitors such as Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus, Galaxy Note 9, Sony XZ3 and Google Pixel 3 XL step by step. In places with strong signal strength where other phones perform well, the P30 Pro also performs well, and in places where we know from experience that the signal strength is weak, the P30 Pro presents similar problems as its competitors.
A small plus at the edge of the P30 Pro that seems to be slightly faster than the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus and Note 9, for example, to re-establish the mobile connection after it has been lost for a while. Here it is as good as the excellent Google Pixel 3 XL.
Anyone who has used a Huawei or Honor phone before will immediately recognize interfaces and large portions of the layout, but for those who have not had a Huawei or Honor before, it can be a bit frustrating and perceived as messy at first, especially in the phone's settings, where Huawei has been stowed.
Most people should learn how Huawei has thought and felt at home on the phone and in its settings already after a few days, a week at its most, but anyone who knows that it has a hard time making major changes and has difficulty take on changes in interfaces it may be a little bigger uphill.
Regardless, we find a main camera with a sensor of 40 megapixels, a wide-angle camera of 20 megapixels and a zoom camera, called Huawei's "periscope camera", of 8 megapixels and finally the depth measuring sensor.
The main camera has an aperture of f / 1.6 and has been supported by optical image stabilization, electronic image stabilization and phase detecting autofocus. In the default setting, the 40 megapixels are used to take four separate 10 megapixel images at the same time and then merge them to make the end result as good as possible.
In the fully zoomed out position, we see in the first image that the P30 pro's habitually takes pictures with a fairly neutral color rendering, while the S10 plus turns up the saturation a lot. P30 Pro's image is slightly overexposed and we find that the image lacks some dynamics between shadows and light parts. The picture feels flat, unlike the S10 Plus picture which has exemplary dynamics and good punch between light and shadows. The samsung as a whole takes a better picture in zoomed out mode, but this is a zoom test, which is why the two following image pairs are crucial.
In 5x zoom, maximum optical zoom for the P30 Pro and 2.5 times over the Galaxy S10 Plus maximum optical zoom, we immediately see a huge difference when we consider the images in full size. The text on the small sign is razor-sharp and fully readable, while the same text in the picture taken with the S10 Plus is turned on illegible. At the same time, we see a huge difference in how the two cameras handle light and HDR, where the P30 Pro renders a very strong darkness in the bushes in the background while the S10 Plus instead turns up both brightness and color rendering considerably. No camera is particularly successful with the light dynamics, but the Huawei P30 Pro renders more realistic colors despite the dark. The round, of course, with ease to the P30 Pro, thanks to the superior optical zoom.
However, this does not mean that the battery cannot be drained in one day. With heavy use with a lot of screen time at full brightness, we have, like all other competitors, been forced to a fast charge of 10-20 minutes to manage all day long. In just 20 minutes of charging with the included fast charger on slightly crazy 40W, we see in a quick test that the battery level goes from 10 to 50%.
Loading from plot to 75% takes 42 minutes, but the remaining 25 percentage points take another 33 minutes. As with all other phones, the charging speed is lowered when the battery is around 75% of its maximum capacity, then gradually lowered up to 95% and then in principle only maintenance charged from 95% up to 100%. Total charge time from completely empty to fully full lands at its best in 75 minutes, or 1 hour and 15 minutes, which, given the size of the battery, is extremely impressive.
The build quality is very high and it is noticeable that Huawei has put a lot of energy into giving the phone an attractive appearance, both for the eyes and our hands. The phone is good in the hand and has a solid weight but without feeling clumsy, and unlike Samsung's annoying placement of the power button, Huawei has made sure that all buttons can be easily accessed without grip adjustment, finger acrobatics or giant hands. Bonus points are awarded for water resistance according to the IP68 classification as well as wireless charging.
The software is generally good. We know that many people dislike the EUMI interface, nor can we claim to be admirers, but it still works well and unlike the previous years, the interface is now both fast and compliant. On the other hand, we find the interface as messy, not least in the phone's settings, and out of date in the graphic profile. Even ordinary Android users may need a slightly longer run-in period before they feel completely at home on the P30 Pro - unless they have used a newer Huawei or Honor phone before.
Note: Due to the US blacklisting of Huawei as a trading partner and all the consequences this entails, in P30 Pro's case perhaps mainly in the form of missing future security updates for Android, we find right now that P30 Pro and Huawei have a somewhat unclear future on the world market. As a phone, the P30 Pro undoubtedly gets our hottest recommendations - if there is no doubt. In short, it is an incredibly competent phone with the world's best phone camera right now.
However, due to the uncertainty surrounding security updates in particular, we cannot recommend the phone, however much we would like. We certainly hope and believe in a quick solution to the problem, just like for ZTE last year, but at present - as the situation is right now - we cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that the P30 Pro will probably not get more system updates after August this year, which means that Android Q fails.
For those of you who are willing to take a chance, we can do nothing but congratulate you on purchasing a very good phone with an even better camera and hope that Huawei and the US manage to resolve their disagreements sooner rather than later.
Nor is it only in Sweden that we see Huawei's successes, but Huawei has made great strides forward globally, too, with the North American market as a notable exception, and is now dependent on which study is trusted by either the second largest manufacturer after Samsung or the third largest after Samsung and Apple.
Now that we put our teeth into the successor of the Huawei P30 Pro, we are promised an even better camera, a better screen, a faster system chip, a better battery life and everything else that is normal development. Does the P30 Pro measure up to the very best competitors, such as Samsung's brilliant little - and in our opinion the best phone that money can buy - Galaxy S10 Plus? We intend to find out in this review.
Huawei P30 Pro Full Review - A Comprehensive Test Review of Huawei P30 Pro
Cardboard and Hardware
Huawei delivers the P30 Pro in a fairly ordinary white box with ecolabelling. In addition to a smaller Huawei logo on the top of the top of the cardboard box, the text Huawei P30 Pro in the middle of the top of the lid and two long sides, and the text Quad Camera in a kind of chrome print, and a red Leica logo, the carton is completely white and lacks all forms of textures or pattern. Discreet, yet elegant.When the lid is lifted off, we, as in almost all cardboard boxes, now meet by the phone itself in its own compartment at the very top, in P30 Pro's case turn the screen up. The phone is wrapped in plastic, but we do not find any permanent screen protector pre-installed, unlike the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus.
Below the screen we find a smaller carton containing a transparent soft plastic shell, a pin for ejecting SIM card slides as well as documentation in the form of a quick start guide and safety information about, for example, SAR values.
Screen
The 6.47-inch display is AMOLED-type and is said to be manufactured by competitor Samsung. The resolution is a modest 1,080 x 2,340 pixels, which in combination with the screen size gives a pixel density of 398 PPI. This is the lowest for a flagship phone in 2019, and significantly lower than competitors such as Samsung, Sony and Google. OnePlus also uses the 1080p resolution screens, with the exception of the around-the-clock 7 Pro, but we cannot ignore that the price tag of a OnePlus 6T and 7 is significantly lower.We cannot say that we are completely satisfied that the screen resolution is so low on a phone with a price tag of just under SEK 9,000, but with that said it is definitely not a dealbreaker. At least not for us. We can, without effort, see a certain pixelity, but when the phone is used in a normal way, at the same time it is not something that bothers us.
Those with sharper eyesight than us, on the other hand, may see this as a bigger problem, and then especially when reading text on the screen, which along with a phone with a 1440p screen appears a little blurry.
Sensor
As the trend recommends, the P30 Pro has a fingerprint reader embedded in the monitor. This is probably something we will see in principle all flagship phones and in many mid-range phones during 2019 and 2020, and it is a natural development for manufacturers who want to shrink the number of chassis holes and openings, in the same way that many have chosen to ship the 3.5-millimeter jack and even an opening for the call speaker.Unfortunately, we see in the Huawei P30 Pro that the choice has fallen on an optical fingerprint reader, which has significantly lower security than ultrasonic scanners. Huawei's honor should be said to have made its fingerprint reader furious - clearly faster than Samsung's ultrasonic reader - but we almost immediately encounter the typical problems with optical readers, such as failed readings and sensitivity to how hard / loose you push.
In addition, if you work a lot with your hands and have hardening of the skin on your fingertips, and maybe rough / damaged skin, it can be virtually impossible to unlock the phone with an optical fingerprint reader, unlike an ultrasound-based one and especially a traditional capacitive one. , which can both read off a fingerprint in depth, past the very outermost (and possibly damaged) skin layer.
Wireless and audio
Like almost all modern headphones, the Huawei P30 Pro performs well in terms of reception / signal strength and data rates. We have had no problems getting the maximum out of our 4G / LTE network, which currently corresponds to about 120 Mbit / s down and 30 Mbit / s up.The reception has met our expectations and matches competitors such as Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus, Galaxy Note 9, Sony XZ3 and Google Pixel 3 XL step by step. In places with strong signal strength where other phones perform well, the P30 Pro also performs well, and in places where we know from experience that the signal strength is weak, the P30 Pro presents similar problems as its competitors.
A small plus at the edge of the P30 Pro that seems to be slightly faster than the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus and Note 9, for example, to re-establish the mobile connection after it has been lost for a while. Here it is as good as the excellent Google Pixel 3 XL.
Software and usage
The software builds as it should on the latest available sharp version of Android, 9.0 Pie, and of course Huawei has on top of Android added its own interface EMUI, formerly called Emotion UI. EMUI has reached version 9.1 in the P30 Pro, and we will find, at the time of writing, the April security update. In short, at least at present, the Huawei P30 Pro is fairly well updated. Whether or not they intend to keep the phone up to date can only answer Huawei - especially after recent events when Huawei has lost its collaboration with Google, and thus also access to Android updates.Anyone who has used a Huawei or Honor phone before will immediately recognize interfaces and large portions of the layout, but for those who have not had a Huawei or Honor before, it can be a bit frustrating and perceived as messy at first, especially in the phone's settings, where Huawei has been stowed.
Most people should learn how Huawei has thought and felt at home on the phone and in its settings already after a few days, a week at its most, but anyone who knows that it has a hard time making major changes and has difficulty take on changes in interfaces it may be a little bigger uphill.
Camera
Huawei markets the P30 Pro as a "quad camera", that is, four cameras. Whether they mean the three cameras on the back plus the front-facing camera, or if they mean that the phone has four cameras on the back, we leave it unsaid. The former is correct, while the latter is to tame some of the truth, since the fourth "camera" on the back of the phone is not a camera at all, but a deep-reading infrared transmitter and not a camera in the traditional sense.Regardless, we find a main camera with a sensor of 40 megapixels, a wide-angle camera of 20 megapixels and a zoom camera, called Huawei's "periscope camera", of 8 megapixels and finally the depth measuring sensor.
The main camera has an aperture of f / 1.6 and has been supported by optical image stabilization, electronic image stabilization and phase detecting autofocus. In the default setting, the 40 megapixels are used to take four separate 10 megapixel images at the same time and then merge them to make the end result as good as possible.
Camera Zoom
As most people already know, Huawei has equipped the P30 Pro with a 5x zoom telephoto lens, called Huawei's "periscope camera", because of its periscope-like design under the shell. With 5x optical zoom it is already a fairly given output before this image comparison, as the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus on its side "only" has 2x optical zoom. Nevertheless, it is an interesting comparison to see how much difference these two cameras are between, and to see if the zoom promised by Huawei holds what it promises.In the fully zoomed out position, we see in the first image that the P30 pro's habitually takes pictures with a fairly neutral color rendering, while the S10 plus turns up the saturation a lot. P30 Pro's image is slightly overexposed and we find that the image lacks some dynamics between shadows and light parts. The picture feels flat, unlike the S10 Plus picture which has exemplary dynamics and good punch between light and shadows. The samsung as a whole takes a better picture in zoomed out mode, but this is a zoom test, which is why the two following image pairs are crucial.
In 5x zoom, maximum optical zoom for the P30 Pro and 2.5 times over the Galaxy S10 Plus maximum optical zoom, we immediately see a huge difference when we consider the images in full size. The text on the small sign is razor-sharp and fully readable, while the same text in the picture taken with the S10 Plus is turned on illegible. At the same time, we see a huge difference in how the two cameras handle light and HDR, where the P30 Pro renders a very strong darkness in the bushes in the background while the S10 Plus instead turns up both brightness and color rendering considerably. No camera is particularly successful with the light dynamics, but the Huawei P30 Pro renders more realistic colors despite the dark. The round, of course, with ease to the P30 Pro, thanks to the superior optical zoom.
Battery life and performance
The battery life during our weeks with the P30 Pro has been very good, turned on fantastic. With a battery of 4,200 mAh and a low-resolution monitor in relation to many competitors, as well as a system chip manufactured in a 7 nm process, we find that we have more than enough battery to survive all day with a good margin in our normal user pattern . We rarely see 30 and even 40% battery left at the end of the day in medium use.However, this does not mean that the battery cannot be drained in one day. With heavy use with a lot of screen time at full brightness, we have, like all other competitors, been forced to a fast charge of 10-20 minutes to manage all day long. In just 20 minutes of charging with the included fast charger on slightly crazy 40W, we see in a quick test that the battery level goes from 10 to 50%.
Loading from plot to 75% takes 42 minutes, but the remaining 25 percentage points take another 33 minutes. As with all other phones, the charging speed is lowered when the battery is around 75% of its maximum capacity, then gradually lowered up to 95% and then in principle only maintenance charged from 95% up to 100%. Total charge time from completely empty to fully full lands at its best in 75 minutes, or 1 hour and 15 minutes, which, given the size of the battery, is extremely impressive.
Huawei P30 Pro - Summing up
It's hard not to be impressed by Huawei's latest flagship model, the P30 Pro. Not least, the camera, as expected, is the phone's main trump card, and we believe that, with the exception of the camcorder which is unfortunately the highest mediocre, it is the best across the board the camera that can be bought in a phone at present.The build quality is very high and it is noticeable that Huawei has put a lot of energy into giving the phone an attractive appearance, both for the eyes and our hands. The phone is good in the hand and has a solid weight but without feeling clumsy, and unlike Samsung's annoying placement of the power button, Huawei has made sure that all buttons can be easily accessed without grip adjustment, finger acrobatics or giant hands. Bonus points are awarded for water resistance according to the IP68 classification as well as wireless charging.
The software is generally good. We know that many people dislike the EUMI interface, nor can we claim to be admirers, but it still works well and unlike the previous years, the interface is now both fast and compliant. On the other hand, we find the interface as messy, not least in the phone's settings, and out of date in the graphic profile. Even ordinary Android users may need a slightly longer run-in period before they feel completely at home on the P30 Pro - unless they have used a newer Huawei or Honor phone before.
Note: Due to the US blacklisting of Huawei as a trading partner and all the consequences this entails, in P30 Pro's case perhaps mainly in the form of missing future security updates for Android, we find right now that P30 Pro and Huawei have a somewhat unclear future on the world market. As a phone, the P30 Pro undoubtedly gets our hottest recommendations - if there is no doubt. In short, it is an incredibly competent phone with the world's best phone camera right now.
However, due to the uncertainty surrounding security updates in particular, we cannot recommend the phone, however much we would like. We certainly hope and believe in a quick solution to the problem, just like for ZTE last year, but at present - as the situation is right now - we cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that the P30 Pro will probably not get more system updates after August this year, which means that Android Q fails.
For those of you who are willing to take a chance, we can do nothing but congratulate you on purchasing a very good phone with an even better camera and hope that Huawei and the US manage to resolve their disagreements sooner rather than later.
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