Huawei P20 and P20 Pro Preview – More cameras with larger sensor

A big iPhone X – but different

The P20 Pro isn’t the most refined phone. Not that it is not well finished, but it is a bit larger and also thicker than the P10 Plus, which was released last year. It also has a large battery and the three cameras take up quite a bit of space, so we don’t think it’s a downside at first. It is about the same thickness as an iPhone X, but a bit wider and especially longer. The P20 is slightly smaller, lighter and thinner than the Pro, but it’s not a huge difference.

The finish is fine. The buttons feel good, the devices are reasonably sturdy and the glass back is, as with the HTC U11, nicely rounded on all sides towards the metal sides. This ensures that it fits comfortably in the hand. The back is very sensitive to fingerprints, just like most phones with glass backs. The blue variant that we received may be there. The color has a metallic-like effect, with the phone appearing dark blue in low light and lighter blue in more light, without going all the way to baby blue. We would have preferred that the metal edge had not been gray but also blue, so that it had formed more of a whole with the back.

The top two cameras protrude slightly more from the device than with the iPhone X, with the bottom monochrome camera forming a smaller camera bump. The design is very symmetrical. You can see that, among other things, at the speaker holes at the bottom. This is not the only speaker used for media playback, by the way. There is also another speaker in the notch above the screen, which enables stereo playback. We’ve heard the speaker in a quiet environment and it didn’t disappoint us.

We’ve saved the most striking design feature of the P20 and P20 Pro for last and that is the notch, or notch, above the screen. This is a lot smaller than the iPhone X, because it only contains a front camera, LED light and speaker. Just like the iPhone, the notch ensures that the screen on the sides extends almost all the way to the top of the device. There is a much larger bezel at the bottom than with the iPhone X, but fortunately it has a function with both the P20 and the P20 Pro, because it contains a fingerprint scanner. Nowadays we see very little of that on smartphones with extended screens, so Huawei smartly distinguishes itself with this. A large part of the front still consists of a screen, without the scanner being in an inconvenient place, as was the case with the Galaxy S8, for example.

The P10 and P10 Plus did not have an IP rating for water resistance, which is something that is standard for high-end devices these days. Although the cheaper P20 variant still lacks this, the P20 Pro now fortunately has an ip67 rating. That is also allowed for the price range in which the P20 Pro is located.

Triple camera

The rear camera setup on the P20 Pro is an intriguing one. It has three cameras, which is special in itself, but the primary camera is also distinctive in its own right. This has a sensor of no less than forty megapixels, where many high-end smartphone cameras have a twelve-megapixel sensor, just like the cheaper P20, by the way. However, the camera of the Pro variant takes photos that are ultimately ten megapixels. That’s because four pixels are combined into one and the image from the 20-megapixel black and white sensor is combined to reduce noise and generate more detail.

With a common sensor size for smartphones of, for example, 1/2.3″, the pixels would be very small with a 40-megapixel sensor, which is not conducive to the photo quality. That is why more megapixels are usually not always desired with smartphone cameras However, the pixels of the P20 Pro are still of a reasonable size at about 1 micron, which means that Huawei has managed to cram a considerable sensor into the device of 1/1.78″. As photography aficionados will know, the size of a sensor pretty much determines photo quality, so that’s essentially an interesting idea. We’ve already taken some photos with the P20 Pro and the quality has not disappointed us so far, but of course we can’t say much about it until we get more photos

The second camera has a different focal length of 83mm in 35mm equivalent and is zoomed in about three times compared to the primary camera. This allows you to zoom in a lot more than with other devices, such as the iPhone X. In addition, as mentioned, there is a camera without a Bayer filter, which therefore shoots monochrome images. If you have the P9 and P10reviews, you know that we are not convinced of the added value of the black and white camera as Huawei uses it, but we will of course test that again for the P20 and P20 Pro review. However, three times ‘optical’ zoom is absolutely practical in our opinion and we are therefore glad that this is over. However, it only works in good lighting conditions. In lower light conditions, it switches to digital zoom with the primary camera. Unfortunately, the cheaper P20 again only has a black and white sensor and therefore no zoom without digitally zooming in on pixels. We would have preferred to see three times optical zoom instead of this monochrome camera as a secondary camera with this device.

At first glance, the P20 Pro camera performs well in the dark, with the larger primary camera sensor presumably playing an important role. If the lighting conditions become really miserable, you can still switch to the new night mode. The device counts down six seconds and during those six seconds the shutter remains open or the device takes several photos with different settings and combines them into one photo. We have not yet been able to find out exactly how this works, but we have already been able to make a comparison with the normal mode and in really dark conditions it does indeed help to activate the night mode.

Below you can see a few photos of a night scene, taken with the regular photo mode of the P20 Pro and the Galaxy S9, which is known for its good low-light photos. We also tried the night mode of the P20 Pro with this shot, but the night mode only offers solace in conditions where there is even less light, as it turned out. While the P20 Pro photo looks good, the S9’s photo is still the winner when you zoom in and look at the level of detail. Please note, this is just one example and we certainly do not want to draw firm conclusions based on this. It only offers a first impression, but of course we don’t want to keep that from you.

The P20 Pro also has a slow-motion mode that shoots at 960fps. We have also been able to try this mode for a while and the results were fine at first sight in good lighting conditions.

The camera app of the P20 series is pretty smart, by the way. When he sees different people, he goes into group photo mode and when you’re photographing food, he sees that almost immediately. There are nineteen situations that the camera can recognize, including sunset, beach, cats, dogs, blue sky, close-up and text. The camera app adjusts the settings to the situation. The cameras on the P20 and P20 Pro use a combination of optical and electronic stabilization, as well as laser autofocus that can focus on objects up to 8 feet away, which is twice as much as its predecessors, according to Huawei.

The front camera of the P20 and P20 Pro is also worth mentioning. This is no less than 24 megapixels and at first glance also makes excellent selfies, although, as desired in Asia, it seems to make your skin color a bit whiter than it actually is.

All in all, the P20 Pro has a very complete package when it comes to the camera. Add to that the fact that the camera is quite smooth and you have a phone that invites you to take pictures. The P20 offers a less distinctive proposition, but we can’t call the photos we shot with this camera bad. In any case, the primary camera has relatively large pixels of 1.55 microns. Soon we will be on the road with the devices to pass our judgment on the photo quality of both smartphones.