Huawei’s P series is known for its focus on camera and today 2 new siblings are added to the family. Huawei has worked with the super efficient camera maker Leica for the P9 and P10 devices in the past to have an edge over the competition. Today the company has launched its flagship Android smartphones for 2018 in the P series, P20 and P20 Pro. The camera phones are the first from Huawei with a notch style display and are aimed at photography enthusiasts. Both the Huawei P20 and P20 Pro have an iPhone X kinda notch style display. Both the P20 and P20 Pro will be available in four colour options – Twilight, Pink Gold, Midnight Blue and Graphite Black. The Huawei P20 is priced at €649, while the Huawei P20 Pro costs €900.
Huawei’s P20 notch contains the speaker, sensors and front camera. P20 has a 5.8-inch FullView display which Huawei claims is 23% brighter than the iPhone X display. While the P20 Pro has a 6.1-inch OLED display. The P20 and P20 Pro features have a front fingerprint scanner with swipe based navigation function.
The Huawei P20 has a rear dual camera (20MP + 12MP) with a dual tone LED flash. The smartphone camera has f1.6 and f1.8 aperture for excellent low light images and improved details. It has 4-way autofocus (phase detection autofocus, laser autofocus, contrast and depth detection) for instant focusing on a subject.
The P20 Pro has a 40MP triple camera made with Leica lenses. One lens is monochrome and other two are RGB. It has a 40MP RGB lens, 20MP monochrome lens and an 8MP lens with 3x optical zoom and the same 4-way autofocus as the P20. The P20 Pro boasts of a 120% larger sensor than the S9+ and 170% larger sensor than the iPhone X. It can go up to ISO 102400 for low light photography, this is the same level of ISO as a professional DSLR. Huawei has also added 960fps super slowmotion video recording on the P20 Pro. On the front, the P20 and P20 Pro boast of a 24MP selfie camera with 3D facial enhancement feature for superior selfies. The phones also have 3D portrait lighting for the front camera – another feature inspired from the Apple iPhone X.
DxO mark (a camera rating system) has given the Huawei P20 an overall score of 102 while the P20 Pro gets an overall rating of 109 – these are highest ratings for any smartphone camera. In comparison the iPhone X has a score of 97 an Samsung Galaxy S9+ has a score of 99. Huawei has also improved AI technologies on both the P20 and P20 Pro. The phone’s camera can now recognize 500+ scenarios in 19 categories and tune the camera settings for best result. They also have AI assisted composition to help new users get professional looking photos. Huawei has also developed AI based image stabilization. This enables machine learning based multi frame stabilization to eliminate blur caused due to handshakes in long exposure photos.
Specifications wise, the Huawei P20 has 4GB RAM, 64GB storage and a 3,400mAh battery. The Huawei P20 Pro has 6GB RAM, 128GB storage and a 4,000mAh battery. Both phones are powered by the company’s own HiSilicon Kirin 970 processor. They also come with support for Super Charge which can charge the phone from 0 to 58% in just 30 minutes. The devices run EMUI 8.1 based on Android 8.1
Both the Huawei P20 and P20 Pro will be available in four colour options – Twilight, Pink Gold, Midnight Blue and Graphite Black. The Huawei P20 is priced at €649, while the P20 Pro costs €900.
