Huawei’s recent flagships have focused a lot of their energy on one key attribute – the camera. It helps that the brand has forged a successful partnership with Leica. The P30 Pro is the latest chapter in Huawei’s pursuit of the ultimate smartphone camera. It addresses two key traditional weak links for mobile cams – lossless zoom and lowlight photography.
Let’s dive straight into the P30 Pro’s biggest talking point – it’s quad camera. The formidable package brings together four lenses that include a 40MP primary lens and an 8MP periscope lens that offers near lossless 10X Zoom. There’s also a 20MP ultra-wide angle lens that allows you to cram more details – particularly handy when you’re shooting wide landscapes. The ultra-wide lens is soon becoming a standard feature for pricey flagships.
We put this camera through extensive tests over two weeks. The results are quite spectacular (for a smartphone camera) especially when you switch to zoom mode, an area where the P30 Pro has a significant edge. The camera shines in low light too. You can opt to stick to the regular photo mode where it cranks up the ISO or Night mode. It takes about five seconds to capture images on night mode where it stitches together multiple images in a lower exposure. The combination of good results in lowlight along with the ability to capture objects at a distance in the dark is quite unique for a smartphone.
The camera also shoots great videos across multiple modes. Huawei opts for a 32MP selfie camera at a time when Samsung has packed the S10+ with a dual selfie cam. Selfie addicts might dig the aggressive beautification options available. The Selfie cam is squeezed into the tiny dew drop notch. Huawei opts for a curved display – great viewing angles. Colours are vivid on the 6.47-inch display (1080 x 1920 pixels / 398 PPI / 19.5:9 Aspect Ratio) but in terms of sheer numbers and pixel counts, it’s certainly not at the top of the heap. We haven’t been big fans of Huawei’s Custom UI – EMUI. The latest version – 9.1, makes some welcome cosmetic changes - the App icons are slightly larger, but it’s still not our favourite spin on Android.
The P30 Pro doesn’t skimp on its hardware spec sheet. At its heart is Huawei’s robust Kirin HiSilicon 980 processor that teams up with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of Internal Memory. It’s enough firepower even for heavy duty users and aced all our tests. We were impressed with the Mate 20 Pro - the P30 Pro’s predecessor, in the battery life department. The P30 Pro features a 4200mAh battery that won’t let you down. Huawei sweetens the deal with its fast charging option - 0 to 70% in thirty minutes flat. And then there’s reverse charging, which transforms your P30 Pro into a wireless charger that can charge compatible devices.
The P30 Pro lives up to its promise as a stellar camera phone. It’s growing evidence of how mobile shooters are closing the wide gap with professional cameras.
The Huawei P30 costs Rs 71,990/- and is available in two colour options - Breathing Crystal and Aurora.