The Huawei P30 Pro is the successor to the P20 Pro that was released last year and it brings a lot of technology that is packed into a beautiful glass and metal body. This phone is all about design, photography and performance. We’ve been using the device for about 3 weeks already and here is our full Huawei P30 Pro review.
UNBOXING
The phone ships with a fast charger, USB cable, a pair of earphones and a soft TPU case.
CAMERAS and IMAGE QUALITY
Let’s talk about a powerful and unique camera setup first. If you follow my channel, you probably know how much I love the Mate 20 Pro and its triple camera setup but the P30 Pro takes one step further: it has 4 cameras on the back that have plenty of megapixels and technology built in.
The main sensor not only has an impressive amount of megapixels (40 MP, f/1.6, 27mm), OIS and bright aperture lens but it also brings a lot of innovation. Huawei calls it a super spectrum sensor which can absorb up to +40% more light than usual.
[envira-gallery id=”247230″]As a result, low-light image quality is really impressive as the pictures are really bright, there is plenty of detail and noise levels are kept to a minimum. A dedicated night mode has been also improved and the image quality is probably the best you can get out of a smartphone today. Really impressive results. In fact, I took quite a few shots side by side with the Samsung Galaxy S10+ and the P30 Pro pretty much blows the S10+ out of the water in terms of detail, sharpness and noise levels. I want to see it yourself, check out my detailed camera comparison video:
Daylight images also look really good both with the main and 16mm wide-angle lens as the photos look sharp, detailed, dynamic range is on point and colors are pretty accurate. The star of the show, however, is the third sensor that has a periscope lens that provides 5X optical, 10x hybrid and up to 50x digital zoom.
[envira-gallery id=”247282″]I’m really impressed with the zoom performance. I took quite a few pictures side by side with the Samsung Galaxy S10+ and it’s obvious that the P30 Pro is a hands-down winner. The zoom lens also performs really well even in low-light, which I didn’t expect, to be honest.
[envira-gallery id=”247422″]Last but not least, we have the TOF (Huawei time of flight) camera which is used to capture depth information. This camera can identify the objects and understand how far away they are. In practice, this should result in smoother and more DSLR-like bokeh effect and better separation. Portrait pictures indeed look really good as the subject is nicely separated from the background.
[envira-gallery id=”247431″]Selfies taken with a powerful 32MP camera also pretty nice and sharp and selfie portrait pictures will definitely look great on Instagram.
Selfie video quality also looks pretty good.
The 4K video looks really nice and sharp and the video stabilization works really well. I can see quite a huge improvement over the Mate 20.
Other key features include up 409600 ISO performance. Huawei also improved the video performance by bringing Dual view video that will let you record the view of 2 different cameras, e.g. wide angle and the main camera sensor at the same time. However, this feature will be available later with the software updates.
All in all, the Huawei P30 Pro has one of the best and probably the most versatile camera setups on any phone.
DESIGN, DISPLAY, BATTERY LIFE
In the hand, the P30 Pro feels really good. It’s comfortable to hold and it’s fairly light despite the fact it has a massive 4200mAh that has been performing really well, just like the Mate 20 Pro, which has one of the best battery life out there.
That means you should be able to use the P30 Pro for more than one day and you will easily get over 10 hours of screen on time. My record screen-on time is more than 13 hours. There is also a super fast charging feature (charger included in the box) that allows you to fully charge the phone in just about 1 hour. In addition, you get wireless and reverse wireless charging features.
As you may expect, the build quality of the P30 Pro is top notch and the phone looks really nice although we’ve seen this design before – we have a metal frame, curved display, and the glass backplate.
The phone comes in a variety of colors including Breathing Crystal, Amber Sunrise, Pearl White, Black, and Aurora.
My favorite is probably a Breathing Crystal but I also like the Amber Sunrise and Aurora. Tell me in the comment section which color you like the most.
Huawei chose to use the teardrop notch design for the display that I found to be sharp, vibrant, it has deep blacks a good contrast.
The phone also uses electromagnetic levitation technology which means that Huawei removed the in-call speaker. Instead, they use a magnetic suspension system where the sound is manufactured through the vibrations of the screen. The call quality has been really good and honestly, it’s hard to tell the difference between a conventional earpiece and this one.
Other key features include IP68 rating for water and dust resistance, improved under the display fingerprint scanner that has been working pretty well, face unlocking feature, IR blaster, but no headphone jack. Last but not least the P30 Pro has just one speaker that is implemented on the bottom. On the other hand, the sound quality has been really good. In fact, the sound is so good that it can rival dual-speaker systems found on other phones.
HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE
[envira-gallery id=”247467″]As you may expect from the Huawei, you get a powerful chipset, plenty of RAM and storage. The phone ships with the HiSilicon Kirin 980 CPU,128/256/512 GB of internal storage (expandable via the nano-memory card slot) and 6/8GB of RAM.
As you may expect, the overall performance has been excellent. The phone feels fast and responsive. I could play all the latest 3D games on this phone without any issues. No stutter, no lag, great overall performance.
USER INTERFACE
[envira-gallery id=”247447″]We have the EMUI 9.1 that is built on top of Android 9.1 and this user interface has plenty of features, customization options and it works in tandem with AI and dual NPUs to assure the best performance.
The user interface is very different from the stock Android but if you follow my channel, you know that the EMUI has grown on me as I’ve been using a lot of Huawei phones over the years.
I can’t say I need all the features but it’s always great to have plenty of options to choose from. Most importantly, the P30 Pro is ridiculously fast and fluid even after installing plenty of apps. Flagship-grade performance.
CONNECTIVITY
The Huawei P30 Pro is excellent in the connectivity department. The phone offers excellent signal reception, great call quality, super fast Wifi, and dual-frequency GPS that I found to be very accurate for both driving and walking. Also, there is NFC and plenty of sensors on board.
CONCLUSIONS
The Huawei P30 Pro is quite an impressive device. I like its design, build, battery life, overall performance and last but not least, powerful, innovative and versatile camera system that lets you take great pictures both in good and poor light using a regular, wide, angle and zoom lens. It’s just incredible that you can actually zoom in so much on a phone and I simply want to take telephoto pictures of everything now.
I do miss some features, however, like 4K at 60fps video recording. Also, you will need to live without a headphone jack.
Despite that, the P30 Pro is a very solid phone. In fact, this is one of the most complete and feature-packed smartphones you can buy at the moment. It may not be cheap but you are definitely getting a premium package that is one of the best in the business. Therefore, we can easily recommend the Huawei P30 Pro as one of the best smartphones of 2019 yet.
