It seems that no one is talking about the Huawei P30 – a slimmed down version of the P30 Pro. The phone is significantly cheaper, more compact and it even has some advantages over its bigger brother. For example, it has a headphone jack and the phone is more compact. Learn more in the full Huawei P30 review. 

VIDEO REVIEW

UNBOXING

The phone ships with all the usual stuff and some extras include a soft TPU case and a pair of earphones. However, the set of accessories may vary, depending on where you buy the phone from.

DESIGN and DISPLAY

Design-wise, the P30 does look similar to the P30 Pro but there are a few key differences.

First, it’s more compact and comfortable to hold in the hand.

The build quality is equally great as we have a sturdy metal frame, very nice buttons, and glass on the front and rear.

That compact size has to do with a smaller OLED display that I found to be really nice and sharp overall. Also, the panel is flat, so if you are a hater of curved screens, you will appreciate that.

Flip the phone to the back and you will find a triple camera setup instead of 4 cameras found on the Pro model. However, this is a pretty powerful imaging system and it consists of 40 MP (f/1.8, 27mm) wide lens, 16 MP (f/2.2, 17mm) ultrawide sensor and 8 MP )f/2.4, 80mm) telephoto snapper. 

On the front, we have the same beefy 32MP selfie shooter. Unfortunately, the phone does not have an LED notification light.

One really important downgrade – the P30 is just IP53 certified whereas the Pro model has IP68 certification. That means that the P30 can survive only accidental water splashes and the P30 Pro can be submerged under water.

Other key features include the in-display fingerprint scanner that so far has been working really well. Also, facial recognition is fast and accurate. The phone also has a headphone jack, expandable Huawei’s nano-memory slot, dual-SIM support and a bottom firing loudspeaker that is really good. In fact, the quality of sound is so good that it can rival dual stereo speaker systems on other phones. Here is a quick audio sample.  

HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE

When it comes to hardware, the P30 uses the same Kirin 980 chipset as the P30 Pro model. You also get plenty of RAM and storage (64/128/256 GB, 8 GB RAM or 128 GB, 6 GB RAM).

As you may expect, gaming performance is excellent as the device can handle all 3D games you throw at it.

USER INTERFACE

The EMUI is Huawei’s skin that offers plenty of features and customization options and it is built on top of the latest Android 9. Whether you like the EMUI or not, it’s up to you.

I personally love its feature set but my favorite thing about the UI – it’s speed and fluidity. I’ve used plenty of Huawei phones over the years and the P30 continues the tradition of being one of the fastest devices out there. Great overall performance.

IMAGE QUALITY

The overall image quality is really good and it’s comparable to most of the flagships out there. Pictures are sharp, detailed and dynamic range is usually on point. If we compare the quality to the P30 Pro, you will see that the image processing is a bit different but in general, both camera systems take comparable pictures whether you use the main or wide angle lens.

The P30 has 3x optical and 5x hybrid zoom that lets you take high-quality telephoto pictures. However, the P30 Pro is simply better in this department as it offers more zoom range and better quality. See the video review for comparison. 

Low light image quality is really good. What’s even more impressive is that the P30 goes toe to toe with the P30 Pro. You can take really nice pictures using the main, wide angle and even telephoto lens in low light. The dedicated night mode takes one of the best low-light pictures out there.

Selfies look really nice and sharp too both in auto and portrait modes.

Portrait pictures taken with the main camera look pretty good too.

The 4K video looks pretty good overall as there is a good amount of detail and sharpness. Also, the footage is quite stable even though there is no OIS. However, once you start switching between different cameras, they may struggle with autofocus.

1080p selfie video looks quite good but sound recording quality does not impress.

CONNECTIVITY

The P30 uses a traditional earpiece and the call quality is really good. I also found signal reception to be great, GPS is accurate and Wifi is fast. There are also plenty of sensors onboard.

BATTERY LIFE

The phone ships with 3650 mAh power bank. The battery life has been excellent. On average, you should expect to get from 8 to over 10 hours of screen-on, depending on how you use the device.

You can fully charge the phone in just over 1 hour. Unfortunately, there is no wireless charging feature that is found on the Pro model.

CONCLUSIONS

The Huawei P30 is a solid all-around flagship that costs significantly less than the competition and its bigger brother – the P30 Pro.

I love a compact design, great build, nice and sharp display, great overall performance, battery life and obviously, a compelling camera setup that can compete with the P30 Pro.

I do miss wireless charging and I think this phone should have IP68 certification. Huawei also removed an IR blaster and there was no space for the LED notification light.

Other than that, the Huawei P30 is a solid flagship smartphone that has plenty of premium features and it costs less than the P30 Pro. Therefore, we can easily recommend it.

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