The Huawei P20 Pro is Huawei's most ambitious phone yet. The company has been steadily climbing the ranks of Android device makers, to the point where it is now the world's third-largest smartphone vendor. In China, the company is in first place, while in Europe, it is a rising star. Despite experiencing trouble competing in the US smartphone market, Huawei remains in a very comfortable position in other international markets.
The Huawei P10 series was an incremental upgrade for Huawei back in 2017, but the substantial change came with the Huawei Mate 10 and the Huawei Mate 10 Pro. With the introduction of 18:9 displays and glass back plates in Huawei's Mate series, the stage was set for these features to come to the mainstream P series.
The Huawei P20 is Huawei's mainstream flagship, but the P20 Pro is the real star of the company's lineup. With an ambitious triple camera setup, a controversial notched display, and a sizable battery, the P20 Pro is a flagship contender with a price to match. Indeed, it is the company's most expensive phone yet. I have the Indian variant of the Huawei P20 Pro (CLT-AL00), so let's see how the phone performs in the highly-competitive flagship smartphone market of 2018.
DesignDisplayPerformanceCameraAudioSoftwareBattery LifeOdds & EndsConclusion
In this review, we will take an in-depth dive into the Huawei P20 Pro. Rather than listing specs and talking about how the experience felt, this feature attempts to provide a thorough look with contents relevant to our reader base. At XDA, our reviews are not meant to tell a user whether a phone is worth buying or not — instead, we try to lend you the phone through our words and help you come to the decision by yourself. Before getting started, let's get the specifications out of the way:
| Device Name: | Huawei P20 Pro | Price | Varies depending on market |
| Software | EMUI 8.1 on top of Android 8.1 Oreo | Display | 6.1-inch Full HD+ (2240×1080) AMOLED with an 18.7:9 aspect ratio, 408 PPI |
| Chipset | HiSilicon Kirin 970; Mali G72MP12 GPU | RAM and Storage | 6GB LPDDR4X RAM with 128GB UFS 2.1 storage |
| Battery | 4000mAh; Huawei SuperCharge (5V/4.5A) | Connectivity | USB 3.1 Type-C; Bluetooth 4.2 + LE; NFC; Dual nano-SIM slots |
| Rear Camera | 40MP primary RGB camera with 1/1.7″ sensor, f/1.8 aperture, 27mm field-of-view, LED flash, and 4-way autofocus 20MP monochrome camera with 1/2.7″ sensor, 27mm field-of-view, f/1.6 aperture 8MP camera with 1/4″ sensor, 80mm telephoto lens, OIS, 3x optical zoom, 5x hybrid zoom Video recording up to 4K@30fps; Slow motion video recording in 720p@960fps, 720p@240fps, 1080p@120fps | Front Camera | 24MP front camera with f/2.0 aperture and Light Fusion tech, Video recording in 720p@30fps |
Dimensions
and Weight | 155.0 mm x 73.9 mm x 7.8 mm, 180g | Bands | CLT-AL00 Dual SIM model: FDD LTE Bands: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 12, 17, 19, 20
TDD-LTE Bands: 34, 38, 39, 40, 41
WCDMA Bands: 1, 2, 4, 5
GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900MHz |
Disclosure: The Huawei P20 Pro review unit was provided by Huawei India.
Design
Huawei has promoted the P20 Pro on the basis of its design. At first glance, the P20 Pro's design does not appear to be anything too special. The adoption of current smartphone trends has meant that Huawei said goodbye to metal unibody phones with the Huawei Mate 10 last year. The company has fully adopted the glass back, and the P20 Pro is naturally an incremental design update over the Mate 10 Pro, which was launched only six months before its cousin.
The front of the phone is dominated by the 18.7:9 6.1-inch notched display. The display notch contains the 24MP front-facing camera, a circular-shaped earpiece that doubles as a speaker, and the proximity / ambient sensors.
Despite the presence of the notch, there is a sizable chin on the bottom of the front. This is because Huawei has placed the fingerprint sensor on the front this time around. I will talk about the performance of the sensor in the Performance section. The placement of the sensor may seem strange, but I did not experience any problems with it. The advantage of a front fingerprint sensor means that you can use EMUI's fingerprint gestures to navigate the phone without using the on-screen navigation bar. This ensures that display estate isn't wasted, and essentially cancels the drawbacks of the fingerprint sensor placement.
On the top of the device, we find an IR blaster, something which has become increasingly rare in flagship devices. The microphone is also found on the top. The right-hand side of the P20 Pro contains the power and volume buttons. I found the buttons to have a satisfying degree of feedback and had no complaints about them.
The left-hand side contains the SIM tray. The P20 Pro comes in both single SIM and dual-SIM variants. The SIM tray contains a single or dual nano SIM slots, depending on the variant. The phone does not have a microSD card slot.
On the bottom, we find the main speaker and the USB Type-C port. The P20 Pro does not have a 3.5mm headphone jack — more on this later. On the back, the Leica Triple Camera setup is placed on the top left with Leica branding, and a Huawei logo placed on the bottom left.
The frame of the phone is aluminum, polished to look and feel like glass. It provides structural rigidity, and the glossy finish means that there is plenty of grip. The frame seamlessly curves to the glass back, which has a mirror finish. Huawei promotes the Twilight dual-tone variant as the flagship variant of the P20 Pro, but I have the Midnight Blue variant as this is the only color that has been launched in India.
The Midnight Blue color may not be as eye-catching as the Twilight color, but it most certainly isn't understated. The back has a mirror finish, which makes the phone hard to photograph. It is also a fingerprint magnet, as expected. Thankfully, all variants of the phone have a black front, which ensures that the bezels aren't distracting.
As I said before, the design looks premium, but thanks to the prevalence of glass in 2018 smartphones, the P20 Pro's design doesn't stand out in a sea of phones with similar designs. This is not meant to be criticism, as smartphones are converging towards the same design trends, for better or worse. Durability is questionable because of the glass back, but the same criticism can be made for practically every 2018 flagship device. As it is, the P20 Pro is a good looking phone that manages to stand out on the basis of its color options.
In terms of ergonomics, the phone is comfortable to hold despite the flat glass back. The glossy metal frame is thick enough to allow sufficient grip, and in general, I didn't have any issues with the size of the device. Users accustomed to using 5.5-inch to 6-inch devices should have no problems with handling.
The phone has an IP67 rating for water and dust resistance, unlike the regular Huawei P20.
In the box, Huawei bundles a transparent plastic TPU case as well as the USB Type-C to 3.5mm adapter. On-ear Apple EarPods-style USB Type-C earphones are also included. In many regions, a Huawei SuperCharger (5V/4.5A) comes in the box, but this is not the case in India, where the box contains only a normal fast charger that operates at 9V/2A or 5V/2A.
Display
The Huawei P20 Pro has a 6.08-inch Full HD+ (2240×1080) notched AMOLED display with an 18.7:9 aspect ratio and 408 PPI. Because of its 18.7:9 aspect ratio, the display is actually taller than a 6-inch 18:9 display, and is slightly narrower (139 mm x 67 mm) than a (notchless) 6-inch 18:9 (136 mm x 68 mm) display, which itself has the same width as a 5.5-inch 16:9 display.
The display does not have Gorilla Glass protection. Instead, it has unnamed tempered glass. Huawei applies a factory installed plastic screen protector on the display. The screen protector is fitted well.
At this price range, the Samsung-sourced display's Full HD+ resolution is arguably too low, even though QHD+ AMOLED displays supplied by Samsung are few and far between. EMUI 8 has a Smart Resolution feature that can dynamically adjust between HD+ and Full HD+ resolution.
The PenTile subpixel matrix means that the effective color resolution of the display is lower than that of competing Full HD+ LCDs. For the most part, this isn't a major issue in the real world thanks to subpixel rendering, but it should be noted that the text rendering of the display is visibly inferior when compared with Quad HD displays.
The maximum manual brightness of the P20 Pro display is bright enough, and it's on par with other modern AMOLED displays. The display also has auto brightness boost which is activated in sunlight. Thanks to the high auto-brightness, sunlight legibility wasn't an issue.
However, Huawei's implementation of manual brightness suffers from a major flaw that affects all other EMUI 8 phones. When selecting the brightness manually, the phone dims brightness gradually after opening any app. The brightness isn't reduced for the system UI, but whenever an app is opened, there is a gradual but substantial decrease in perceived brightness.
This behavior can't be disabled. The manual brightness of the display is drastically reduced even when auto brightness is disabled, although the position of the brightness slider does not change. When using an app such as Google Chrome, Play Store, Gmail, etc, the brightness gets reduced by a significant amount, even though the brightness slider will remain in the near maximum brightness position.
This makes manual brightness incredibly annoying to deal with, to the point where it can be termed as a deal-breaker. The brightness isn't affected in manual brightness mode only if the slider is placed at 100 percent brightness, but this doesn't help as 100 percent manual brightness is far too bright for indoor usage. Setting the display at 80 percent or 85 percent brightness, on the other hand, results in a dimming of perceived brightness, which means that the perceived brightness of the display will, in fact, be much dimmer when compared to almost any other display that uses a proper logarithmic brightness slider.
The workaround, in this case, is to use auto brightness. Auto brightness works well in sunlight, where it activates high brightness mode. However, Huawei's implementation of auto brightness is different from Google's adaptive brightness in stock Android. When using auto brightness, display brightness is changed far too frequently. There is also the fact that the phone will default to keep the display with 25 percent brightness on the brightness slider in indoor conditions, which again makes it far too dim. This could be a result of the automatic brightness algorithm being biased towards lower brightness. I found myself frequently having to adjust automatic brightness to a higher level indoors to make the display readable.
Phones which use Adaptive Brightness, on the other hand, don't suffer from this issue as the user's preferences regarding brightness are taken into account. This is one area where Huawei's changes have led to a regression in user experience as compared to stock Android.
Black levels, on the other hand, are predictably excellent, thanks to the basic characteristics of AMOLED. Viewing angles are good too, with excellent brightness fidelity at various angles. The angular color shift is noticeable, but it's about the same as competing Samsung-sourced AMOLED displays. The display exhibits the 'rainbow out' effect at extreme angles, which is a characteristic of Samsung-sourced AMOLED displays. In this area, Samsung's own flagships are equipped with superior displays.
With regards to color accuracy, Huawei hasn't had a great track record in this field in the past. The phone's default color mode uses Default color temperature and Vivid color mode, which targets the DCI-P3 color space. Unfortunately, the Vivid mode isn't accurately calibrated to the DCI-P3 gamut, and oversaturation is visible right from the home screen. Sadly, the phone does not use Android Oreo's native color management system and instead sticks with color profiles.
The Normal color mode, on the other hand, acts as a sRGB mode. It corrects color temperature back in the general region of 6504K, which is the ideal target, whereas the Vivid color mode is visibly colder than 6504K. Vivid mode's coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut is of limited use in color accuracy without the application of color management. The user is better off changing the color mode to Normal to ensure color accuracy.
Huawei also provides a color temperature circular chooser for manual adjustment of the white point, along with presets for Default, Warm and Cold. The Default white point is a good balance, but users are provided choice to make their own adjustments as well.
Overall, the assessment of the P20 Pro's display is mixed. The display has its high points, such as excellent black levels, high brightness mode, and good viewing angles. However, it stumbles badly with brightness dimming in manual brightness, an issue which affects all other Huawei phones running EMUI 8 as well. The issue has been present for months, but the company still hasn't fixed it as of yet. (It's unknown whether they are aware of the problem or not.)
Other shortcomings with the display include the relatively low resolution and the lack of adoption of Android Oreo's color management system.
Then, we have the display notch. From the beginning, we can see that the P20 Pro's notch is one of the smaller ones out there. The presence of the notch has been controversial in many of 2018's flagship phones, with valid points being raised on both sides of the argument.
The notch is supposed to increase display estate. Its detractors argue that having a notch combined with a bottom chin makes no sense. The response of OEMs to this is that currently, it's not cost-effective to do what Apple did and have a phone with a negligible chin (Apple achieved it with a curved display driver). Detractors of the notch also argue that it visibly breaks symmetry and that it looks distracting. Proponents argue in their turn that having a notch is better than having symmetrical bezels.
My view is that the notch is fundamentally a compromise. The status bar is cut off in the middle, which means that many important status bar icons are small, or are no longer visible. There is no way to bring back a normal full-sized status bar.
Huawei does allow the user to hide the notch, which helps in getting rid of the distracting look. This option makes the status bar black in each and every app as well as the system UI. Thanks to the deep blacks of the AMOLED display, the illusion can be carried off a secondary display (it's worth noting that LG has adopted the "new second screen" branding in the G7 ThinQ). The only time where the illusion is broken is when the user swipes down the notification drawer, at which time the notch becomes visible. Also, the middle of the status bar remains empty because obviously there is no display there.
The advantage of the hide notch option is that it allows users to get the best of both worlds. Users still get a taller display, but the shape of the display now appears as a normal rounded rectangle instead of having a cutout at the top.
In landscape, Huawei also hides the notch by default. This is a good move as it ensures that media content is never cut off by the notch. In general, a visible notch in landscape mode is a poor design decision, so Huawei made the right choice here.
I prefer using the phone with the notch hidden, as the cutout can appear distracting. Can users get used to it? That depends. Is it optimal? No. Device makers are already looking for ways to remove the notch, as we see in new phone launches like the Vivo NEX and the Oppo Find X. It may well be that the notch could disappear in phones launching a few years from now. As it is, I didn't find its presence on the P20 Pro to be a deal-breaker, but I wouldn't call it a great feature either.
Performance
System performance benchmarks
The P20 Pro is powered by the HiSilicon Kirin 970 SoC. The SoC was used in last year's Mate 10 series as well, so there is no upgrade in terms of performance. It has also been used in the Honor View 10 as well as the Honor 10.
The differentiating feature of the Kirin 970 is the presence of dedicated hardware for AI. Huawei calls this the Neural Processing Unit. The NPU's role as dedicated hardware for AI means that the Kirin 970 can perform AI operations much faster than the Snapdragon 835 with its dedicated compute Hexagon DSP, for example.
In terms of timing, the P20 Pro arrives in the market with an obvious theoretical performance disadvantage against phones launching with the newer Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC. In terms of CPU performance, the Kirin 970 competes head-to-head with the Snapdragon 835, as we will see in the benchmarks below. This means that Snapdragon 845 phones do have a fairly significant 25-30 percent performance advantage in CPU performance. The gap increases even more in GPU performance, where the newer Adreno 630 manages to handily beat the Mali-G72MP12.
I ran the P20 Pro through Geekbench (the standard CPU performance benchmark), PCMark Work 2.0 (the standard system performance benchmark), and through Speedometer (the recommended web performance benchmark) and the results are noted below. Results from a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 device are also included for comparison purposes:
| Benchmarks | Huawei P20 Pro (HiSilicon Kirin 970) | OnePlus 5T (Qualcomm Snapdragon 835) |
| Geekbench Single Core | 1900 | 1960 |
| Geekbench Multi-Core | 6766 | 6788 |
| PCMark Work 2.0 performance score | 7104 | 6667 |
| PCMark Web Browsing 2.0 score | 7395 | 6321 |
| PCMark Video Editing score | 5178 | 5146 |
| PCMark Writing 2.0 score | 6625 | 6604 |
| PCMark Photo Editing 2.0 score | 12944 | 11060 |
| PCMark Data Manipulation score | 5509 | 5543 |
| Speedometer | 31.6 | 31.9 |
The P20 Pro's Kirin 970 chipset performs roughly on the same level as the Snapdragon 835, with no clear victor being visible from the benchmarks. PCMark is a holistic system performance benchmark, as it emphasizes a real-world test workflow. The P20 Pro performs well in PCMark 2.0, and competes closely with the Google Pixel 2, one of the most performant phones in the market. Newer Snapdragon 845 devices are ahead as expected, but the P20 Pro performs respectably and outperforms the Exynos 9810 in the international variant of the Samsung Galaxy S9.
Real world performance
Real-world performance is a difficult thing to judge. We have objectively shown how the Google Pixel 2 remains one of the smoothest devices on the market, outperforming even newer Snapdragon 845-based competitors. In this area, the P20 Pro performs very well as expected, but doesn't challenge the Pixel 2. While the Pixel 2 is almost always smooth all the time, the P20 Pro still exhibits some stutters sometimes in heavy apps such as the Play Store and Google Maps.
The system UI runs with no clear dropped frames nearly all the time, with the exception of one odd bug in Huawei Launcher. There is a visible — and highly distracting — stutter which happens every time the user swipes to the left of the home screen for the Google Feed. This bug, too, has been present for months but hasn't been fixed. The workaround is just to disable the Google Feed home screen panel.
App opening speeds are good. The P20 Pro isn't the fastest performer in the market, but that's expected because it was always going to be outperformed by newer Snapdragon 845 devices. Against last year's Snapdragon 835, the implementation of the Kirin 970 is done well in the P20 Pro. Subjectively, apps open quickly to the point where differences are in the milliseconds.
In terms of unlocking speed, the phone's fingerprint sensor does a phenomenal job. It's not a stretch to say that it's one of the fastest, if not the fastest, fingerprint sensors on the market. Recognition is nearly instantaneous, and the accuracy rate is high. The speed of the fingerprint sensor means that users never really have to see the lock screen, as they can quickly arrive at the home screen instead.
The P20 Pro also has software-based face unlock. Face unlock works quickly and reliably in almost all situations except for extreme low light, where it becomes slow and unreliable in terms of accuracy. I still prefer using the fingerprint sensor to unlock the phone, but face unlock acts as a good backup solution. Huawei has also provided an option to combine face unlock with raise to wake. I kept it disabled, but users can enable it for a more seamless unlocking experience.
Overall, in the real world, the P20 Pro doesn't have the blisteringly-quick response of OnePlus devices, and it isn't as fluid as the Google Pixel 2. However, it is a reassuringly-consistent performer. Huawei states that the phone uses "AI" to keep the phone run smoothly even after long-term usage, but we have no way to verify this.
There are no slow-downs, and the presence of very few stutters along with fast app opening times means that the P20 Pro is one of the more well-rounded phones out there when it comes to performance. Thermals are excellent as well. In day-to-day use, the phone perceptibly doesn't heat up, even when ambient temperatures are as high as 33 degrees Celsius. Heavy use will make the phone warm, yes, but heating is not an issue just like most phones that were released in 2017 and 2018.
RAM management
The P20 Pro has 6GB of LPDDR4X RAM. Some phones now have as much as 8GB of RAM, but 6GB is still plenty for the Android ecosystem in 2018. In the past, EMUI had a reputation for killing off apps in the background, but EMUI 8 thankfully doesn't exhibit the same behavior. Indeed, RAM management is great for the most part, with multiple apps and browser tabs all being open in the background without needing to refresh. Users can have multiple games open in the background as well.
Android's memory management limitations ensure that apps do get killed off after some point in time, but for the most part, multitasking is a great experience on the P20 Pro. The number of apps and services that are allowed to operate in the background are more than some flagship phones that have only 4GB of RAM.
GPU performance
The HiSilicon Kirin 970 uses Arm's Mali-G72MP12 GPU. This is a faster-clocked, narrower variant of the Exynos 9810's Mali-G72MP18. In terms of peak performance, the Mali-G72MP12 is slower than the Snapdragon 835's Adreno 540 GPU, and Qualcomm continues to enjoy a significant lead when it comes to GPU efficiency as well over its competitors.
The P20 Pro's benchmark results in GFXBench and 3DMark are noted below, along with the results of the Snapdragon 835 device for comparison:
| Benchmarks | Huawei P20 Pro (HiSilicon Kirin 970) | Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 |
| GFXBench 1080p Car Chase Offscreen | 23 fps | 25 fps |
| GFXBench 1440p Manhattan 3.1 Offscreen | 21 fps | 21 fps |
| GFXBench 1080p Manhattan 3.1 Offscreen | 36 fps | 42 fps |
| GFXBench 1080p Manhattan Offscreen | 44 fps | 62 fps |
| GFXBench 1080p T-Rex Offscreen | 89 fps | 117 fps |
| GFXBench Car Chase Onscreen | 21 fps | 24 fps |
| GFXBench Manhattan 3.1 Onscreen | 35 fps | 38 fps |
| GFXBench Manhattan Onscreen | 39 fps | 54 fps |
| GFXBench T-Rex Onscreen | 59 fps | 60 fps |
| 3DMark Sling Shot Extreme – Open GL ES 3.1 Overall score | 2973 | 4107 |
| 3DMark Sling Shot Extreme – OpenGL ES 3.1 Graphics score | 2989 | 4513 |
| 3DMark Sling Shot Extreme – OpenGL ES 3.1 Physics score | 2917 | 3013 |
| 3DMark Slingshot Extreme – Vulkan Overall score | 3214 | 2401 |
| 3DMark Slingshot Extreme – Vulkan Graphics score | 3436 | 2359 |
| 3DMark Slingshot Extreme – Vulkan Physics score | 2620 | 2610 |
Suffice it to say that the P20 Pro's GPU performance is still good. Some of the GFXBench results are oddly lower than expected, but it's likely that any driver issues will be fixed in an update. The state of Android gaming has somewhat stood still for the last three years, which means that the vast majority of Android phones are able to play popular freemium games without any problem. The P20 Pro will be able to max out most games on the Play Store with high graphics and will struggle only with the most demanding games or games that have not been optimized for the Mali GPU.
Storage performance
The Huawei P20 Pro comes in a single storage variant with 128GB of dual-lane UFS 2.1 NAND. This is as cutting-edge as it gets in the market, and the results are predictably great. Benchmark results of AndroBench are noted below:
As expected, the phone's storage performance is excellent. It should be noted that this is one area where flagships continue to enjoy a significant advantage over budget phones that still come with eMMC 5.1 NAND.
This has an appreciable impact on real-world user experience as well. Apps install quickly, 4K video recording is not an issue, and file transfer operations are handled competently. To be clear, though, UFS 2.1 is not a particular strength of the P20 Pro, as nearly all 2017 and 2018 flagship phones make use of it.
Camera performance
Camera specifications
The P20 Pro's most obvious differentiating factor is its camera setup. The Leica Triple Camera consists of three cameras. The first is a 40MP RGB camera with a huge 1/1.7" sensor, 27mm field-of-view and a f/1.8 aperture. The second is an 8MP telephoto camera with 1/4″ sensor, optical image stabilization (OIS), f/2.4 aperture and 80mm field-of-view. The third is a 20MP monochrome camera with 1/2.7″ sensor, f/1.6 aperture and 27mm field-of-view.
The triple camera setup uses 4D autofocus: contrast detection, phase detection, laser detection (using a laser that works at up to 2.4m), and depth detection. A single LED flash and a light temperature sensor complete the camera hardware.
The P20 Pro's camera setup is quite complicated. The 40MP RGB camera has a huge sensor in smartphone terms. It's only a bit smaller than the sensor of the Nokia Lumia 1020 (released in 2013), which had a 41MP camera. It also uses a Quad Bayer filter instead of a standard Bayer filter, which means that it has less color resolution in comparison to a camera that uses a Bayer filter.
Despite having 40MP resolution, the P20 Pro takes 10MP photos in 4:3 ratio by default. Users can still take 40MP photos, but the recommended choice is to use the 10MP default option. Why? It's because the 10MP option uses pixel binning to enhance clarity and remove noise. We will see how this plays out in the image quality assessment section.
The role of the 8MP telephoto camera: The 8MP camera has a 80mm field-of-view, which means it has effective 3x zoom. Huawei provides 3x and 5x zoom options in the camera app. Photos were taken with 3x zoom or 5x zoom don't have 8MP resolution, however. This is because the telephoto camera works in combination with the 40MP primary camera to take 10MP photos (the two are mounted in the same camera module on the back of the phone, while the 20MP sensor is placed below the other two sensors). 5x hybrid zoom uses both the 40MP camera and the 8MP telephoto camera, while the 3x zoom option uses the 80mm field-of-view of the telephoto camera for 3x optical zoom (it also still works in tandem with the main camera). Spoiler: Both options work incredibly well.
The role of the 20MP monochrome camera: Huawei has used an RGB + monochrome dual camera setup since the Huawei P9, and the monochrome camera returns in the P20 Pro. It has a 27mm field-of-view and a f/1.6 aperture. As it doesn't have a Bayer filter, it can let in a lot more light than the other cameras. Therefore, it's used in combination with the 40MP RGB camera to take brighter photos with less noise.
The takeaway is that the P20 Pro takes photos combining the output of at least two cameras. The 40MP RGB camera works in combination with the 8MP telephoto camera as well as the 20MP monochrome camera. With 4D autofocus, the P20 Pro is, therefore, quite prepared when it comes to camera hardware.
Camera app and user experience
Camera app
The camera app of the Huawei P20 Pro is filled with a lot of settings. The mode selector is placed in the bottom of the screen, but the text remains in portrait position even after rotating the phone. The visible camera modes are: Photo, Video, Pro, Portrait, Night, and Aperture. The More option contains Monochrome, HDR, Slow motion, Time lapse, Document scan, Panorama, and other modes.
Pro mode is a fully featured implementation of manual mode, with options for ISO, shutter speed, exposure compensation, white balance, and metering. On that note, it should be noted that the P20 Pro can go up to an astonishingly high ISO of 102,400 in auto mode. In Pro mode, the maximum ISO which can be chosen is ISO 6400.
Huawei continues to include different Aperture and Portrait modes. Aperture mode is a general wide-aperture mode that lets users simulate apertures between f/0.95 all the way to f/16. The aperture and focus point can be changed after the photo has been taken. Portrait mode, on the other hand, is intended for taking photos of people. It allows users to enable or disable the background blur effect, and it also has simulated lighting effects to compete with Apple's 2017 iPhones.
Night Mode is one of the most important modes in the camera app. It uses stacking of photos with long exposures of up to 5 seconds (!), and it manages to mostly avoid camera shake thanks to AI-assisted stabilization. Spoiler: The results in low light are phenomenal.
Moving on, HDR is still a separate mode as Huawei continues to skip on providing an auto HDR option. HDR photos are slower to capture than normal photos, and the difference in quality is minor. The validity of a separate HDR mode can be questioned when it could be easily combined in the main photo mode with auto HDR.
The Document scan mode negates the need to download a third-party document scanning app. The Monochrome mode uses the 20MP monochrome camera to take monochrome photos. It has limited use as a separate mode, but it does its job. We will discuss the slow-motion mode in the video quality section.
Camera user experience
For the most part, the P20 Pro uses its 4D autofocus to focus quickly and take photos in quick succession. However, in many cases, when a photo is taken, the camera app displays the message "Sharpening the photo… Please steady your device." This adds to the shot-to-shot time of taking photos, as there is a tangible delay after taking such a photo. This message is predominantly displayed in low lighting conditions, but strangely, it's displayed sometimes in daylight as well.
There is no need to display the message in daylight conditions, as it has a negative impact on the speed of taking photos. Huawei is advised to change this behavior.
The camera preview has a high frame rate for the most part. However, the preview isn't high-resolution enough, which results in problems when taking photos in low light. The camera preview may show a preview of a photo with negligible detail, even when the actual photo itself may be much better in terms of image quality. To put it simply, the camera preview and the photo itself are not the same in quality, and it is a minor issue.
Master AI is a big part of the P20 Pro's camera experience. It can identify 500+ scenes and dynamically switches to different scenes without the need for user intervention. This means that in low light, the camera automatically switches from Photo mode to Night Mode to improve photo quality.
However, the implementation of Master AI isn't without flaws. Sometimes it can misidentify a scene. It can take its time switching between scenes. There is a delay of around two seconds between Master AI deciding a scene and actually switching to it. This means that users can inadvertently take photos in the "incorrect" scene as photos are taken before the camera app switches to the mode decided by Master AI.
A similar delay can be observed when Master AI decides to switch back from the scene mode back to the default mode. Again, users can inadvertently take photos in the chosen scene mode even when the scene mode is no longer applicable.
On a related note, it's worth noting that users can manually exit any scene mode automatically chosen by Master AI. Sometimes this is the recommended choice as Master AI can go overboard with regards to color saturation and exposure. Master AI can also be switched off entirely.
The proof is in the pudding, so let's see whether the P20 Pro's triple camera setup measures up in the assessment of its image quality:
Image quality assessment
How does the P20 Pro's camera match up? To put it simply, it does very well. Note: All samples were taken at the default 10MP resolution, with Master AI enabled. Most samples were taken in Photo mode. Some low light samples were taken in Night Mode because Master AI automatically changed the scene mode. A few low light samples were also manually taken in Night Mode.
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