It’s finally Huawei’s turn in the spotlight as they unveil their brand new 2019 flagship smartphones. Meet the Huawei P30 and Huawei P30 Pro, smartphones that are designed to break the rules of smartphone photography by letting you zoom further than ever before.
Huawei P30 Pro
First off, there’s the star of the show, the Huawei P30 Pro. This is the larger and more capable smartphone of the duo, and it features a brand new quad-camera array at the back. Inside, the smartphone is powered by a Kirin 980 processor that’s mated to 8GB of RAM and up to 512GB of internal storage. Storage is further expandable via Huawei’s proprietary NM cards.
Up front, the smartphone features a 6.47″ curved OLED display that pushes a Full HD+ resolution of 2340×1080 pixels. There is a tiny notch at the top that houses the 32MP selfie shooter. Also at the top is the lack of a standard earpiece. Instead, Huawei uses an acoustic display technology that vibrates the top of the panel to produce sound.
Keeping the lights on is a large 4,200 mAh battery with support for Huawei’s 40W SuperCharge 2.0 fast-charging technology, via USB-C. The P30 Pro also supports 15W fast wireless charging and reverse wireless charging, much like the Mate 20 Pro.
Where you’ll find the biggest upgrade on the P30 Pro, is in its main camera. The Huawei P30 Pro features a new quad-camera setup that includes a 40MP f/1.6 aperture wide camera, a 20MP f/2.2 aperture ultra-wide camera, an 8MP f/3.4 aperture 5X telephoto camera and a Time of Flight camera.
Huawei is calling their new 40MP main sensor a SuperSensing sensor as the 1/1.7-inch sensor uses an RYYB colour array instead of the standard RGGB. This will apparently let in 40% more light than an RGGB sensor so you should see better low-light performance. Huawei also says that their new sensor is capable of achieving a max ISO of 409,600!
But, that’s not all because Huawei has also equipped the 5X 8MP telephoto camera with a periscope lens design that is very similar to the one we first saw on the Oppo prototype phone. This allows the P30 Pro to achieve a 10X Hybrid lossless zoom and a massive 50X max zoom. To make sure everything is steady, both the main 40MP sensor and the 8MP telephoto feature optical image stabilisation (OIS).
Clearly all of this is working well because the Huawei P30 Pro has achieved the highest DxOMark score of 112 points!
Huawei’s P30 Pro also comes with IP68 water and dust resistance, as well as Dual SIM Dual 4G support. However, the P30 Pro no longer features a stereo speaker setup in addition to its lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack.
Huawei P30
Moving on, we’ve got the Huawei P30, which is the smaller of the two devices. Instead of the large 6.47″ curved OLED display, the P30 packs a smaller 6.1″ flat OLED panel, but still pushes a Full HD+ resolution. Inside, the device also packs the Kirin 980 processor and 8GB of RAM, but storage now tops out at 256GB.
Besides that, the smartphone also packs a smaller 3,650 mAh battery with support for Huawei’s 22W SuperCharge fast-charging technology (via USB C) without any form of wireless charging or reverse wireless charging. What’s more, the P30 doesn’t feature IP68 water resistance either.
The smaller P30 also gets a bit of a downgrade in the main camera department. Instead of a quad-camera array, the P30 loses the ToF camera, and settles for a triple camera setup instead. Its main sensor is still a 40MP RYYB sensor but now it is paired to an f/1.8 aperture lens instead. ISO sensitivity is also down, but it’s still an impressive 204,800 ISO.
The ultra-wide is now a 16MP sensor with an f/2.2 aperture lens, and while the zoom camera still features an 8MP sensor, the lens is no longer a periscope lens, but a standard 3X f/2.4 aperture lens with OIS.
Both the P30 and P30 Pro will come running EMUI 9.1 that’s built on top of Android Pie. Huawei’s P30 will come in three colours — Aurora, Black, and Breathing Crystal — while the P30 Pro gets an additional Amber Sunrise colourway on top of the other three. The Huawei P30 and P30 Pro will be priced as follows in Europe:
Huawei P30
6GB RAM + 128GB storage – EUR799 (about RM3,683)Huawei P30 Pro
8GB RAM + 128GB storage – EUR999 (about RM4,604)
8GB RAM + 256GB storage – EUR1099 (about RM5,065)
8GB RAM + 512GB storage – EUR1249 (about RM5,757)*Do note that European pricing is much higher compared to Malaysia
Unfortunately, we don’t have any information on how much the smartphones will retail for when they land in Malaysia, but we do know that Huawei Malaysia will increase the number of P30 sales locations to 11 venues across our country.
