Yes, Huawei's latest smartphone flagship is equipped with three cameras. At a time where dual-camera smartphones are more than enough to do your Instagram vanity shots proper justice, does adding a third rear-facing snapper to the mix really benefit smartphone photography?
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Well, I've been mulling over this particular conundrum since I first laid eyes on Huawei's headline-grabbing handset at its official post-MWC unveiling. Does a flagship smartphone in 2018 really need three cameras? Let's find out.
Huawei P20 Pro review: What you need to know
Huawei’s P20 Pro is the Chinese firm’s latest big-screened flagship smartphone. The successor to last year’s P10 Plus has changed a great deal in only 12 months. It’s now equipped with a 6.1in, 18.7:9 OLED FHD+ (2,240 x 1,080) resolution display and, as you can see from my comparison pictures with the P10 Plus, it's a dramatic-looking difference.
The triple camera arrangement is the star of the show, though. The P20 Pro’s trifecta of Leica-branded rear-facing cameras includes one 40-megapixel RGB unit, one that captures 20-megapixel monochrome images and another that delivers 8-megapixel telephoto shots. The phone is powered by Huawei’s own octa-core 2.4GHz HiSilicon Kirin 970 processor, 6GB of RAM and 128GB of non-expandable storage.
Huawei P20 Pro review: Design, key features and first impressions
So, what exactly has changed? The biggest difference lies in the P20 Pro’s improved physical appearance, which is uncannily iPhone X-like in design. Heck, its 18.7:9 display even has a notch eating away at the screen at the top – although it’s roughly a third of the size of Apple’s version – and the vertical camera arrangement on the rear is similar to Apple's as well.
The P20 Pro is covered in smooth, curved glass with chrome-coated sides. Two of the phone’s colour choices – twilight and pink gold – have an ombré-style rear, with the colour gradient subtly changing from top to bottom. The other two colours – champagne gold and black – aren’t quite as fancy.
Huawei has opted for a front-facing fingerprint sensor embedded in the home button below the screen. Extra functions can be added with long presses returning you to the home screen and left swipes bringing up recent apps. It’s a handy feature but you’ll likely stick to the default on-screen navigation bar.
On the right edge of the phone is the power button and volume rocker, while the nano-SIM tray is on the left. There’s nothing on top but a USB Type-C charging port sits between dual speaker grilles on the bottom. The phone is also IP67 dust- and water-resistant.
The fancy edge-to-edge display isn’t a first for Huawei. The Mate 10 Pro did this last year – but it is the first time a screen like it has made an appearance on the firm’s P-branded flagship.
Measuring 6.1in from corner to corner, the FHD+ (2,240 x 1,080) resolution display is gorgeous. And, because this is an OLED panel, I can say with confidence that contrast ratio will be perfect, even before I've had a chance to turn our colour calibrator loose on a review unit.
Huawei’s latest phone also receives a healthy update to its internals, with the P20 Pro packing an octa-core HiSilicon Kirin 970 chip clocked at 2.4GHz, paired with 6GB of RAM. There’s a healthy 128GB of on-board storage too, although this isn't expandable via microSD.
That all sounds very impressive, and if the similarly-equipped Mate 10 Pro’s performance is anything to go by, this will be a very speedy phone indeed.
Huawei P20 Pro review: Porsche Design Mate RS
There's also going to be a Porsche Design version of the Huawei P20 Pro (isn't there always?), dubbed the Porsche Design Mate RS. Despite the different name, the Mate RS is the P20 Pro in everything but name, price (it's hideously expensive at 1,695 Euros for the 256GB version and 2,095 Euros for the 512GB model) and a couple of small design tweaks.
It has the same triple camera array just in the centre of the phone rather than the corner, the fingerprint reader is moved to the rear and it comes with a huge 512GB of internal storage. Perhaps the most interesting feature on the Porsche Design Mate RS, though, is that it has an in-screen fingerprint reader as well as a regular rear-mounted one.
Huawei P20 Pro review: Triple cameras
Okay, let’s move on to Huawei’s coup de grâce: that triple camera setup. This unusual camera arrangement may sound confusing but it’s actually rather simple. The standard 40-megapixel RGB camera and 20-megapixel monochrome camera work together, just like the dual-camera pairing on the Huawei P10 – to deliver images of greater dynamic range with lower noise than would otherwise be possible with a single camera. The third camera – an 8-megapixel 3x telephoto lens (80mm equivalent focal length) – merely adds optical zoom.
And that’s about all there is to it. Although, what’s much more impressive is the P20 Pro is also capable of capturing images at a maximum 102,400 ISO sensitivity, which should help pick up much more light in darker conditions. So dark, in fact, that Huawei claims the P20 Pro can take decent images in lighting conditions of only 1 lux.
There are software improvements to the camera as well, including "AI" image stabilisation, which stabilises shots for up to four seconds during long exposures. It’s a technique that worked very well during my brief demo, with the phone capturing detail-rich images in low-light, without too much visual noise.
The Huawei P20 Pro is also capable of super-slow motion video recording at 960fps. Just as with the Samsung Galaxy S9, the maximum resolution in this mode is capped at 720p. However, the Sony Xperia XZ2 is capable of besting the both of them – recording slow-motion footage at Full HD resolution.
This mode on the P20 Pro doesn’t benefit from motion detection either, so you have to press the shutter button at the precise moment you want the slow-motion to start, which makes it very tricky to set up shots. The regular video mode does have 4D predictive focus, however, which should be great for live video object tracking.
Huawei P20 Pro review: Early verdict
So, is that triple camera really necessary? Well, possibly, but I’ll need more time with Huawei’s latest flagship to draw any firm conclusions about its intriguing new camera get-up. Following my brief hands-on session, though, it certainly offers an interesting new proposition for the avid smartphone photographer.
Elsewhere, too, this is an exceptional smartphone. As we saw with the Mate 10 Pro last year, Huawei is really stepping things up a gear with their frequent smartphone launches and the P20 Pro is no exception. It not only has a fresh new look but also internal improvements and an intriguing new camera. It's 2018's most interesting smartphone to date.