Here’s the first look at Huawei’s latest and greatest, the P20 Pro, which will be launching in India soon. Read on for our hands-on experience of the flagship
“Here’s the first look at Huawei’s latest and greatest, the P20 Pro”
Every year, the smartphone industry witnesses the launch of numerous flagships from various manufacturers. While some come as an iterative upgrade over their predecessors, others try to push the boundaries and deliver something new and exciting to the audience. This year, we witnessed not one, but two different smartphones which promised to take a user’s photography experience to the next level – the Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus and the recently-launched Huawei P20 Pro.
We have already reviewed the S9+ and the smartphone is the one to beat when it comes to low-light photography. Can the P20 Pro, which comes with a tri-camera setup at the back, oust Samsung’s offering and become the new camera king? Well, the answer to that question will have to wait for our full review but for now, let’s take a closer look at the Huawei P20 Pro smartphone.
The Huawei P20 Pro comes packaged in a minimal-looking white cardboard box, opening that you’ll find the smartphone itself. Underneath that, you’ll find the documentation and a transparent TPU case. Up next, you’ll get a wall charger with the smartphone, a USB Type-C cable, a Type-C to 3.5mm dongle and a pair of earphones which look eerily similar to Apple’s earpods.
Let’s get the obvious out of the way first – yes, the P20 Pro bears an uncanny resemblance to Apple’s iPhone X ( review), but bear in mind that the smartphone is just one of the many to borrow its design aesthetics from the Cupertino giant. Once you look past that, the P20 Pro is an absolute eye-candy of a device which looks gorgeous from all angles. That is if you can keep it free from smudges, since the smartphone is a fingerprint magnet. However, that’s a compromise you’ll have to make with almost every smartphone flaunting a glass panel.
On the plus side, the device didn’t feel slippery when we held it in our hands which can be attributed to the smartphone’s rounded corners and the uniform weight distribution across its chassis. This also lends the P20 Pro surprisingly good one-hand usability and during our short stint, we didn’t even struggle to reach the corners of the screen.
Before we talk about the smartphone’s display, let’s take a closer look at the button and port placement of the device. Towards the right fascia, you’ll find the power button and the volume rockers, all of which offer an excellent tactile feedback. Moving on, the left fascia is the home to a dual-SIM slot whereas the bottom of the smartphone houses two speaker grills with a USB Type-C port sandwiched in between. You’ll also get an IR blaster at the very top. Unfortunately, the P20 Pro doesn’t ship with a headphone jack or a microSD card slot to expand the storage. That said, you do get 128GB of built-in storage with the smartphone which should be plenty for most users. Lastly, the handset gets a fingerprint sensor positioned below the display on the front, which worked flawlessly during our initial testing.
In terms of visuals, the P20 Pro features a 6.1-inch AMOLED panel which boasts a full HD+ resolution. The display does feature a notch at the very top which gives it a unique aspect ratio of 18.7:9. However, those who find the cut-out somewhat unappealing, and want a more uniform look can disable from the settings too. As far as the quality of the display is concerned, we were impressed with the colour reproduction and viewing angles. Moreover, the device’s peak brightness levels were satisfactory too.
Under the hood, the P20 Pro comes powered by Huawei’s custom-designed Kirin 970 SoC. The handset gets 128GB of built-in storage and 6GB of RAM. While we haven’t played any intensive games on the smartphone yet, our initial impressions of the smartphone’s performance are pretty positive. The Kirin 970 SoC delivered fluid animations and thanks to the smartphone’s healthy amount of memory, jumping in and out of different applications was a breeze too.
The USP of the Huawei P20 Pro is the presence of three cameras at the back. In terms of specs, the smartphone features an 8MP telephoto sensor, a 40MP RGB sensor and a 20MP monochrome sensor at the back… take a minute to let that information sink in. What’s more is that Huawei has once again partnered with camera giant Leica, which powers all the lenses on the smartphone.
Moreover, the company has also offered a whopping 24MP selfie shooter on the P20 Pro. Suffice it to say, we expect big things from the smartphone in the camera department and you’ll get to know how it fared once our full review of the device is out. Until then, feel free to browse through some of the sample images (embedded above) we clicked with the smartphone during our brief use.
The Huawei P20 Pro boots Android Oreo with EMUI v8.1 on top. Unlike most flagships, the handset gets a beefy 4,000mAh battery.
Related read: Top 5 features of the Huawei P20 Pro
Huawei will be unveiling the P20 Pro in India on April 24th. As it stands, we don’t have any details on the smartphone’s pricing, so it remains to be seen if the Chinese brand will be opting for an aggressive strategy to take on the flagship offerings from the likes of Samsung, Apple and Google. Till then, keep an eye out for our in-depth review of the P20 Pro, coming your way soon.
