iFixit teardown of the Huawei P20 Pro suggests that the phone offers OIS for all three rear cameras, not just on one sensor as advertised by Huawei.
“While Huawei said only the 8MP sensor of the triple-camera system of P20 Pro has OIS, the handset’s teardown suggests otherwise”
Last month, Huawei unveiled the P20 and P20 Pro flagships at an event in Paris. The brand’s latest P series flagships flaunt LEICA technology-powered cameras. The P20 features a dual camera setup at the rear, whereas the P20 Pro boasts a triple-camera system – 8MP + 40MP + 20MP. At the event, Huawei revealed that only one of the primary cameras at the rear boasts optical image stabilisation and the other two sensors rely on AI Image Stabilisation. However, a teardown of the phone by iFixit suggests that the P20 Pro’s rear cameras have more OIS than advertised.
Huawei said that only the 8-megapixel telephoto sensor of the triple-camera system at the rear of the P20 Pro features OIS. The brand says that the other sensors (RGB and monochrome cameras) rely on AI-based Neural Processing Unit (NPU) for what it advertised as AI Image Stabilisation. This tech is said to allow for predictive focus, settings for over 19 different scenes, and filter effects like bokeh. However, based on its teardown, iFixit says that it has discovered onboard hardware that indicates all three rear-facing cameras have OIS capabilities.
It’s a little weird that Huawei, which is touting the camera features as one of the major innovations of the P20 Pro, seems to be underselling the phone’s camera as it has all the hardware in place. It’s quite possible that the brand plans to roll out more software-based imaging features in the future for the phone, which require optical image stabilisation for all the cameras. However, this is yet to be officially confirmed by the company.
The iFixit teardown also mentions that Huawei went for a smaller motherboard on the P20 Pro to accommodate such a large 4,000mAh battery. Lastly, the website has given the Huawei P20 Pro a repairability score of 4/10.
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