Huawei P30 Pro main camera tops DxOMark charts thanks to zoom and bokeh

The just-announced Huawei P30 Pro has shot up to the top of the DxOMark charts. With a score of 112, it leaves behind the three-way tie between the Mate 20 Pro, P20 Pro and Galaxy S10 Plus (all sitting on 109). The new flagship aced the photography segment with an untouchable score of 119.

This high score is largely thanks to the high quality zoom and bokeh rendering. They rely on two new pieces of hardware on the Leica-branded Huawei cameras – the 125mm periscope camera and the 3D ToF sensor.

The zoom camera is the best on the market and not just for its periscope design, the super-resolution tech that combines info from the zoom and main cameras to achieve intermediate zoom levels performs great as well. The P30 Pro leaves its competition, including its predecessors, in the dust.

The bokeh rendering is similarly best-in-class. Super-resolution is used again to achieve 2x magnification (better for portraits) and the ToF module provides smooth, accurate blurring of the background.

That’s not to take away anything from the main 40MP sensor, which excels at low-light photography. It renders fine details and keeps noise low in any lighting situation (from extreme low light to backlit scenes). The autofocus and flash were found to be similarly excellent.

The Huawei P30 Pro camera isn’t perfect, though, not quite. The dynamic range has shrunk slightly since the Mate 20 Pro (resulting in clipping), also color rendering could use some work.

The camera scored 97 for video recording – a great score, but not the best (it matches the Mate 20 Pro and is a point behind the P20 Pro). The combination of OIS and EIS makes for steady footage, the low-light performance is quite good (though noise starts to creep in). Color rendering is still an issue and the videos showed some frame rate instability.

The 32MP selfie camera of the Huawei P30 Pro achieved a score of 89 – massive improvement over the Mate 20 Pro (75) and P20 Pro (72). Still, it’s not the best camera around (the S10+ got 96), it's "just" one of the best.

The front camera offers great dynamic range and low light performance. The Bokeh mode is good, despite being rendered from a single cam with no extra hardware (note that bokeh mode resulted in a smaller dynamic range). However, despite the 32MP resolution, the camera provided only acceptable levels of detail.

Head over to DxOMark to read the detailed main camera review and the selfie camera review. Don’t miss the camera section of our review too.