Huawei P20 Pro long-term review

19 July 2018
It was an exciting flagship season this spring, yes, but once the dust has settled, there was only a handful of devices that left lasting impressions. On top of that shortlist is the tri-eyed beast that is the Huawei P20 Pro and it was high time we do a long-term review of this one while using it as a daily driver.

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  • W
  • Wes
  • H5A
  • 19 Jul 2018

From what I've seen, the video features are appalling. Terrible stabilization or even none.

The selfie camera quality is poor. Even worse when Huawei insists on not turning off beautification, even when you have turned it off.

The camera photos are also quite dull looking and there is the oil painting effect that does not look good at all. They could have done so much more with that 40mp camera. Most people say that they don't even use it for landscapes to take advantage of the high pixel count, because the picture is bad.

Also I hate that there is not 3.5mm headphone jack and memory card slot. Huawei put it in all their other Huawei and Honor phones, except the P20s and Mate 10 Pro, but they all had them before. Honestly, I won't buy a smartphone without these.

    • X
    • Xtrax
    • nbr
    • 19 Jul 2018

    I agree with the whole review except the "problem" with the 3x zoom. At the beginning I also have this problem but soon I realize why is that way. The minimum focus distance is very different for both sensors and If you want to zoom in on something really close the 3x sensor is useless. However there is a solution for me - to switch to the 3x camera all you need to do is point at an object at a distance and the phone switches the camera automatically. Yes sometimes if I point again at a closer object after that it switches back to main sensor, so the solution for me is to use manual focus for volume keys. Huawei obviously spend time designing the camera app because if you use manual focus the phone keeps using the 3x sensor no matter how close the object is.

      • ?
      • Anonymous
      • S2T
      • 19 Jul 2018

      So no 4k video stabilization ? Stupid on a flagship.
      Is the cpu throttling?

        • ?
        • Anonymous
        • m86
        • 19 Jul 2018

        Hi GSMA,

        You need to update Messages app. It's from google, it's not a huawei app (too bad, it was way better on Honor 7x/Nougat). It was also troublesome for me at the beginning then i got better once that google updated their app a few times.
        Also, you need to configure notifications from within Messages app too (even if it sets you back to deep android settings).

        I don't know for Phone app, i have 0 issue with it.

        Also, after taking about 800 shots since april, maybe the "oversaturated blue sky" is only our peception. When you take an airplane, with more altitude, you get that blue too. Maybe, it's just the cameras being able to "see more" than we do. But i'm no expert, it's what i tought after analysing many of my shots even if sometimes, it's really some vignette or so effect.

          Frankly... I wanted to have that phone. And even though I own TWO phones withot headphone jack. It still irritates me the absence of the audio jack.

            • S
            • Salah
            • LC8
            • 19 Jul 2018

            It's still not worth the almost 1000$ it costs.
            Screen is ok but not outstanding.
            Glass is far more fragile than any other Gorilla-Glass-made phone.
            User Interface is a cheap copy of IOS.

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