Huawei P20 Pro - review

For several years I have had the pleasure of testing smartphones and various types of devices and it so happens that during this time I have fallen into quite a lot of interesting models. One of them is undoubtedly the Huawei P20 Pro, which in many ways is second to none. I can also risk saying that the P20 Pro is the best smartphone that has appeared on the market so far. Are you curious what else I think about this year's Chinese flagship? Is this model worth your attention? I will answer these and many other questions in this review. I invite you to read.

Box contents and specification

For as long as I can remember, Huawei has packed its flagship devices very elegantly and with attention to detail, and this time, of course, it is similar. The packaging itself is reminiscent of that of the Huawei P10 , but in that case the opening was from the inside, which looked like we were opening a book. In the P20 Pro, the whole thing is more traditional and the opening itself takes place by sliding the lid. The box is made of thick cardboard and completely white. On the front we can only find the manufacturer's logo, the device model, as well as the Leica logo and the inscription Triple camera. On the back, the manufacturer did not provide any important information. As always with Huawei smartphones, everything has been packed here with attention to detail. In the set, apart from the phone, you will also find a charger with a detachable USB cable, a key to remove the tray, a USB-C terminated headset, a 3.5 mm jack adapter - USB type C, a case, as well as basic documentation.

When it comes to specifications, we get one of the best kits available on the market. Huawei P20 Pro is equipped with a 6.1-inch OLED display with Full HD + resolution and an aspect ratio of 18.7: 9. Its heart is the HiSilicon Kirin 970 octa-core processor with the Mali-G72 MP12 graphics chip. The set is supported by 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of built-in memory. The triple camera is responsible for the quality of photos: 40 Mpx f / 1.8 (RGB), 20 Mpx f / 1.6 (monochrome) and 8 Mpx f / 2.4 (telephoto). There was also a 24 Mpx webcam with f / 2.0 light.

Connectivity in the device is provided by the following modules: dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac, LTE, Bluetooth 4.2, NFC, GPS, A-GPS, Glonass, Beidou, Galileo and a USB type C port. Huawei P20 Pro works under the control of Android 8.1 Oreo with the EMUI 8.1 overlay and powered by a 4000 mAh battery with fast charging support. The whole thing measures 155 x 73.9 x 7.8 mm and weighs 180 grams.

Workmanship and design

The issue of design itself is an individual matter for each user, but I personally like the Huawei P20 Pro very much. It is true that its design resembles the iPhone X, but I do not consider it a disadvantage. From a practical point of view, the most important thing is that the manufacturer managed to cram a large display and a fingerprint reader into a relatively small housing. As you know, this model has a cutout in the upper part, which does not have to suit everyone, but fortunately the manufacturer offers the option of masking it. The Huawei P20 Pro is a premium device and it is not only visible on paper or in terms of specifications, but also in design and quality of workmanship.

In my opinion, the device looks great and is made of glass, which refracts light very nicely at times. Unfortunately, glass has relatively many disadvantages. The biggest disadvantage of the glass case is that it collects fingerprints like crazy, making it very difficult to keep clean. The glass casing is of course slippery, so the smartphone "escapes" even when we put it on a relatively straight surface. Additionally, the glass is also prone to scratching, but I must point out that my test specimen did not show too many scratches. If I found one on the casing, I found out that they are actually micro-scratches that are visible only at the right angle and against the light. Unfortunately, you must be aware that the glass housing of the P20 Pro may look much worse after a few months or even years. Fortunately, the manufacturer adds a silicone case to the set. It is true that it does not look very aesthetic and slightly spoils the appearance of the device itself, but the most important thing is that it protects the device against mechanical damage.

The important thing is the front of the device, which in my opinion looks phenomenal, we have a large 6.1-inch screen surrounded by narrow bezels on the sides and a notch in the upper part. We also have a chin, but the manufacturer managed to stuff the fingerprint reader there, so that the whole thing is fully utilized. Despite the use of a screen with such a large diagonal, the P20 Pro is a relatively small device. The dimensions of 155 x 73.9 x 7.8 mm and slightly rounded edges make the smartphone very well and secure in the hand. The fact is that people with smaller hands may find it difficult to use the device comfortably with one hand. Personally, I do not recommend doing it, because the housing, as I mentioned, is quite slippery, so a moment of inattention is enough for the phone to slip out of your hands.

As for me, the Huawei P20 Pro is a device that looks distinctive and elegant. However, a slight downside is the fact that all three camera lenses protrude above the housing, so the smartphone does not lie straight on flat surfaces, and the lenses are exposed to damage. The Chinese manufacturer has been focusing on the high quality of the materials used for a long time and can fit everything together almost perfectly, which is confirmed by all flagship (and not only) Huawei devices. However, Huawei's smartphones were inferior to the flagship competition in one respect, of course, we are talking about increased resistance to weather conditions, which has only just "debuted" with the Huawei Mate 10 Pro . P20 Pro, on the other hand, has an IP67 certificate, which ensures dustproofness and water resistance, thanks to which we can theoretically submerge the device to a depth of 1 m for a maximum of 30 minutes. However, it is worth bearing in mind that Huawei indicates on its website that water damage is not covered by the warranty.

Finally, let's take a closer look at the arrangement of individual components, ports and connectors. Above the surface of the display you will find a front camera lens, a set of sensors, a speaker for calls and a notification LED. There is a fingerprint reader under the screen. On the back, on the casing, in turn, we have three camera lenses, a double LED diode, the Leica marking, the Huawei logo, as well as several inscriptions and trademarks. As for the edge management, on the right we have volume control buttons and a switch. On the left side there is a slot for two nanoSIM cards. On the upper edge you will find an infrared port and a microphone, and on the lower edge - a USB Type-C port and a multimedia speaker.

Display

Huawei P20 Pro is equipped with a 6.1-inch OLED display with an unusual aspect ratio of 18.7: 9. It is characterized by Full HD + resolution, which with the mentioned parameters gives a pixel density per inch at the level of 408 points. This value may not be the best, but in practice it means quite a good quality of displayed fonts, which is perfectly acceptable and it is difficult to fault anything in this respect. Even at close range, the jagged edges of the icons cannot be seen. The 18.7: 9 aspect ratio suggests that the smartphone has thin frames surrounding the display, and it really is. On three sides we have really narrow edges, while in the upper part there is a notch, the so-called "Notch", which is liked by some and quite the contrary. Personally, I am neutral in this matter and the presence of this type of cutout does not bother me in any way. Of course, you can get used to the note in a few moments.

Importantly, the cutout in the screen can be "hidden". All you need to do in the settings is to find an option that dims the space on the sides. When it comes to adjusting the content to unusual proportions, there is no problem with it - most programs scale automatically, while the rest can be done manually. As I mentioned, the Huawei P20 Pro has an OLED display, which is characterized by great color saturation, deep blacks, high contrast, and excellent viewing angles. The brightness should also be mentioned - both minimum and maximum. In full sun, I had no problem seeing the content displayed on the screen, but at night I did not feel any discomfort.

In weaker lighting conditions, we can additionally turn on the blue light filter, which reduces the emission of blue light. There was also a light sensor, which did not cause any problems during the tests and worked as it should. In the screen settings, we can change the screen mode and the font size (small / normal / large / very large / large). There was also the possibility of changing the color temperature and lowering the resolution to HD +. There is also an Intelligent Resolution feature that automatically reduces the screen resolution to save power.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that after taking the device out of the box, it has a factory-applied protective film, thanks to which scratches are not visible on the screen. When it comes to whether the foil has a negative effect on the glide of the finger, I did not experience any inconvenience in this respect - the glide of the finger is perfectly appropriate.

The camera

As you know, the Huawei P20 Pro has three separate photo modules: the main 40 Mpx with f / 1.8 aperture, the monochrome 20 Mpx with f / 1.6, as well as the 8 Mpx zf / 2.4 telephoto lens. The whole thing is of course signed with the Leica logo. The presence of three lenses itself is quite unusual and probably many users think that it is only a marketing gimmick. How is it actually? I'll tell you right away, but first let's focus on the camera app, which has been redesigned a bit. It is still very transparent and user-friendly. Navigating it is done by switching between the right-left screens. We have a separate mode on each screen, so you only need to slide your finger in the appropriate direction to run it. We no longer have to enter a separate tab, where all modes were available so far, although it is worth noting that such a section also appeared, but it has fewer items on it.

Huawei P20 Pro offers a whole lot of modes, which should positively surprise the potential user, and among them are undoubtedly worth mentioning: aperture mode, portrait, photo, movie, AR lens, Pro, slow motion, night mode, panorama, black and white, painting light, HDR, time-lapse, filter, 3D panorama, watermark, document scanning, 3D model and art mode.

Huawei P20 Pro, like Honor 10 and Huawei P20 is equipped with artificial intelligence that can recognize photographed scenes and objects. All this so that the photos are of the best quality and are simply attractive to the user. The smartphone can offer this thanks to the NPU (Neutral Processing Unit) chip embedded in the Kirin 970 processor, which is responsible for the operation of the already mentioned artificial intelligence. The manufacturer informs that as of today, the algorithms can recognize 500 different scenes and 22 types of objects, thanks to which the smartphone can choose the best parameters to take a photo. Below you can see photos taken in automatic mode (left) and photos taken in automatic mode with AI turned on (right):

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As for the quality of photos taken in AI mode, it's really good. However, I have the impression that sometimes the mentioned mode tweaks the colors too much, which looks a bit unnatural. You can judge the quality yourself by looking at the above photos.

Now let's move on to the quality of photos taken in automatic mode. I must admit that they are really good and undoubtedly please the eye. It is also worth noting here that the photos in the automatic mode are taken quickly, the autofocus itself is accurate, and all the relevant parameters are correctly selected. The photos are characterized by a lot of details as well as perfectly reproduced colors. The sharpness and contrast also look positive. Night photos, which were also taken in the automatic mode, are of appropriate quality. It happens that some photos show noise, and the detail leaves much to be desired, but the color reproduction is great. Due to the large number of photos taken with this model, I allowed myself to throw them all into the album on Google Photos, to which you will be redirected by clicking on the following text:

Pictures taken with Huawei P20 Pro during testing

Particularly noteworthy is the night mode, which differs slightly from the older flagship Huawei models. The producer used a night mode here, which works with "intelligent stabilization", so we can take pictures without using a tripod. There was also the possibility of taking photos with a depth of field. The bokeh effect is clearly visible in the photos, and the function itself "cuts" the foreground from the second quite nicely. Huawei P20 Pro can also take monochrome photos. It should also not be forgotten that the telephoto lens allows you to take photos with a 3x optical zoom and a 5x hybrid zoom. Below you can see the effects achieved by the P20 Pro.

The frontal apparatus remains to be discussed. It is characterized by a resolution of 20 Mpx and an aperture value of f / 2.0. The selfie quality itself is really good. Anyway, you can judge it yourself by browsing the entire album, to which, as I mentioned, you can find the link a little higher. The video materials should also be mentioned. We can record videos in a maximum resolution of 4K UHD at 30 frames per second. It is also possible to record in "stretched" Full HD + resolution and standard Full HD resolution at 60 and 30 frames per second. The overall quality of the recordings is satisfactory - they are smooth, characterized by correct color reproduction, as well as quick and smooth change of exposure. The autofocus performance is also positive. You can also judge the quality yourself by browsing the playlist below:

Finally, it is worth noting that the Huawei P20 Pro has been equipped with the Slow Motion mode. It allows you to record video in HD resolution at 960 frames per second. It is also possible to record at 240 frames per second and 120 frames per second. The quality of the recordings is not great, but I must admit that sometimes you can get pretty good results. There is also a time-lapse mode.

Battery

The Achilles' heel of most smartphones is the battery, which in the vast majority of cases does not allow for good working times. You are probably curious what it looks like in the P20 Pro, I guess? It's not bad, but it could always be better. Importantly, the smartphone is equipped with a 4000 mAh battery.

With everyday, more demanding use of energy, it is enough for one working day, of which the time on the screen is on average 4-5.5 hours. I have used the P20 Pro at full capacity on several occasions. In such a scenario, the display brightness was set to the maximum, all the basic communication modules were turned on, and the navigation and Spotify were running for several hours without interruption. With such use, the smartphone allows you to get about 3 - 3.5 hours on the screen on, which in practice means that it will keep up with us for about half a day.

However, with moderate use of energy, it calmly suffices for one and a half days of work. Such a scenario allows you to get about 5.5 - 6.5 hours on the screen on, and once I managed to get even a little over 6 hours on the screen on. Working time, of course, depends mainly on the brightness of the display, connected communication modules, as well as the applications that we currently use.

You do not have to worry too much about energy loss, because the Huawei P20 Pro is equipped with fast charging technology. The charger included in the set can charge 85% within an hour, and the full charging of the device takes about 80 minutes.

Biometric security (fingerprint reader, face recognition)

The scanner is placed at the front, just below the screen, which is to some people and not others. As for me, each location is good, but the undoubted advantage of the scanner on the front is the possibility of using it at any time. The reader is always active, which means that you only need to put your finger on the scanner to unlock the device.

The reader is effective and works properly in every situation - during the entire testing period, I never did not want to read my fingerprint correctly. The scanner works flawlessly - it unlocks the phone really quickly, regardless of the angle at which we put our finger. The scanner can also be used to take photos, view them in the gallery, and turn off the alarm. Using the scanner, you can also block access to selected applications and create a Safe.

The scanner can additionally replace the function keys, thanks to which we gain a little more space on the screen. In the settings, we find the option responsible for enabling gestures on the reader:

Getting used to the individual gestures takes only a few moments, and in my opinion such a solution is much better than the touch buttons on the screen. You can say that facial recognition in Huawei devices has already settled in for good, which I am personally very happy with. This solution is the most convenient and the fastest, but at the same time the least secure, although it is worth noting at this point that I was unable to unlock the device with a photo during the tests.

After picking up the smartphone, its screen lights up, so we don't have to backlight it ourselves. Facial recognition works very well, regardless of the lighting conditions - in good lighting conditions there is no problem with unlocking the device and it works with every attempt. In this respect, Huawei smartphones can be ranked among the leaders, because the competition in this field is not so good. When it comes to recognizing the face after dark, I must admit that it is very good - after taking the device in your hand, the screen lights up and goes into the strongest backlight, thanks to which our face is illuminated and the camera can recognize our face without any problems.

Software

Huawei P20 Pro works under the control of the Android 8.1 Oreo system with the EMUI 8.1 overlay. The interface is clear, functional and really pleasing to the eye, although many people may not like the fact that it differs greatly from the standard version of Android. The overlay itself gives us a lot of possibilities to personalize the phone - choose a theme, wallpaper and icons. A new feature in Honor 10 is the party mode, which allows you to connect multiple smartphones with each other so that they all form one multi-channel sound system. Pretty good function, but completely unhelpful for me. The interface is full of many functions that, contrary to many opinions, are very useful in everyday use. Let me not describe each function separately, I will only mention the most interesting of them:

Performance

The tested model is powered by the HiSilicon Kirin 970 processor, which consists of eight cores: 4 x ARM Cortex-A73 clock speed 2.36 GHz and 4 x ARM Cortex-A53 clocked at 1.8 GHz and the Mali-G72 MP2 graphics chip. In addition, a special NPU for artificial intelligence was used here. The set is supported by 6 GB of RAM. This combination means that the Huawei P20 Pro has nothing to be ashamed of in terms of performance and is in no way inferior to the flagship competition.

The components used work very well in everyday use, which is somewhat confirmed by the results of synthetic tests, although personally I am not a fan of numbers, but to some extent they translate into the actual performance of the device. During everyday, typical use, the smartphone works very efficiently - it is fast, animations are smooth, and the whole thing does not freeze without a reason. Switching between applications is also quick and almost instantaneous. The important thing is the management of RAM memory, which in this case is downright phenomenal. For a while, I could forget to close the apps in the background, and when I returned to them, they were instantly launched without reloading.

The graphic layout used works very well even with more demanding titles available on Google Play. We can easily run games such as Real Racing 3, Asphalt 8 or Mortal Kombat X on the highest graphics settings. Interestingly, on the P20 Pro we will not launch the latest version of Asphalt 9. At least that was the case during the tests, I do not know if anything has changed in this matter. I did not notice that the Huawei P20 Pro somehow overheated. The only thing I noticed was a slight warming up during a longer game or more demanding activities. However, these are not the temperatures that would adversely affect the comfort of using the phone.

The above-mentioned results obtained in the most popular benchmarks prove the excellent performance of the tested model. In the screenshots below you can see how the P20 Pro fares in synthetic tests:

Sound quality

Huawei P20 Pro has been equipped with stereo speakers. The main loudspeaker is placed on the lower edge, and the second (also used for calls) is located above the display in the cutout. The sound quality is as good as possible and I have no objections in this respect. The sound is usually clean, dynamic and characterized by clear bass. While listening to music, even at the maximum volume level, I did not notice any noise or distortion.

Importantly, the P20 Pro does not have a 3.5 mm audio jack, but fortunately the manufacturer adds a USB Type-C to 3.5 mm mini jack adapter, which allows you to connect your headphones. The set also includes in-ear headphones, which are connected to the device, of course, via USB type C. I assess the quality of the headphones and the sound that comes out of them positively.

Communication

As befits a flagship model, in terms of connectivity we get all the necessary modules. We have at our disposal a dual-band Wi-Fi module (802.11 ac / b / g / n /, 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz) and NFC. The only downside is actually a bit outdated Bluetooth version 4.2, but it works with additional accessories without any problems. Navigation throughout the entire testing period was not problematic - the signal was caught very quickly. During the tests, I did not have any problems with the range of the mobile network, and the quality of the calls was at a very high level - the interlocutors heard me loud and clear, and I also had no problems understanding the people on the other side.

The tested model is equipped with Dual SIM, but it is not possible to expand the internal memory with a microSD card. It is a pity that the manufacturer did not add the possibility of memory expansion, which was not the case with last year's Huawei / Honor models. As for Dual SIM, it works here in standby mode, which means that one of the cards ceases to be active when we start a phone call using the other one. Huawei P20 Pro has been equipped with 128 GB of built-in memory, which for a potential user remains about 112 GB. There is also a USB 2.0 type C port, which offers OTG support, thanks to which we can connect additional accessories to the device.

Summary

Huawei P20 Pro is a modern smartphone that in many ways can fight for the title of the best smartphone of 2018. Undoubtedly, it is a model aimed at more demanding users who appreciate great performance. P20 Pro is a smartphone with definitely more advantages than disadvantages, and it is pure pleasure to use it. I admit that after a few weeks of testing it was very difficult for me to part with this model.

The smartphone is characterized by a strongly refreshed look and the highest quality materials. Its greatest advantages also include an efficient processor, a phenomenal display, as well as a fast-acting system with an eye-catching and feature-rich EMUI 8.1 overlay. One of the best cameras on the market should not be forgotten either. In terms of the quality of photos, the Huawei P20 Pro will satisfy every user, both a professional photographer and a typical layman. Additional advantages include stereo speakers, Dual SIM, 6 GB of RAM, 128 GB of built-in memory, waterproof housing, and NFC. The battery also does a good job in this model, which allows you to achieve much better working times than competitors' smartphones.

The Huawei P20 Pro model has shown that it is a really strong company that has not said the last word yet. I admit that I am already looking forward to the premieres of the next flagship smartphones of this manufacturer.

What do you think about the Huawei P20 Pro? Would you decide to buy it? Or maybe you are the owners of this model? Let me know in the comments!