Huawei has launched its flagship P20 and P20 Pro smartphones at an event in Paris. The P20 and P20 Pro are camera-focused smartphones and notably, the P20 Pro sports the much-awaited tripe rear camera setup from Leica. Both the P20-series smartphones come with AI-powered features, with the optics ‘co-engineered’ with Leica.
Huawei Consumer Business Group CEO Richard Yu announced at the event that the company has skipped the P11 model after P10 and jumped straight to P20. Yu also spoke about the design aesthetic and the major improvements the new Huawei P20 and P20 Pro smartphones have over the previous models. The Pricing of Huawei P20 starts at 649 Euros.
Huawei P20, P20 Pro Camera features
The highlight of the launch was the triple rear camera setup of the Huawei P20 Pro. It sports an 8MP sensor with 3x optical zoom Leica telephoto lens. The second one is a 40MP RGB 1/1.7-inch sensor, while the third one is a 20MP monochrome sensor. Between the larger lenses, there is a laser transmitter for quick autofocus, and a Leica color temperature sensor as well. The camera has a light sensitivity up to ISO 102400 and also boasts of having the most powerful zoom on a smartphone, apart from a 3x optical zoom.
The Huawei P20, on the other hand, has a dual rear camera setup with a 12MP RGB sensor coupled with a f/1.8 aperture and a 20MP monochrome sensor coupled with a f/1.6 aperture. On the front, the Huawei P20 sports a 24.8-megapixel camera and comes with a 3D portrait lighting effect.
DxOMark, the camera reviewing website, has announced the P20 as the best smartphone camera ever with an overall score of 102 beating the iPhone X and the Samsung Galaxy S9. The P20 Pro has even better DxOMark score, with an overall score of 109.
Both the P20 and P20 Pro offer 4D Predictive Focus that provides instant focus with motion prediction with nearly zero shutter lag. The smartphones support 6-axis stabilization and 960fps super slow-motion video recording also. Both the phones also offer ‘Master AI’ scene recognition, and AI-Assisted Composition, to help with things like alignment and framing.
Huawei P20, P20 Pro Specifications
Both the Huawei P20 and P20 Pro are dual-SIM smartphones that run on EMUI 8.1 based on Android 8.1 Oreo. They also support Google ARCore and a deeply customized Google Assistant. Both the phones also come with a 360-degree Face Unlock feature, said to unlock the smartphones in just 0.6 seconds.
Both smartphones are powered by the octa-core Huawei HiSilicon Kirin 970 SoC coupled with a dedicated NPU (neural processing unit) for AI features. The Huawei P20 has 4GB RAM, while the P20 Pro has 6GB of RAM. Both the phones have 128GB of inbuilt storage.
The Huawei P20 sports a 5.8-inch full-HD+ (1080 x 2244 pixels) RGBW FullView display, with the W standing for White, and meant to provide better sunlight visibility. The display is said to have a peak brightness of 770 nits, smaller bezels and the smaller ‘notch’ design. It also sports a home button that supports edgeless fingerprint sensor and also has gesture support. The Huawei P20 Pro sports a similar 6.1-inch full-HD+ (1080×2240 pixels) OLED FullView display.
The P20 has an IP53 rating for dust and water resistance while Huawei P20 Pro has an IP67 rating. The Huawei P20 runs on a 3,400mAh battery that provides up to 75 hours of continuous music playback. The Huawei P20 Pro is powered by a 4,000mAh battery which can provide up to 89 hours of music playback. Both the batteries support Huawei SuperCharge fast charging as well.
Huawei P20 series new features
The Huawei Share 2.0 feature has been launched for easy sharing between phones and even PCs (Windows and Mac). It offers up to 96Mbps transfer speeds over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Another new feature is the Huawei Phone Clone app and the Huawei Health app, which provides TruScreen heart rate monitoring, TruSleep technology etc.
The Huawei PC Mode is also introduced similar to the Samsung’s DeX platform. It lets users connect their P20 and P20 Pro smartphones to a monitor to get PC-style experience. The P20 and P20 Pro also come with wireless Hi-Fi audio providing 990Kbps bandwidth over Bluetooth. The company has partnered with audio device manufacturers such as Sennheiser, and Audio-Technica to build the HWA ecosystem.
Huawei P20, P20 Pro Price
The Huawei P20 price starts at EUR 649 (Rs. 52,200), while the P20 Pro has been priced at EUR 899 (roughly Rs. 72,300). Both the smartphones are said to be available in Europe immediately, while its India availability is not known as of now.
Alongside these phones, Huawei also launched Huawei FreeBuds, the wireless earbuds that have their own charging case, and Huawei Active Noise Cancelling Earphones as well.