It is spring which implies that it is time for Huawei to unveil its newest P sequence flagship. Whereas Huawei has beforehand used MWC to introduce its new handsets, the P20 Professional is such an enormous replace that Huawei rightly determined to carry a separate launch occasion for it.

With earlier fashions of the P sequence, the distinction between the common and the Professional/Plus variations have been minimal- resembling a barely higher digicam. However that’s not the case with the 2018 version.

The Huawei P20 Professional is a way more spectacular telephone than the Huawei P20. Whereas each telephones come sporting new designs, the P20 Professional is by far the higher handset, with a bigger display and an enormous digicam improve in comparison with what we noticed on the Huawei P10 Plus.

Beneath you’ll discover every thing you have to know in regards to the Huawei P20 Professional. We might be publishing our hands-on assessment as quickly as we get extra time with the unit.

Lower to the chase

• What’s it? Huawei’s new top-end flagship telephone
• When is it out? We’re unsure but, however we predict it’s going to be on sale quickly
• What does it value? We count on a really excessive worth

Huawei P20 Professional worth and launch date

The P20 Professional was simply introduced at a launch occasion in Paris the place Huawei introduced it alongside its sibling, the P20. We don’t at present have any pricing particulars for both handset, however we count on to be taught extra on the pricing in UAE, Saudi Arabia and the remainder of the Center East quickly.

Huawei has confirmed the telephone might be coming to the UAE and Saudi Arabia within the subsequent few weeks however an actual launch date isn’t but identified. The corporate normally holds a regional launch occasion for its flagship merchandise the place such particulars are introduced and we count on the identical for the P20 sequence.

Huawei P20 Professional design and show

We received a peek into Huawei’s design language for the brand new P20 sequence by the nova 3e that was revealed final week. However the place the transfer 3e felt gentle and mainstream, the P20 Professional is full-on premium. 

Just like the Mate 10 Professional, Huawei has made the change to a glass again on the P20 Professional which is a departure from the complete steel physique unibody design we noticed on earlier years fashions. 

The fingerprint sensor has moved from the again of the telephone to under the show, and you’ll swipe left and proper on it to navigate the telephone in the event you’ve set it up within the settings. That looks as if an odd choice as a result of the sensor on nova 3e was positioned on the again and labored nicely.

Actual dimensions of the telephone are at present unclear, however we all know it’s set to be 7.8mm thick and on the rear it’ll have Huawei branding down the aspect under the digicam setup.

Not like the Huawei P20, this telephone is waterproof as much as IP67, so that you’ll be capable of drop this in a puddle with out worrying about flooding the internals. That is additionally Huawei’s justification for not together with a three.5mm headphone jack on the P20 Professional, which is a little bit of a disgrace in the event you wished to make use of wired headphones on this telephone.

Coloration selections for Center East might be Midnight Blue and Black at launch with the Twilight model following at a later stage.

The pattern for main producers in 2018 is to go for an 18:9 side ratio show, and Huawei has executed that for the P20 Professional. It’s a 6.1-inch OLED display with a decision of 2240 x 1080.

That’s Full HD+, so we don’t count on the image high quality to be as excessive as on QHD merchandise just like the Samsung Galaxy S9. That being stated, our time with the nova 3e did not depart us asking for extra when it comes to display sharpness so we count on the OLED display on the P20 Professional to look simply positive.

There’s a notch on the high of the display, so it’s possible you’ll initially suppose it seems to be like a variety of different telephones. Inside that notch sits the front-facing digicam and some others options, however if you wish to cover you can head into the settings and discover a solution to block out an entire line on the high of the telephone for notifications and different particulars.

Huawei P20 Professional specs and efficiency

As anticipated, the P20 Professional is powered by the HiSilicon Kirin 970 chipset that’s made by Huawei and that we’ve seen earlier than contained in the Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro.

Though we haven’t examined the P20 Professional extensively, the chipset was impressively fast and highly effective inside these telephones from final yr so we’d count on the same stage of energy on the P20.

Coupled with 6GB of RAM, it ought to be able to dealing with something thrown at it resembling enjoying high-end video games or modifying pictures.

The chipset can be filled with synthetic intelligence options that permit the telephone to be taught your habits and higher optimize for them forward of time.

The way in which the corporate normally reveals this off is by displaying how briskly it may possibly arrange pictures, however on your day-to-day use it ought to work out once you use your telephone to higher optimize the battery and provide a couple of digicam options that we’ll clarify within the part under.

There’s just one storage model of the P20 Professional and that comes with 128GB of house. If that is not sufficient for you, MicroSD help is confirmed nevertheless it’s not at present clear what dimension playing cards you’ll be capable of use with it. And in the event you do not wish to add extra storage, you possibly can at all times use that slot so as to add an additional SIM card.

Huawei P20 Professional battery and OS

Contained in the P20 Professional you’ll discover a Four,000mAh battery powering the factor. That sounds large, however then it additionally has a big display to energy. We’ll remember to check the battery in our full assessment after we can.

There’s fast-charging know-how right here as nicely, however there’s no wi-fi charging on the P20 Professional which is odd contemplating that Huawei has moved from a steel to a glass again which is extra fragile.

Huawei’s newest handset additionally comes with Android 8.1 Oreo software program onboard, nevertheless it gained’t seem like it does on the Google Pixel 2 or Pixel 2 XL because it comes with Huawei’s personal overlay excessive.

It’s referred to as Emotion UI (EMUI) eight.1 and provides further options from Huawei together with its Share app that means that you can add pictures, video and extra to your laptop computer, and the Huawei Clone app that means that you can copy your telephone knowledge throughout to a different system simply.

Different options inside Emotion UI eight.1 are just a little bit unclear in the meanwhile however we’ll remember to push it to its limits for the Huawei P20 Professional assessment and discover out every thing else it presents.

Huawei P20 Professional digicam

The place the Huawei P20 Professional actually stands out from the P20 is with its rear digicam. As the entire teasing and advertising has been about, that is the primary telephones to characteristic three cameras on the rear.

Huawei claims it has the best pixel depend on a smartphone ever, with a 40MP RGB sensor working alongside a 20MP monochrome one. The telephone will then mix the identical picture from each to create extremely detailed pictures. Aperture-wise the monochrome is an f/1.6 and the RGB is f/1.eight.

There’s additionally an 8MP telephoto sensor on the rear of the telephone which might provide as much as 5 instances zoom.

That rear setup additionally comes with new options resembling an improved white stability, bigger pixel sizes than a lot of the competitors and a Four-in-1 hybrid focus system.

Huawei’s AI options permit the digicam to know what it’s pointing at. For those who level the rear cameras at a plate of meals it ought to be capable of establish it and use its AI smarts to optimize the settings completely for taking pictures of meals.

There are a bunch of recent modes with six totally different scene detections, together with fireworks and waterfall.

As for video, the primary new characteristic is a Tremendous Gradual Movement mode that may document at 960 frames per second in 720p. That’s the identical because the Samsung Galaxy S9, however not so good as the Sony Xperia XZ2 and Xperia XZ2 Compact.

On the entrance you get a 24MP digicam, which is way extra megapixels than most front-facing cameras. We’ll let you understand how a lot distinction all these pixels make after we’ve put the P20 Professional by a full assessment.