Huawei’s huge cellphone improve for 2018 is the leap to a few cameras on the rear of the P20 Professional, however for some cause that improve isn’t coming to the usual P20 mannequin.
The upgrades for the P20 over final 12 months’s Huawei P10 embrace a glass again, new colours, an AI-toting processor and another under-the-hood spec upgrades, however every little thing here’s a little restricted contemplating the corporate determined to name this the P20 and never the P11.
So do our preliminary impressions imply we expect it’s value shopping for the P20 when the P20 Professional appears to be such a big improve? We’ve been hands-on with the P20 to seek out out what’s improved.
Would you prefer to see the Huawei P20 in motion? Here is our video arms on evaluation
Huawei P20 launch date and value
The Huawei P20 has simply been formally unveiled alongside the P20 Professional, however a precise date for when it’ll land on cabinets has but to be introduced. Huawei could present some details about the discharge on the finish of its launch occasion, and if that’s the case we’ll remember to replace this text.
The identical goes for value, and we’ll replace this hands-on with these particulars as quickly as we hear them. We anticipate that it’ll be the same value to the Huawei P10 at launch although, so round £569.99/AU$899.
Huawei usually doesn’t make its telephones accessible within the US, so don’t count on the P20 to seem on cabinets there, however it’s confirmed for the UK, and is more likely to come to Australia too.
Design and show
The design of Huawei’s flagship has modified rather a lot for the reason that final iteration of the handset. It now has a glass again, which you’ll assume means it feels much less premium than the all-metal P10, however we discovered it to have fairly a high-end really feel within the hand.
The perimeters of the cellphone are steel, with the glass curving down towards these edges so it looks like this handset sits higher in your palm than some others, particularly the Huawei P10.
The 18.7:9 facet ratio show is just like numerous flagship telephones in 2018, and there’s additionally a notch on the high of the show. The attention-grabbing characteristic right here, which we have not seen on different telephones with notched screens, is that you would be able to successfully flip the notch on or off.
By default the notch is on, and appears very similar to the notch on different latest telephones such because the iPhone X and Asus Zenfone 5: it juts into the display screen, with the time and your notifications displayed on the display screen at both facet.
Turning the notch ‘off’ hides it by changing the display screen on both measurement with a black on-screen bezel. The time and notifications are displayed in the identical place, however the notch successfully turns into invisible – you may lose a little bit by way of general display screen, however you could choose the cleaner traces on the high/facet of the show.
The 5.Eight-inch LCD show on the entrance isn’t as attractive because the 6.1-inch OLED on the P20 Professional, however it nonetheless has a reasonably excessive decision of 1080 x 2244. It’s solely Full HD, so doesn’t look as beautiful as telephones from the likes of Samsung or Sony, however it’s nonetheless sharp sufficient to seem like a flagship product.
Huawei is trying to go for a bezel-less look right here, however there’s nonetheless a thick black band on the backside of the cellphone that homes the fingerprint scanner. We really feel it might have made extra sense to place the scanner on the again (as on the Huawei P20 Lite), giving the entrance of the cellphone extra display screen and a pleasant look.
One other attention-grabbing component is the absence of a three.5mm headphone jack on the Huawei P20. The bigger P20 Professional additionally loses the headphone jack, however that cellphone has an IP67 score, which suggests you possibly can put the cellphone in water, and eradicating the headphone jack could have been needed to attain this.
The P20, nevertheless, is simply IP53 rated, so it’s not waterproof, and there’s seemingly no justification for not retaining the headphone jack. If you need to have the ability to use wired headsets along with your cellphone you’ll want to make use of a dongle that plugs into the USB-C port on the backside of the handset.
For colour decisions you’ve obtained the choice of black, champagne gold, midnight blue, pink gold and twilight. The 2 remaining colours there have what the corporate is asking a gradient impact – there is a spectrum of colours, which change relying on the lighting and viewing angle, and it provides the cellphone a novel look.
These are by far the standout colours for the Huawei P20, and look notably daring for those who’re after one thing that catches the attention.
Efficiency and specs
Below the hood of the Huawei P20 is the corporate’s newest Kirin 970 chipset, which beforehand featured within the Huawei Mate 10 Pro and which carried out effectively in our testing.
The chip includes a neural processing unit, and that’s one of many huge parts Huawei is pushing on the P20, because it imbues the cellphone with synthetic intelligence. This basically means the cellphone is best at predicting your actions earlier than you full them.
The best strategy to clarify that is inside the automated digicam mode. Should you level your digicam at a canine, for instance, the digicam will detect that you simply’re taking an image of an animal, and can routinely mess around with the settings to optimize the digicam for taking photographs of animals.
There’s 4GB of RAM at work right here too, which ought to be greater than sufficient for many duties, though it is lower than the 6GB contained in the P20 Professional.
The P20 comes operating Android Eight.1 Oreo software program within the type of Huawei’s personal Emotion UI Eight.1. Meaning the interface appears completely different to numerous different Android telephones, however you get all the options you’d usually get with the newest model of Android, in addition to Huawei-specific ones like the corporate’s Share app, which helps you switch recordsdata between your cellphone and PC.
The P20 comes with a beneficiant 128GB of built-in storage – there are not any different choices. It’s admirable that Huawei has opted to drop the 16GB/32GB and 64GB choices for its flagship, and there’s nonetheless microSD assist if you’d like much more area to your apps and media.
The battery within the P20 is a three,400mAh unit. Huawei’s personal fast-charging expertise is current too, so it shouldn’t take you too lengthy to cost up your cellphone for those who’re in a rush.
Digital camera
Should you’ve heard in regards to the huge digicam upgrades for the Huawei P20 Professional, don’t count on all of these on the P20. It’s nonetheless only a twin rear shooter right here, with a 12MP f/1.Eight RGB sensor and a 20MP f/1.6 monochrome one.
There are a couple of enhancements, together with new ‘AI’ modes, which we touched on earlier and which permit for a greater automated digicam on the rear of the cellphone, however there are not any telephoto options like on the Professional – meaning the zoom most likely received’t be something to jot down residence about.
That mentioned, the digicam was already spectacular on the Huawei P10, so these slight software program enhancements ought to make a powerful providing higher. The has additionally been barely improved, notably by way of the aperture measurement.
There’s additionally now a 960 frames per second slow-motion mode that information at 720p, however whereas the expertise works effectively we discovered it tough to time our slow-mo pictures. You’ve solely obtained a really small window of time by which to press the button, and you’ll want to time it completely to get an efficient shot.
That’s a criticism of most slow-motion cellphone tech we’ve used, however it does prohibit the movies you may make with the characteristic.
It’s additionally a little bit behind the very best slow-mo shooters contemplating the newest telephones from Sony can document at 960fps in 1080p. Should you’re on the lookout for a cellphone with a extremely nice slow-motion mode you’ll possible need to check out Sony’s newest handsets, such because the Xperia XZ2.
On the entrance of the Huawei P20 there’s a whopping 24MP selfie shooter, which may seize in beautiful element each pore, pimple and different facial element that you simply most likely don’t wish to share on social media.
Early verdict
The Huawei P20 is much from probably the most thrilling cellphone we have seen this 12 months, and upon first impressions is definitely one thing of a let-down.
The corporate’s P20 Professional has all the brand new options which might be value getting enthusiastic about, together with that highly effective rear digicam, and whereas the display screen appears a contact nicer on the P20 in comparison with the P10 it’s not probably the most compelling of upgrades.
Every part right here is barely improved, however for those who’re on the lookout for an actual improve over the Huawei P10, and you do not thoughts paying for it, you’ll wish to go for the Huawei P20 Professional as an alternative.