Huawei's latest flagship really is a phone to sit up and take notice of. Not only is the device loaded with the flagship Kirin 980 chipset that debuted in the stunning Mate 20 Pro late last year, which as benchmarks prove is lightning fast, but the P30 Pro also comes with buckets of memory and storage, a smaller notch, a significantly bigger battery, and a redesigned camera system. If you want the best camera, the best battery life, or just a really good smartphone, the P30 Pro is still worth your attention. The Huawei P30 Pro price currently sits at £899 SIM free for the 128GB storage variant, and £1,099 for the 512GB version.
DESIGN DISPLAY
This has enabled Huawei to increase the size of the screen from the 6.1-inch panel seen on the P20 Pro to a larger 6.47-inch FHD+ resolution OLED with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio. The display looks solid – it's colourful and vibrant. If you ever played with the Mate 20 Pro, you already know what the P30 Pro feels like. The overall format is the same, but the P30 Pro is a hair bigger. Other than the different notches and camera setups, these phones are almost identical. The Huawei P30 Pro feels very comfortable in the hand, despite the slippery glass back. It’s a little heavy, but not too much. While most folks will want to use it with two hands, once you slip a good case on, you can definitely use it with one. The pixel density, brightness, and contrast levels are on point. By default, display colors are set to Vivid, which I prefer over the slightly warmer Default mode. You can easily pick a custom color setting as well.
CAMERA
Chances are you’re here for the camera impressions. Everything else about the Huawei P30 Pro is impressive, but not really new. The camera is in a class of its own. The impressive 3x lossless optical zoom that helped the P20 Pro snatch a five-star review from us last year has been increased to 5x optical zoom. Not only that, but there's also a 10x lossless hybrid zoom feature that uses the AI built-into the Kirin 980 chipset to sharpen up your shots and remove any blur from hand movements. It's seriously impressive stuff. The P30 Pro has three main cameras and a Time-of-Flight (ToF) sensor that measures the distance to objects in the field of view. The main 40MP camera is what you’ll use in most cases. Because it uses pixel binning, it saves 10MP images by default, but you can switch to the full 40MP resolution if you prefer it.
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SOFTWARE
The Huawei P30 Pro runs EMUI 9.1, based on Android 9 Pie. Despite the change in version number, EMUI 9.1 remains very similar to the UI on the Mate 20 Pro, with some small improvements. The P30 Pro finally displays third-party notifications on the always-on display. The software experience on the P30 Pro is good. The UI is well-designed and feature-rich, the gesture controls work great, and you have lots of customization options, including a well-done dark theme. EMUI looks a little dated though, compared to Samsung’s One UI and Google’s own take on Android.
BATTERY
After the excellent camera, the P30 Pro’s battery is its best feature. Thankfully there's a hefty 4,200mAh battery cell underneath the bonnet. This is the same battery that featured in the Huawei Mate 20 Pro last year, which was incredibly impressive on test, and as you would expect it offers the same excellent performance in the P30 Pro. When the P30 Pro eventually runs out of juice, it’s really easy to fill it back up. The charger in the box is a 40W model, which is much faster than other fast chargers out there. It can charge the P30 Pro up to 70 percent battery in just 30 minutes. It’s really impressive. Support for 15W wireless charging is also great. P30 Pro also boasts fast-wired and fast-wireless charging, as well as the reverse wireless charging that debuted with the Huawei Mate 20 Pro last year.
So,the P30 Pro is a very impressive piece of kit. There's also improved battery life, IP68 water and dust resistance, reverse wireless charging, a faster and more accurate in-display fingerprint scanner, the flagship Kirin 980 chipset, more case colours than before, and more ... let's be honest, the P30 Pro is really all about the camera. And what a camera it is! You’re getting a real flagship phone at a real flagship price.
