That’s all powered by a hefty
4,200mAh battery underneath the
bonnet. This is the same as the
Mate 20 Pro and offers major
longevity. It easily carried us
through two full days of
moderate use, so we didn’t feel
any sense of anxiety about
running out of power.
According to Huawei, the
advances in both AI and battery
management brought about by the
Kirin 980 chipset (nestled inside the
P30 Pro) and the latest Android OS
mean the P30 Pro technically
delivers better battery performance
than the Mate 20 Pro, but the two
devices felt similar in terms of
battery drain – it’s such a varied
thing, day-to-day, anyway.
The P30 Pro is a truly impressive
piece of kit. It has a gorgeous
dual-curved design on the front
and back that makes the mammoth
6.47-inch OLED display almost
manageable in one-hand. And
while it doesn’t match the Galaxy
S10 or iPhone XS in terms of
refinement or fit-and-finish
perfection, there’s no doubt this is a
well-made smartphone.
So there you have it: the Huawei
P30 Pro is without doubt an
excellent, marked upgrade over the
P20 Pro, and a strong rival to
Samsung’s Galaxy S10+.
It doesn’t quite pip Samsung’s
handset as our favourite Android
phone of the moment, but that’s
just down to the software. Huawei’s
EMUI is way behind OneUI when it
comes to both looking and feeling
like what a smartphone should be
in 2019.If you want a truly fantastic
camera on your phone, buy the
P30 Pro and don’t look back.in the digital zoom. It’s seriously
impressive stuff. Text works
particularly well. For example, using
the 10x hybrid zoom we were able
to home in on a small road sign at
the other end of a busy street, only
to find the resulting image almost
as sharp as if we were stood right
beside it.
Fresh prints
When it comes to security, Huawei
has gone for an in-display
fingerprint scanner. Unfortunately,
this isn’t the fancy ultrasonic variety
you’ll find on the Galaxy S10, which
works through both rain and sweat
- this is an optical sensor, like the
ones used in the Mate 20 Pro and
the OnePlus 6T. It works great in
good conditions, but we did find
the S10’s more reliable overall.
As for the design of the phone
itself, there’s no doubt that it’s a
premium handset. The days of
the tacky, hollow-feel to the
aluminium on the likes of the
Huawei P9 and P10 are long
gone. The curved glass and
metal chassis of the P30 Pro feels
solid. That said, it still lacks some
of the refinement or fit-and-finish
perfection you get with Apple
devices or high-end Samsung
phones. Of course, that’s all
made up for by the stunning,
shimmering ‘gradient’ colour
finishes, which really help this
phone to stand out from the
bustling Android crowd.Smarter, faster
As you would expect, the latest
flagship smartphone from
Huawei is running its latest
operating system. Dubbed
EMUI 9.1, the software is based on
Android 9.0 Pie. It runs extremely
well on the hardware and offers
all the usual features you’d expect
from a flagship smartphone in2019, including the ability to copy
something on your phone and
paste it immediately on a Huawei
MateBook laptop, which is a pretty
nifty feature.
However, EMUI still isn’t an
attractive operating system by
any stretch of the imagination.
The cartoon-ish design (and not
in a charming way, either) looks
outdated and infantile. When
compared to the Android
experience offered on the likes of
the Google Pixel or OnePlus, or the
new Samsung OneUI software
powering the latest-generation of
Samsung Galaxy handsets, EMUI
looks astonishingly subpar.
The P30 Pro also boasts fast-
wired and fast-wireless charging, as
well as reverse wireless charging.“The quadruple camera system has had a complete
overhaul that starts with the sensor. It was worth it”
Upgrade
Hauwei P30 Pro
August 2019 | |^87
KEYFEATURES
Hauwei P30 Pro
Supplier http://www.hauwei.com/uk
Operating system Android 9.0, EMUI
Processor Kirin 980
Storage 128 G B/512G B
RAM 8GB
Cameras 40MP wide, 20MP ultra-wide,
8MP 5x telephoto, Time-of-Flight camera
rear; 32MP front
Weight 192g
Screen size 6.47-inch AMOLED
Display resolution 1080x2340