Last year's P20 put Huawei on the map as a force to be reckoned with in terms of smartphone photography, and Huawei is doubling down with the newly announced P30 and P30 Pro. The phones boast three and four-rear facing cameras respectively, enhanced optical zoom, and a new "SuperSpectrum" imaging sensor designed to improve lowlight performance. There's a few other new features across both phones, but the emphasis is well and truly on photography.
Before we get stuck into the details, you'll be able to pre-order both phones from today, ahead of an April 16 release date. The standard Huawei P30 will set you back $1,099, while the Huawei P30 Pro is a tad pricier at $1,599. Anyone who pre-orders either phone will get a bonus Sonos One wireless speaker, valued at $299. This offer runs until April 15.
If you'd prefer to get your new phone on a Telstra, Optus or Vodafone plan, you can compare all P30 and P30 Pro plans in our pricing superguide.
Read our full Huawei P30 Pro review here!
Huawei P30 Pro
The P30 Pro is Huawei's new top-tier device with your standard top-tier processor et al. While that's par for the course for any new flagship device, the P30 Pro's camera improvements are a significant leap forward over the already impressive P20 Pro.
The heart of the P30 Pro's photographic prowess is a new "SuperSpectrum" imaging sensor that's been in development for over two years. While most camera sensors use a Red Green Blue (RGB) colour space, the P30 Pro sensor uses Red Yellow Blue. In short, this helps create more detailed images, and provides many of the benefits of a dedicated monochrome lens without the need for a monochrome lens. Huawei also says this allows 40% more light intake.
From a technical perspective, the sensor has an ISO that can be cranked up to 409,600, which is the highest we've ever seen on a smartphone (the previous record was 102,400), and has an integrated cooling system to reduce noise in lowlight. In our initial hands-on, we've found this to mean that the Huawei P30 Pro can take surprisingly clear photos in almost pitch black conditions.
In terms of cameras, the you'll find four on the back of the P30 Pro. The setup includes the following:
- A 40MP primary lens, with an aperture of f/1.6
- A 20MP ultra-wide angle lens with an aperture with f/2.2 and aspherical optics from Leica said to reduce fish-eye distortion
- A 8MP telephoto lens with an aperture of f/3.4
- A Time of Flight lens to assist with measuring depth for portrait mode
This combination of lenses gives the P30 Pro a few nifty tricks.
The 8MP telephoto lens has a periscopic design where the angle of the telephoto lens is rotated by 90 degrees and a prism is used to refract light into it. This allows for a longer lens and a deeper zoom without making the phone thicker. The P30 Pro's telephoto lens offers 5x optical zoom, but can use software to zoom beyond what the hardware is physically capable of. This gets you 10x hybrid zoom (where you lose a bit of detail but is still an improvement over traditional digital zoom) and 50x digital zoom.
The P20 Pro's Night Mode is back, and better than ever. Night mode uses exposure bracketing to get a more detailed image when shooting in lowlight environments. The P30 Pro will take multiple photos at different exposures over a short period of time and stitch them together to provide extra pop and a wider dynamic range.
Other returning features include a "super macro" mode for extreme closeups and the ultra-wide angle lens. The ultra-wide angle lens still has some slight fisheye distortion to it, but much less than we've seen on comparable devices.
In terms of non-photography related improvements, Huawei has integrated the earpiece directly into the P30 Pro's display for a cleaner design. There's still a standard speaker on the bottom of the phone for anything that's not a phone call, however. The P30 Pro has also inherited a few features from last year's Mate 20 Pro. These include an in-screen fingerprint reader and reverse wireless charging (the P30 Pro can be used to top up any Qi compatible device). And as with the Mate 20, the P30 Pro uses Huawei's proprietary NM Card format for expandable storage rather than MicroSD.
Other key specifications for the P30 Pro include a curved 6.47-inch 1080p+ display, a Kirin 980 processor, 256GB of expandable storage, 8GB of RAM, a 32MP front-facing camera, IP68 water-resistance, and a 4,200mAh battery said to last for two days.
The Huawei P30 Pro will be available from April 16 with pre-orders starting today. It will set you back $1,599. Telstra, Optus, and Vodafone will all be ranging the Huawei P30 Pro on a plan, and JB Hi-Fi, Harvey Norman, Mobileciti and Kogan will have it outright. The P30 Pro variant available through Telstra and Vodafone will be single SIM, while all other retailers - including Optus - will have the dual SIM configuration. This marks the first time an Australian telco has ranged a dual SIM smartphone.
You'll be able to get it in a choice of "Aurora" or "Breathing Crystal".
Huawei P30
The standard P30 may share part of its name with the P30 Pro, but it's a significantly different device. The screen is smaller, and flat rather than curved. The earpiece isn't built into the screen. It's not water-resistant, there's no reserve wireless charging, and it has a smaller capacity battery. Despite this, Huawei says the P30 should still last two days.
The most significant differences between the P30 and P30 Pro are related to the camera. While they use the same SuperSpectrum sensor, the lens configuration is closer to what was on last year's Mate 20 Pro. You get:
- A 40MP primary lens, with an aperture of f/1.8
- A 16MP ultra-wide lens with an aperture of f/2.2
- An 8MP telephoto lens with an aperture of f/2.4
There's three rear-facing cameras rather than four, sacrificing the time of flight lens. The primary 40MP lens is almost identical to that found in the P30 Pro, but the ultra-wide is a lower resolution and the 8MP telephoto isn't periscopic. This means optical zoom is capped at 3x, hybrid zoom at 5x, and digital at 10x. In addition, the P30 has lower light sensitivity: it can only reach an ISO of 102,400
Other key specifications for the P30 include a 6.1-inch 1080p+ display, a Kirin 980 processor, 128GB of expandable storage, 6GB of RAM, a 32MP front-facing camera, an in-screen fingerprint reader, and a 3,650mAh battery.
The Huawei P30 will also be available from April 16 with pre-orders opening today. It will sell for $1,099 outright. Optus and Vodafone will both range the P30 on a plan, and JB Hi-Fi, Harvey Norman, Mobileciti and Kogan will have it outright. As with the P30 Pro, the variant available through Vodafone will be single SIM, while all other retailers - including Optus - will have the dual SIM configuration.
As with the P30 Pro, the P30 is available in a choice of "Aurora" or "Breathing Crystal".
WhistleOut travelled to Paris for the launch of the Huawei P30 as a guest of Huawei.
Alex Choros
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