The Huawei P30 Pro in the test: the smartphone with the tenfold zoom

My expectations for the P30 Pro were high, because with the P20 Pro Huawei had launched one of the best smartphones 2018 on the market. In the test I was inspired by the camera system, which for the first time used three cameras with different focal lengths at the same time. A few months later, Huawei took the Mate 20 Pro to the next wave by incorporating 3D face recognition à la the iPhone X and wireless charging capabilities.

With the P30 Pro, the Chinese company is again trying to beat itself. In many ways, that is successful, but not in everyone.

The focus of the developers was obviously back on the cameras. Huawei markets the P30 Pro as having a "Leica 4X Camera". Oh well. There are actually three cameras that can take pictures. What is described as a fourth camera in advertising, however, is a so-called time-of-flight sensor (TOF). It's useful, but it does not take pictures.

Rather, such sensors detect how far the various picture elements are removed from the camera. Your data will then be used, for example, to calculate bokeh effects, ie blurring in the image. In this way, a portrait can be sharply highlighted against a washed-out background.

This is Huawei's P30 Pro

The P30 Pro: Huawei offers its new top smartphone, among other things in this crazy color, which the designers have called "Breathing Crystal". And indeed the paint seems to breathe ...

Because depending on how you hold the device, always creates a different color impression.

This shot shows the actual color best: A somehow metallic shimmering white-blue, which slowly turns down into a purple shimmer. That is noticeable all the time.

The sturdy drawer for two Nano-Sim cards is located at the bottom of the device. There is no way to expand the memory.

The camera system is unusual. At the top is a 20-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens, including the 40-megapixel wide-angle lens and again including the transversely mounted five-fold zoom with 8 megapixels. The small round lens to the right helps the system to detect the removal of subjects.

This sample photo was taken with the normal wide-angle lens and shows no peculiarities apart from falling lines.

This shot was taken at the same time in the same place at five times the zoom. This was also the predecessor models.

Here the same motif has been taken with tenfold zoom.

With this wide-angle shot, the many details and the bold colors stand out.

This image was taken at the maximum magnification level of the P30 Pro, the zoom factor 50, at which the software artificially enlarges an image area. Sharper was this snapshot despite tripod not get it.

In the night mode, the P30 Pro extends the exposure time and in the meantime makes several differently controlled images, which are finally calculated into an image. Here the exposure time was six seconds, for other test photos up to 25 seconds.

Often, however, you do not need the night function at all. This picture was taken in automatic mode from a hotel room.

That's what the cameras are good for

The other three cameras work together like the P20 Pro and Mate 20 Pro, but have slightly different apertures and zoom factors. Thus, the 40 megapixel main camera in the middle now has a f1.6 aperture instead of f1.8, so it can capture more light.

On my test photos that was clearly visible: even at night, the 40-megapixel camera still brings a lot of light and details out (see picture). The optical image stabilizer helps to avoid camera shake at the necessary long exposure times.

The 20-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens of the second camera seems largely the same as the one in the Mate 20 Pro. As the name implies, it is particularly suitable for very wide motifs, such as landscape or group photos.

Impressively close

But the real innovation is what Huawei calls a tenfold hybrid zoom. Behind it is a telephoto lens with five times optical magnification. So far, this was not possible in cell phones, because the necessary lens systems are so long that they would stand far out of the device.

photo gallery

21 pictures

Huawei engineers solved this problem with a trick used by the camera manufacturer Minolta in some compact cameras at the beginning of the millennium: The lenses of the telephoto lens are simply installed across the case. A prism installed in front of the lens deflects the incident light accordingly. On the magnification factor 10 Huawei comes with this system by the fivefold magnified image is additionally enriched with sensor data and enlarged by software.

The results of this trick are impressive. Under good conditions, you can get closer and closer to distant subjects with this camera than with any other smartphone camera. But as soon as it gets dark, this telephoto lens starts to spin. In dimly lit rooms, it was clearly visible how the viewfinder image darkened when switching to tenfold zoom.

This is probably due to the low-f-stop Aperture f / 3.4 have their share, on the other hand, the camera software, which can probably tolerate a few improvements. With eight megapixels, the telephoto is not very high resolution anyway.

photo gallery

26 pictures

As pure Zahlenprotzerei one can regard the maximally possible zoom factor 50. To be able to make a usable picture, you need a solid base or a tripod. And even then the software greatly enlarged images are washed out and out of focus (see picture).

But if you solve these extremes, the P30 Pro's cameras will take good to very good pictures in almost every situation, making many other smartphone cameras look old.

Weak face recognition

In addition to the special cameras in the P30 Pro much of the Mate 20 Pro. The processor, for example, is the same and is more powerful. In addition, there is a large battery in the case, which ensured during the test days that my device never ran out of energy.

Nice thing: The battery can be charged very quickly and wirelessly very comfortably by cable. Like the Mate 20 Pro, the P30 Pro can also be used as a wireless charging station for other devices.

There is nothing wrong with the design. The workmanship is fine, the screen is bright and rich in contrast, the memory with 128 GB (GB) or 256 GB is large enough for most users. If you need more, but can not retrofit, there is no slot for memory cards.

Regrettable: The selfie camera with its 32 megapixels makes great shots, but has no 3D sensor, as it had the Mate 20 Pro. The face recognition works so only with 2D images and should therefore be relatively easy to outsmart. In the test, I did not succeed. The built-in fingerprint sensor is likely to be the safer protection mechanism.

Conclusion

advantages and disadvantages

Outstandingly good cameras

Very good workmanship

High performance

Memory not expandable

Expensive

The P30 Pro delivers what has been sorely missed on smartphone cameras: a tenfold zoom. The works only really well under good lighting. But then he greatly expands the photographic possibilities compared to other smartphones.

With that and its other features, the P30 Pro is one of the top smartphones on the market. It is not cheap though. For the version with 128 GB of memory Huawei requires 999 euros, the model with 256 GB costs 1099 euros.

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