Review of the flagship smartphone Huawei P30

Main characteristics of Huawei p30 pro (model vog-l29)

• SoC Huawei Kirin 980, 8 cores: 2×Cortex-A76 @2.6 GHz, 2×Cortex-A76 @1.9 GHz, 4×Cortex-A55 @1.8 GHz
• GPU Mali-G76 MP10
• Operating system Android 9, EMUI 9.1
• AMOLED touch display 6.47″, 2340×1080, 19.5:9
• RAM 8 GB, internal memory 256 GB
• Supports nanoSD cards up to 256 GB
• Nano-SIM support (2 pcs.)
• GSM/WCDMA networks
• LTE Cat.21, LTE FDD networks: Band 1—9, 12, 17—20, 26, 28; TD-LTE: Band 34, 38, 39, 40, 41
• GPS/A-GPS, Glonass, BDS, Galileo
• Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2.4 and 5 GHz)
• Bluetooth 5.0, LE, aptX and aptX HD
• NFC
• IR port
• USB 3.1 Type-C, USB OTG
• No headphone audio output (3.5 mm)
• Main camera: 40 MP (f/1.6) 20 MP (f/2.2) 8 MP (f/3.4) TOF camera
• Front camera 32 MP (f/2.0)
• Proximity and lighting sensors, magnetic field, accelerometer, gyroscope
• Fingerprint scanner (in-display)
• 4200 mAh battery, SuperCharge, fast wireless charging
• Dimensions 158×73×8.4 mm
• IP68
• Weight 192 g

Appearance and ease of use

As with the older model, the body of the P20 is not metal, but consists of two glass panels. But there are also differences: the P20 Pro has a side bezel made of metal, polished to a mirror finish, which looks like real steel and pleasantly cools the hand. Here the metal is both painted and matte, so the sensations are completely different.

The shapes of the sloping glass panels at the front and back are absolutely symmetrical, the body is completely streamlined, without a single sharp corner. The back wall has a beautiful backing, but it is not mirrored like the Pro version. Some color modifications of the smartphone, for example pink, even have a gradient — a transition from pink to gray.

The smartphone is not as heavy as its older brother, but still, a device with such smooth surfaces and streamlined shapes clearly needs a protective case, especially considering its high cost and the possibility of slipping out of your hand at any time.

Huawei P20 is also “fashionable” with the notorious “notch” — a cutout at the top of the screen, instantly adopted from Apple by all smartphone manufacturers. The screen itself has rounded corners, and the protective glass has sloping edges. An LED event indicator is installed above the screen.

Below the screen there is no usual row of navigation buttons, but there is a fingerprint scanner made in the form of an oval touch pad (this is not a mechanical key). The platform, however, can play the role of a navigation button that supports gesture control.

The side keys are installed on the right side, the buttons are smooth, without a corrugated surface. The power button is additionally decorated with a red stripe, it looks beautiful. The keys are ideal in both size and rigidity, there are no complaints about them.

On the other side there is a card slot, and this is not the usual hybrid slot, as you might expect. It does not support memory cards; you can only insert two SIM cards into it — both Nano-SIM formats.

At the top end you can find a small hole for an auxiliary microphone, but, unfortunately, there is no IR transmitter for emulating a remote control, like in the older model.

The main speaker is located at the bottom end, where the microphone hole and USB Type-C connector are also located. Of course, there is no 3.5 mm audio output for headphones; this touching “fight against rudiments” in all smartphones that have received “progressive” USB Type-C is even a little amusing.

Huawei P20 is available in several colors. In Russia, two solid, soft colors are officially sold (dark blue and black), but in other markets there may be others — like the pink one shown in our photographs, for example.

Battery life

Huawei P30 Pro has a battery with a large capacity of 4200 mAh, and with such a battery nothing prevented the hero of the review from demonstrating the highest possible autonomy. Obviously, the energy-efficient platform, made using the 7 nm process technology, also makes its contribution. In real life, a smartphone can confidently survive a day, but you still can’t do without daily night charging.

Testing was traditionally carried out at the usual level of power consumption without using the power saving functions, although the device has them.

Continuous reading in the FBReader program (with a standard, light theme) at a minimum comfortable brightness level (brightness was set to 100 cd/m²) lasted until the battery was completely discharged for more than a day, and when continuously watching videos in high quality (720p) with the same brightness level via a home Wi-Fi network, the device operates for up to 17 hours. In 3D gaming mode, the smartphone can work up to 8 hours, depending on the specific game.

The smartphone supports fast charging; from the supplied AC adapter it is fully charged in 1 hour 20 minutes with a current of 1.25 A at 9 V.

What’s even more interesting is that the smartphone itself can be a power bank for wireless charging of other devices. So, for example, an iPhone X, placed with its back wall against the back of the review hero, actually begins to charge; to do this, you need to enable the reverse charging function in the settings. But charging is so slow that it is of purely academic interest.

Delivery set

The Honor 10 package includes a USB connection cable, a Super Charge network adapter, a transparent polyurethane protective case, and a card eject key.

Software and multimedia

Huawei P30 Pro uses Google Android version 9 with its own EMUI 9.1 shell as the software platform. Everything possible has already been said about the shell of Huawei smartphones. The customization options are overly detailed, since several years ago the company headed for the international market, and as you know, Europeans like something completely different from Asians.

You can also remove the three classic Android OS control buttons, replacing them with a newfangled gesture strip. And in general, everything that is possible can be customized here, from screen resolution to the size of the cut-out bangs. There is a large selection of free themes, its own PC synchronization utility, one-handed control solutions, and much more.

There is a face unlock feature, but the Huawei P30 Pro does not have a dedicated iris scanner or an infrared camera. Therefore, the unlocking function only works using the front camera. In the dark, the smartphone tries to raise the screen brightness in order to sufficiently illuminate the owner’s face and perform this unlocking, but usually this option does not work — you have to use a fingerprint scanner.

This scanner is located under the glass of the screen, it is ultrasonic. In theory, such a scanner should work even with wet fingers. In practice, with wet fingers it does not work or only works one time out of ten. And even with a dry finger, it does not work quickly: simply pointing at the designated area of ​​the screen, as we are used to doing with conventional scanners, is not enough — you need to touch it and wait.

The smartphone does not have stereo speakers for playing music, voice-overs for movies and games. The sound is bright, quite loud and clear, but still, of course, it is inferior to top-end solutions with stereo speakers. Actually, there is no second (spoken) speaker here at all:

As for the headphones, unfortunately, they did not provide a 3.5 mm audio output. But the device supports all codecs for wireless headphones: aptX and aptX HD, LDAC HD, as well as HWA Audio of our own design. Dolby Atmos settings allow you to make changes to your own taste, the device sounds decent in headphones.

There is a voice recorder with excellent sensitivity, but there is no FM radio installed in the smartphone.

Productivity

The Huawei P30 uses the Huawei Kirin 980 SoC, manufactured using a 7-nanometer process technology, as a hardware platform. The SoC configuration includes three CPU clusters: two Cortex-A76 cores with a frequency of 2.6 GHz, two of the same cores with a frequency of 1.9 GHz and four Cortex-A55 with a frequency of 1.8 GHz. The Mali-G76 MP10 GPU is responsible for graphics performance.

The amount of RAM can be 6 or 8 GB, the storage volume can be 64, 128 or 256 GB depending on the configuration. MicroSD memory cards are not supported — only branded Huawei NM ones. The mode for connecting external devices to the USB Type-C port (USB OTG) works.

Huawei Kirin 980 is the manufacturer’s top hardware platform, a very powerful SoC. However, in all tests, especially in terms of graphics, it is inferior to the leading Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 and Samsung Exynos 9820. As a result, the Kirin 980 takes third place in the group of leaders.

But in real operating modes there are no obstacles for the Kirin 980; the platform confidently copes with any tasks and the most demanding games. All tested games, including Injustice 2 and PUBG, run confidently without the slightest slowdown with maximum graphics quality.

Testing in complex tests AnTuTu and GeekBench:

For convenience, we have summarized all the results we obtained when testing the smartphone in the latest versions of popular benchmarks. The table usually adds several other devices from different segments, also tested on similar latest versions of benchmarks (this is done only for a visual assessment of the obtained dry figures).

Unfortunately, within the framework of one comparison it is impossible to present the results from different versions of benchmarks, so many worthy and relevant models remain “behind the scenes” — due to the fact that they once passed the “obstacle course” on previous versions of test programs.

Testing the graphics subsystem in 3DMark and GFXBenchmark gaming tests:

When testing in 3DMark, the most powerful smartphones now have the ability to run the application in Unlimited mode, where the rendering resolution is fixed at 720p and VSync is disabled (which can cause the speed to rise above 60 fps).

Тестирование в браузерных кросс-платформенных тестах:

Что касается бенчмарков для оценки скорости движка javascript, то всегда стоит делать скидку на то, что в них результаты существенно зависят от браузера, в котором запускаются, так что сравнение может быть истинно корректным только на одинаковых ОС и браузерах, а такая возможность имеется при тестировании не всегда. В случае с ОС Android мы всегда стараемся использовать Google Chrome.

Результаты теста AndroBench на скорость работы с памятью:

Телефонная часть и коммуникации

Платформа Huawei P20 поддерживает высокоскоростные сети LTE Cat. 12/13, в том числе все три используемых в России диапазона LTE FDD (Band 3, 7, 20). На практике в пределах городской черты московского региона аппарат демонстрирует уверенную работу в беспроводных сетях, не теряет связь, быстро восстанавливает связь после вынужденного обрыва.

Поддерживает аппарат работу и в обоих диапазонах Wi-Fi (2,4 и 5 ГГц), к работе Wi-Fi-модуля претензий нет. Радует, что имеется модуль NFC, который может работать с проездными картами Тройка и приложением Мой проездной.

Навигационный модуль работает и с GPS (с A-GPS), и с отечественной Глонасс, и с китайской Beidou. Первые спутники даже при холодном старте обнаруживаются быстро, в течение первых же секунд, точность позиционирования не вызывает претензий. Магнитный компас, необходимый для навигационных программ, также на месте.

Телефонное приложение поддерживает Smart Dial, то есть во время набора телефонного номера сразу осуществляется и поиск по первым буквам в контактах. Способы настройки сортировки и отображения контактов стандартны для интерфейса Android. Есть функция автоматической записи телефонных разговоров с линии. Поддерживается VoLTE. Вибровызов вполне ощутимый.

Huawei P20 поддерживает в режиме активного ожидания обе SIM-карты в 4G одновременно. The S IM card will standby on 4G voice even if another card is assigned to 4G data. The cards operate in Dual SIM Dual Standby mode, there is only one radio modem.

Thermal images

Below is a thermal image of the rear surface obtained after 10 minutes of running the battery test in the GFXBenchmark program:

Heating is more localized in the upper right part of the device, which apparently corresponds to the location of the SoC chip. According to the heat camera, the maximum heating was 53 degrees (at an ambient temperature of 24 degrees), and this is perhaps the strongest heating in this test when compared with other modern smartphones.

Features of Huawei p30 pro — Huawei Russia

Screen

The Huawei P20 smartphone is equipped, unlike the Pro version, with an IPS display rather than an OLED one. The screen is covered with 2.5D glass with sloping edges. The physical dimensions of the screen are 64×133 mm with a diagonal of 5.8 inches, the aspect ratio is close to 19:9. At the same time, the screen resolution is 2240×1080 with a pixel density of about 428 ppi.

It is possible to use automatic brightness adjustment based on the operation of the ambient light sensor. Multi-touch tests diagnose support for 10 simultaneous touches. It supports working with the screen while wearing gloves; this mode is enabled in the control settings.

A detailed examination using measuring instruments was carried out by the editor of the “Monitors” and “Projectors and TV” sections, Alexey Kudryavtsev. Here is his expert opinion on the screen of the sample under study.

The front surface of the screen is made in the form of a glass plate with a mirror-smooth surface that is scratch-resistant. Judging by the reflection of objects, the anti-glare properties of the screen are better than those of the Google Nexus 7 (2022) screen (hereinafter simply Nexus 7).

The screen of the Huawei P20 is noticeably darker (brightness according to photographs is 111 versus 121 for the Nexus 7). The ghosting of reflected objects in the Huawei P20 screen is very weak, this indicates that there is no air gap between the layers of the screen (more specifically, between the outer glass and the surface of the LCD matrix) (OGS — One Glass Solution type screen).

Due to the smaller number of boundaries (glass/air type) with very different refractive indices, such screens look better in conditions of intense external illumination, but their repair in the case of cracked external glass is much more expensive, since it is necessary to replace account for the entire screen.

On the outer surface of the screen there is a special oleophobic (grease-repellent) coating, which is even better in efficiency than that of the Nexus 7, so fingerprints are removed much easier and appear at a lower speed than in the case of regular glass.

When manually controlling the brightness and displaying the white field in full screen, the maximum brightness value was about 485 cd/m², the minimum was 15 cd/m². The maximum brightness is high, so, given the excellent anti-glare properties, screen readability even on a sunny day outdoors should be at a good level.

In complete darkness, the brightness can be reduced to a comfortable value. There is automatic brightness adjustment based on the light sensor (it is located in the top center between the front speaker grille and the camera lens). In automatic mode, as external lighting conditions change, the screen brightness both increases and decreases.

The operation of this function depends on the brightness adjustment position, with it the user can try to set the desired brightness level in the current conditions. If you do not interfere, then in complete darkness the auto-brightness function reduces the brightness to 5 cd/m² (very low), in an artificially lit office (approximately 550 lux) it sets it to 230 cd/m² (normal), in a very bright environment (corresponds to the lighting on a clear day outdoors, but without direct sunlight — 20,000 lux or a little more)

increases to 730 cd/m² (which is much higher than with manual adjustment). The backlight brightness level depends on the position of the slider in dark and average conditions, but in very bright environments it is always set to maximum. We were not satisfied with the default result, so we moved the slider a little to the right in complete darkness and for the three conditions indicated above, we got 20, 200-230 and 730 cd/m² (the ideal combination).

Note that after increasing to maximum in very bright light, the brightness remained high even after reducing the ambient light level and decreased only after the smartphone was put into standby mode and turned on. It turns out that the auto-brightness function works adequately and allows the user to customize their work to individual requirements. At any brightness level, there is no significant backlight modulation, so there is no screen flicker.

This smartphone uses an IPS type matrix. Microphotographs show typical IPS subpixel structure:

For comparison, you can see the gallery of microphotographs of screens used in mobile technology.

As you can see in the photomicrograph above, which shows a fragment of four pixels, two blue subpixels have been replaced with white ones. This solution allows you to increase the brightness of the white field without increasing the cost of backlighting. Of course, there are also side effects: the brightness of a color image may be disproportionately lower than the brightness of the white areas, and small text, fine lines, etc. appear more uneven than in the case of a conventional combination of subpixels and the same resolution.

However, testing showed that the brightness of the white field on ¼ of the screen is only 1.5% higher than the brightness of the sum of red, green and blue colors on the remaining three quarters. This can be ignored. A decrease in color clarity in blue should have a minimal impact on image quality, since human vision has the lowest resolution for this color.

The screen has good viewing angles without significant color shift even when viewing large deviations from perpendicular to the screen and without inverting shades. For comparison, here are photographs in which the same images are displayed on the screens of Huawei P20 and Nexus 7, while the screen brightness is initially set to approximately 200 cd/m², and the color balance on the camera is forcibly switched to 6500 K.

White field perpendicular to the screens:

Note the good uniformity of brightness and color tone of the white field.

And test picture:

The colors on the Huawei P20 screen are clearly oversaturated, and the color balance varies between screens.

Now at an angle of approximately 45 degrees to the plane and to the side of the screen:

It can be seen that the colors have not changed much on both screens, but on the Huawei P20 the contrast has decreased to a greater extent due to the greater highlighting of blacks.

And the white field:

The brightness at an angle of the screens has decreased (at least 5 times, based on the difference in shutter speed), but the screen of the Huawei P20 is still a little brighter. When deviated diagonally, the black field brightens to a medium degree (it is darker on the Nexus 7) and acquires a purple tint. The photographs below demonstrate this (the brightness of the white areas in the direction perpendicular to the plane of the screens is the same!):

And from another angle:

When viewed perpendicularly, the uniformity of the black field is excellent:

The contrast (approximately in the center of the screen) is high — about 1470:1. Black-white-black response time is 19.5 ms (10.5 ms on, 9.0 ms off). The transition between halftones of gray 25% and 75% (according to the numerical value of the color) and back takes a total of 30 ms.

The gamma curve, constructed using 32 points with equal intervals based on the numerical value of the shade of gray, did not reveal a blockage either in the highlights or in the shadows. The exponent of the approximating power function is 1.98, which is lower than the standard value of 2.2. In this case, the real gamma curve noticeably deviates from the power-law dependence:

This device has a dynamic adjustment of the backlight brightness with an unobvious dependence on time and on the nature of the displayed image. As a result, the resulting dependence of brightness on hue (gamma curve) may not correspond to the gamma curve of a static image, since the measurements were carried out with sequential display of shades of gray on almost the entire screen.

For this reason, we carried out a number of tests — determining contrast and response time, comparing black illumination at angles (however, as always) when displaying special templates with a constant average brightness, and not monochromatic fields in the entire screen.

Color gamut wider than sRGB:

We look at the spectra:

The spectra of the components are well separated, which results in a wide color gamut. We have already seen this in the case, for example, of the Sony Xperia Z2 and other mobile devices. Sony indicates that these screens use LEDs with a blue emitter and green and red phosphors (usually a blue emitter and a yellow phosphor), which, in combination with special matrix filters, allows for a wide color gamut.

Yes, and red phosphor apparently uses so-called quantum dots. For a consumer device, a wide color gamut is not an advantage, but a significant disadvantage, since as a result, the colors of images — drawings, photographs and films — oriented to the sRGB space (and the vast majority of them) have an unnatural saturation. This is especially noticeable on recognizable shades, such as skin tones. The result is shown in the photo above.

However, not everything is so bad: when you select the Normal profile, the coverage is compressed to the sRGB boundaries.

Colors in images become less saturated (and color balance changes slightly):

The balance of shades on the scale is acceptable, since the color temperature is not much higher than the standard 6500 K, and the deviation from the blackbody spectrum (ΔE) is below 10, which is considered an acceptable indicator for a consumer device. At the same time, color temperature and ΔE change little from hue to hue — this has a positive effect on the visual assessment of color balance.

This device has the ability to adjust the color balance by adjusting the hue on the color wheel.

In the graphs above, the curves are Without corr. correspond to the results without any color balance correction, and the curves Corr. — data obtained after selecting the Normal profile and shifting the point to the position indicated in the image above.

It can be seen that the change in balance corresponds to the expected result, since the color temperature has approached the standard value, and ΔE has decreased on average. There is some benefit from this correction, and besides, the brightness decreased by only 7%. Note that this function is implemented more for show, since there is no numerical reflection of the correction and there is no field for measuring color balance.

There is a Natural Tone function, which, if turned on, adjusts the color balance to environmental conditions.

After activating it, we placed the device under cool white LED lights, resulting in values ​​of 8.6 for ΔE and 7100 K for color temperature. Under a halogen incandescent lamp (warm light) — 7.9 and 5700 K, respectively, that is, the color temperature has become lower, and the balance has become closer to the black body radiation spectrum.

The function works as expected. Note that the current standard is to calibrate display devices to a white point of 6500 K, but in principle, correction to the color temperature of external light can be useful if you want to achieve a better match between the image on the screen and what is visible on paper (or any other media). , on which colors are formed due to the reflection of incident light) under current conditions.

There is a fashionable setting that allows you to reduce the intensity of the blue component.

Marketers tried to intimidate the user in order to show the level of care of the manufacturer. Of course, there is no harmful UV radiation (see spectrum above), and there is no eye fatigue caused specifically by blue light.

In principle, bright light can lead to disruption of the daily (circadian) rhythm (see the article about the iPad Pro with a 9.7-inch display), but everything can be solved by adjusting the brightness to a comfortable level, and distorting the color balance, reducing the contribution of blue , makes absolutely no sense.

To summarize: the screen has a very high maximum brightness and has excellent anti-glare properties, so the device can be used outdoors without any problems, even on a sunny summer day. In complete darkness, the brightness can be reduced to a comfortable level.

It is also possible to use a mode with automatic brightness adjustment, which works quite adequately. Also, the advantages of the screen include an effective oleophobic coating, the absence of an air gap in the layers of the screen and flicker, high contrast, excellent uniformity of the black field, good black stability to the deviation of the gaze from perpendicular to the screen plane, sRGB color gamut (when choosing the right profile) and acceptable color balance. The screen has no significant shortcomings; its quality is very high.