Friends+Design
- Gorgeous fit, finish, and design - Huawei is known for its stunning hardware and the Huawei P20 is no exception - the phone looks stunning - and build quality is exceptional too
- Water, and dust resistant (IP67 certified)
- Fast, effective face unlock
- With the glass back, you will need to get used to smudges unless you use a case
- The fingerprint sensor is positioned a bit too low and is not in any sort of natural ergonomic position
Display
- Gorgeous tall OLED edge-to-edge screen with a notch - it looks great and ticks all the right (flagship-level) boxes
Software
- EMUI is now one of the more refined Android experiences - it is feature-rich, but sticks fairly close to stock Android, and most of the added touches are pretty useful - such as unique knuckle gestures (taking a screenshot with a single knuckle tap to the display), and drawing a line for split-screen mode
- The software also supports 'easy projection' - so you simply plug in the USB-C to HDMI and out to a monitor to use your phone as your computer
Performance
- Top-end, flagship level hardware (the Kirin 970 chipset) ensures a flawless, butter-smooth performance, and is on par with other top Snapdragon 845 level phones
Camera
- Superlative triple (yes, triple!) camera system on the rear, goes one up on the already very good camera on the P20 - and is supercharged by some intelligent AI features - low light performance is amazing, slow-mo video is great, and the portrait mode delivers great results too - in every way, the camera is a blast to use and results are outstanding - and with even better low performance compared to the P20 and a 3x zoom setting that also happens to work great for portraits, the P20 Pro is arguably the best camera phone to date, even leaving behind the Pixel 2/XL and the Galaxy S9/Plus - and it certainly is the most compelling use of computational photography seen in a phone yet
- While the rear camera setup is excellent, the fixed focus front camera is only decent
Audio
- The single speaker is quite loud
- Good call quality and strong network reception
- No headphone jack, like a lot of modern flagship phones, so you will be dependent on USB-C or bluetooth headphones
Battery
- Epic battery life - will comfortably last you about 2 days with moderate use
- Fast charging support
- No support for wireless charging like some other flagships
More
- Ample internal storage
- On the whole, if you’ve been waiting for a phone that can upset the Apple-Samsung duopoly, this is it - the P20 Pro surprises and delights like few others and the the synergy between the excellent ergonomics, display, camera, and responsiveness of the Huawei P20 Pro shouldn’t be underestimated - many people may (justifiably) prefer it to the likes of the Galaxy S9 (the P20 has a more potent camera, better ergonomics, longer battery life, and arguably a better Android skin) and the Pixel 2 (the P20 again has better battery life, and better design) - with Huawei’s rapid improvement, Apple and Samsung now have a credible third competitor in the contest for super flagship phone supremacy - it’s time for the entire world to sit up and take notice
