WHEN you are writing tech, being promiscuous is part of the job.
We may be loyal to our women, but when it comes to gadgets and smartphones, we are even worse than those “starboys.”
One-night stands are all too common for us. Sometimes, we even have to do it at the venue—in groups—with people watching. Since we only have a few minutes of hands-on time to do an unboxing and first impressions on the device, we can’t help but be frisky aggressive.
But for most of the time, its two weeks.
Two weeks. That’s how most of our relationships with these devices last.
Just enough time to run them through all sorts of benchmarks and daily tests, and do a fairly comprehensive review. For most, especially the not-so-good ones, its long enough for us to discover most of its quirks and flaws, and by the time its picked up, we are more than happy to get it off our hands.
But sometimes, we come across a device that’s so good, we make up excuses just so we could hold on to it longer.
My rule? One month. Max.
Because after a month, you begin to get too familiar, attached, committed, heck, maybe even crave for that four-letter word and when it’s time to finally let go… Bam! #SepAnx!
I’ve been using the Huawei P20 Pro for more than two months now, which compared to most tech reviewers is probably an eternity. But now that our honeymoon period is over and there are Xs and NEXs out there that look so tempting and need discovering, will I be able to let it go, let it go, turn away and slam the door? Or will the cold finally bother me anyway? (you sang that part didn’t you?)
We’ll Always Have Paris
THE entire world was mesmerized when the Huawei revealed the P20 Pro in Paris, and I was among those who stayed up late to watch the livestreaming. The world’s third-largest smartphone maker proved it was dead serious about becoming more than a just contender—but rather the flagship phone of choice, and a replacement to the one you currently have in your pocket.
Boasting of a beautiful design, a super-fast processor, a battery that lasts long and charges even quicker, and of course a camera whose DXO mark are a gamechanging, the P20 Pro remains the king of all smartphone shooters.
There’s plenty to like about the look and feel of the P20 Pro after a receiving a much needed makeover from its predecessor the, P10. It now has a premium glass and metal construction that gives it all the appeal of its flagship rivals.
The Twilight variant is a stunner with its unique gradient color and mirror finish, and despite all the comments about being too flamboyant, no one can deny that it’s the color that got everyone’s looking Huawei’s way. There are other more subdued color options like Black and Midnight Blue, which are equally elegant, plus there’s also a shiny pink gold variant for all the ladies out there.
Like almost all new Android devices, the P20 Pro has a notch at the top of the display which houses the speaker and front-facing camera.
If you hate the notch though, you can easily hide it in the settings. But while Huawei is clearly going for the full edge-to-edge look, some question the placement of the fingerprint scanner on the front of the phone, giving it a small chin.
I, for one, like the placement of the fingerprint scanner because it’s easier to access when you are driving and using Waze. The fingerprint scanner also does more than just unlock your phone and doubles as a navigation bar which you can use to go back, return to the home screen, or display all your current apps—and it’s still the fastest one out there.
The P20 Pro’s 6.1-inch OLED Full View display (2240×1080) is absolutely beautiful. Its super sharp with plenty of color and contrast which is perfect for watching videos, browsing the Web or even looking at your photo gallery. I think the only phone that has a better screen is the more expensive Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus, but let’s be honest, nothing is beating that display right now. The P20 Pro also has some pretty good speakers, which include Dolby Atmos technology and some clever artificial inteligence (AI) to detect the type of audio you’re listening too, adjusting the level to give you an improved listening experience.
Like I mentioned, the P20 Pro in encased in gleaming glass which looks and feels ultra-premium and although I love how it looks, it also means it’s highly breakable, and you really have to be careful not to drop it, otherwise, and if you’re OC like me, you have no choice but to get a protective case.
Other manufacturers have opted for the glass back so they could add wireless charging. I’m not a fan of wireless charging, because its slow and not entirely wireless, and prefer Huawei’s SuperCharge. Since the P20 Pro is not using that technology, I just feel like choosing a stronger material would have been a more practical option.
The P20 Pro has a monster 4,000 mAh battery tucked inside its glass body and it’s amazing how they managed to keep the phone slim. It’s still one of the biggest power packs in a phone and despite heavy usage and with mobile Internet on, it can still last an entire day’s use on a single charge. In fact, with some adjustments (via Phone Manager) and normal use, you may even find yourself going for a couple days without the need for a refill, and when it does finally run low, you can get over 50 percent in 30 minutes via its SuperCharge adaptor.
As for the rest of the specs, there’s really nothing to complain about the P20 Pro’s HiSilicon Kirin 970 chipset, octa-core (4×2.4 GHz Cortex-A73 & 4×1.8 GHz Cortex-A53) processor and 6GB RAM. It can handle everything you can throw at it and runs any app and all the games I’ve installed on it (NBA2k18, Asphalt, PUBG, Rules of Survival, etc) smoothly even on highest settings. It’s not the fastest on the market, but the P20 Pro doesn’t disappoint.
It may not have an extra microSD card slot but the 128 GB storage is more than enough for your photo, video and music library.
I’ve already used up nearly 75 percent of the storage space and installed a lot of apps/games but besides the regular maintenance reboot/restart every four days or so, I have yet to experience any hang-ups or noticeable slowdown in performance.
I’ve also used the phone in the rain and while swimming, confident of its IP67 dust/water resistance (up to 1m for 30 mins) but you can’t take photos while submerged in water.
I’ve also read some complaints about Huawei’s EMUI 8.1 skin, but as someone who isn’t much of a fan of stock Android, I prefer the customizations and extra features of the EMUI. Besides, its also cleaner and has a less cluttered look than before.
The P20 Pro might have abandoned the 3.5 headphone port, but it does include a USB-C to headphone adaptor, so those complaining about its absence are probably just nitpicking. What if the connector gets lost? You can always order a replacement for about P100 on Shopee.
THE DRAMA ABOUT THE CAMERA
NOW, let’s talk about the prized feature of the P20 Pro—the triple camera.
They say three’s a crowd, and Huawei certainly caused a whole lot of trouble with its newest Leica-branded camera setup.
Huawei is confident that this is the best smartphone snapper on the market and DXO confirms it by giving it the highest score of 109—10 points higher than the Samsung S9 plus, 11 points higher than the Pixel 2 and 12 points higher than the iPhone X. But does that score translate to amazing photos especially for the ordinary user?
Neatly placed on the rear and positioned vertically, the P20 Pro has a 40MP (f/1.8, 27mm, 1/1.7”) RGB lens plus a 20 MP monochrome sensor (f/1.6, 27mm) and an 8 MP (f/2.4, 80mm), all with OIS, Leica optics, phase detection, laser autofocus and LED flash. On paper, it’s already crazy impressive as it allows the phone to add DSLR-style depth of field to your images, as well as offering a 5x hybrid and 3x optical zoom.
I’ve always wanted a smartphone with usable zoom and I’m pretty satisfied with the P20 Pro.
The 3x zoom and 5x zoom is especially useful when you are covering events and there are a lot of people crowding near the stage. I’ve even used it for concerts and the photos are still very good—even the 10x zoom is usable. All you need is to wait a second for the phone to stabilize before you tap that shutter button. There’s even a viral post doubting the 10x zoom of the P20 Pro, but believe me it can take pretty decent photos from such a long distance.
There’s also the F1.6 aperture which helps shoot photos when the lights get low and the inclusion of the incredible Night Mode (four-second handheld) means you can even get nice results even when it’s really dark. That’s because the P20 Pro uses some clever tech to open the shutter longer while automatically keeping the lens perfectly still in your hand. Let me add that Huawei has just released an OTA update that allows you to shoot on insanely high ISOs up to 102400 on Pro Mode.
Now, for the most intriguing part of the P20 Pro’s camera—AI.
Notice that when you boot the phone the sequence of letters that appear begin with AI before the rest of the letters form the word Huawei?
That probably is meant to show you just how serious Huawei is about AI.
At first, it may sound like just another party trick or ridiculous gimmick but the AI actually works really well—for 90 percent of the time.
The minute you point the phone at something, such as a cat, or maybe a flower, or the sky, the device instantly sets itself to take the perfect picture. The same happens in a lot of other scenarios including shooting in snow, on the beach, fireworks, green landscapes, etc. It does get it right almost all of the time, but the improvement it decides to make once
it knows what you’re taking a photo can be pretty basic. When it detects greenery, it blasts to make it more green; point it at the sky and the blue hues are almost exaggerated.
Now, here’s where it gets a bit divisive. Leaving the camera to decide how to take your pictures will probably annoy pro photographers as it does tend to over-exaggerate contrast, and color highlights make photos a bit to sharp.
But for the rest of us who rely on other several editing apps to make our photos better, the AI is perfect—I mean nearly perfect.
Again, I am a fan of the Master AI feature, but there are also times when you have to turn it off. For example, when you are taking a photo of someone making a presentation on stage, the AI may detect the person, making it switch to portrait or even stage performance scene. But when there’s a lot of text in the background or a LED screen, it might switch to document scan and crop everything else on the photo. It’s not bothersome, but like I said, there are times when it’s better to turn it off. But for everyday use and social-media posts, I doubt you’ll find anything else better than the P20 Pro’s camera.
Along with the incredible image quality, there’s also the ability to film super slow-motion footage at 960 frames per second. It’s a bit hard to get the timing right but there’s apparently an upcoming update that will only start shooting once movement is detected, hopefully lessening the multiple takes.
Video quality is great, and it does have stabilization except for 4K videos, which is okay for me since I’m happy with taking Full HD videos. But it would be nice to finally have 4K stabilization in the future as well as Front Camera video stabilization, as well.
DEVOUR
- Great design, premium feel
- Twilight is still the best smartphone color
- Incredible triple camera and zoom capability
- Best camera for mobile photography enthusiasts social-media postings
- Awesome battery life and quick charging
- Handheld Night Mode
DISLIKE
- Camera AI can be too aggressive at times
- Glass finish is a fingerprint magnet
FINAL WORD
IF there’s anything I learned from my honeymoon period with the P20 Pro, it’s that like with any human relationship, it’s never going to be perfect. But there will always be new things to learn and discover the more time you spend with it.