By Gerard S. Ramos | Lifestyle and Entertainment Editor
THE past couple of years have seen Chinese multinational telecommunications equipment and consumer electronics manufacturer Huawei dogged by accusations from the US government as a security threat, ostensibly on account that its increasingly ubiquitous products could be leveraged by the Chinese government to spy on companies and governments worldwide. Hardening its position, the US government then barred all its agencies from deploying Huawei products. Moreover, recent news reports have the CIA buttressing US allegations with claims of “the People’s Liberation Army, China’s National Security Commission and a third branch of the government’s investment network” pouring investments into Huawei (bit.ly/2IFfMz6).
The still-unsubstantiated allegations have no doubt caused Huawei a considerable amount of grief, with the company seeing what could have been a game-changing partnership with US carrier AT&T unravel, and its 5G ambitions in Europe, New Zealand and Australia thwarted.
Not surprisingly, Huawei announced in early March that “it has filed a complaint in a US federal court that challenges the constitutionality of Section 889 of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Through this action, Huawei seeks a declaratory judgment that the restrictions targeting Huawei are unconstitutional, and a permanent injunction against these restrictions.”
Still, to borrow a line from that famous Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice musical, don’t cry for Huawei: Even in the face of these allegations, the company has continued to see its exceptional mobile phones find favor everywhere: “Fresh from an $8.8 billion profit last year,…Chinese tech giant Huawei is touting yet more growth. The firm said today that revenue in the first quarter of 2019 grew 39 percent year-on-year to reach $26.78 billion, or 179.7 billion CNY.” Robust sales of its phone have pushed Huawei to surpass Apple as the No. 2 brand globally.
That standing is unlikely to change and, given recent reports of Samsung’s softening mobile phone sales, even improve with the release of Huawei’s new flagship series, the P30, which it launched to massive fanfare at Paris Convention Centre in France in late March. While last year we were invited by Huawei to attend the Paris launch of its predecessor, the hugely successful P20 Series, this time out the company’s local representatives sent out a loaner of the P30 Pro—the Breathing Crystal variant—for us to play around with and talk up.
“The Huawei P30 Series builds on the [brand’s] P Series DNA in design and photography, and is the company’s most advanced series of smartphone cameras,” so goes the official press material, and the new flagship series does see Huawei pushing its collaboration with legendary German imaging specialist Leica in ways heretofore unseen in mobile phones and wildly succeeding at it, particularly in the Pro variant which, of course, has all the bells, whistles and imaging muscles the others in the series don’t.
Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer BG, said, “The Huawei P30 Series is a fundamental breakthrough after decades of digital camera technology development; it will rewrite the rules and reshape everyone’s perception of mobile photography. Innovations such as the Huawei SuperSpectrum Sensor and SuperZoom Lens allow us to push the envelope of both photography and videography—a frontier long overdue for disruption. The P30 Series will set the pace for the next generation of smartphones by empowering people to capture the true beauty of the world around them through a device that fits in the palm of their hands.”
Offhand, with its curved OLED screen measuring 6.47 inches, you would think the Huawei P30 Pro is well into phablet (phone-tablet hybrid) territory and thus unwieldy beyond two-handed use by sizeable mitts. But not only have the bezels bookending the screen at the top and the bottom been whittled down to almost nothingness, but the fingerprint sensor (wicked fast) has also been incorporated in the screen that the phone doesn’t seem that much bigger than the its immediate predecessor, the P20 Pro. It has, in fact, about the same dimensions as Huawei’s other flagship, the magnificent Mate 20 Pro, whose screen is just a smidgen smaller (6.39 inches), although it has a higher-resolution display with the colors more vibrant and the pixels more packed (1440 x 3120 pixels and ~538 ppi density for the Mate 20 Pro, versus the P30 Pro’s 1080 x 2340 pixels and ~398 ppi density).
Pretty much, the Huawei P30 Pro, which has an excellent build, holds up very well against the super-charged Mate 20 Pro, as both pack the same powerful octa-core HiSilicon Kirin 980 CPU, Mali-G76 MP10 GPU and 8GB of RAM, providing such lag-free performance that it is almost breathtaking. Of course, there is much more to that insanely fast performance beyond powerful hardware: the P30 Pro, like the Mate 20 Pro, ships with Android 9.0 (Pie), the newest version of Google’s market-leading OS which boasts of under-the-hood changes and tweaks that have resulted in heightened usability, even more efficient memory management and just plain raw speed.
Where the Huawei P30 Pro differentiates itself from the Mate 20 Pro and all other flagships is in its imaging muscles, which are mightily impressive. While the Mate 20 Pro is certainly no slouch in photography, the P30 Pro takes mobile photography to a whole new level of game.
According to the product information provided by Huawei with regards to the quad-camera P30 Pro: “Achieving a record-high overall DxOMark score of 112, the Huawei P30 Pro is equipped with a new Leica Quad Camera System, including a 40MP main camera with the Huawei SuperSpectrum Sensor, a 20MP ultra-wide angle camera, an 8MP telephoto camera, the Huawei ToF Camera, and a 32MP front camera that takes selfies to a new level.
“The 1/1.7-inch Huawei SuperSpectrum Sensor looks at light in a fundamentally new way. The RYYB Huawei SuperSpectrum Sensor deviates from the traditional RGGB Bayer filter by replacing green pixels with yellow pixels, yielding a high maximum ISO rating of 409,600 on the Huawei P30 Pro and 204,800 on the Huawei P30. This fundamental shift in sensor technology, combined with Huawei AIS, OIS and the Huawei P30 Pro’s f/1.6 wide aperture, delivers extraordinary photography and videography experiences across a wide range of scenarios and lighting conditions—including extreme low light—producing images with enhanced detail, color and clarity.
“Through a new periscope design, the SuperZoom Lens supports high fidelity magnification of 5 times optical zoom, 10 times hybrid zoom and 50 times digital zoom. A prism element in the telephoto camera bends light at a 90-degree angle to maximize focal length while minimizing camera height, without disrupting device design.
“Unique to the Huawei P30 Pro is the ToF Camera that captures depth-of-field information to deliver accurate image segmentation. Precise distance measurement allows for the simulation of multiple levels of bokeh. The Super Portrait feature captures even the smallest details, such as individual strands of hair. It combines depth information and proprietary algorithms to produce outstanding images with defocused backgrounds and highlights the subject of the image in any scenario.”
To put all that in less geeky terms, the Huawei P30 Pro packs an awesome camera system which pretty much puts into obsolescence point-and-shooters and even garden variety DSLRs. The phone’s imaging muscles are that impressive. It greatly improves on its predecessor’s noteworthy 3x lossless optical zoom with a 5x optical zoom, plus an excellent 10x lossless hybrid zoom that leverages the built-in AI smarts of the Kirin 980 chipset, all in all yielding images worthy of seeing print even for a tarpaulin banner without you ever having the fiddle with settings under the Pro mode. (While the phone does provide a 50x digital zoom, we would advise that you instead get as close as possible to whatever it is your snapping. Unless of course you are aiming for an impressionist painting effect.) Similarly noteworthy is the phone’s Night mode, which now allows you to capture images under low light conditions without the results being shrouded in shadows.
The Huawei P30 Pro is packed with a plethora of truly impressive hardware and software that a full review might approach the length of novella. Special mention must be made, however, over the fact that despite its slim profile, Huawei has managed to shoehorn a massive 4200 mAh battery that provides a couple of days of power with regular use, with a little left over at the end of Day 2. And when you do need a recharge, 30 minutes plugged in with its 40W SuperCharged wired charging are all you need to get replenished to about a 70-percent charge.
More information on the Huawei P30 Pro is available at bit.ly/2W4E2h5.
It should surprise no one that the country’s two biggest wireless communications providers have put out offerings featuring the most impressive smartphone in the market.
The Huawei P30 Pro is being offered by Smart at P2,399 per month (with a one-time cash out of P9,010 for the device); the Huawei P30 at P1,799 per month (with a one-time cash out of P5,690); and the Huawei P30 Lite at P1,199 per month (with a one-time cash out of P2,010).
Meanwhile, the Huawei P30 under Globe Postpaid is touted by the telecom as “the perfect pair that empowers you to be a brave creator” (www.globe.com.ph/postpaid/huawei-p30). The P30 can be had for only P2,199 (ThePLAN 1799 + P400/month cashout) or P30 Pro for only P2,799 (ThePLAN 1799 + P1,000/month cashout). Sweetening the deal is a larger-than-life data allocation of up to 16GB.
