The Huawei P20 & P20 Pro Review: Great Battery Life & Even Better Night Vision
by Andrei Frumusanu on June 15, 2018 11:00 AM ESTCamera Video Recording
Video recording hasn’t been a forte of Huawei devices for several years now, so having a look at the quality of the resulting videos of the P20 Pro and P20 is of particular interest.
The two new Huawei devices also for the first time introduce the option to record video in HEVC/H265 format alongside the “compatibility option” of standard AVC/H264.
The P20s have the same limitations as past devices where higher framerate and higher resolution recording above 1080p30 aren’t able to use features such as EIS (electronic stabilisation). For the P20’s, this is of particular concern as the camera don’t have any OIS.
P20
P20 Pro
As expected, the resulting video is very disappointing. In 1080p30 mode, the phone is very much still seemingly using a 1080p stream from the camera sensor and then using a cut-out from that frame with margins for the EIS mechanism that is then resized back up to 1080p. The resulting picture quality is one of less than 1080p with reduced field-of-view.
When disabling the stabiliser or when going over 1080p60 in framerate or resolution, the video becomes the usual shaky mess that isn’t that useable. I was particularly disappointed in the quality of the 60fps footage as it has a very notable loss in quality and detail compared to the 1080p30 footage. Focusing response is also outright terrible- while focusing in on a near object seems to be quite fast, both phones had major trouble focusing out again in a responsive manner.
Overall, in terms of video recording the P20’s aren’t competitive at all for a 2018 flagship device and Huawei still hasn’t managed to provide good quality video recording to date.
I was curious to see how the P20 Pro handled video recording when transitioning between the main camera and the 3x optical zoom camera and unfortunately the result isn’t that great compared to other dual camera implementations – there’s a notable delay between zooming in and the actual camera switch. Sometimes you’ll also catch the telephoto lens still focusing onto the subject after it already made the switch. On the plus side, switching over to the telephoto lens also means that the video is OIS stabilised and again this is a great improvement to the quality.
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FreidoNumeroUno - Monday, June 18, 2018 - link
Yes, but the review is about a phone, right?FreidoNumeroUno - Monday, June 18, 2018 - link
I think all the points are valid. You are a pretty good observer.s.yu - Tuesday, June 19, 2018 - link
I generally agree, though Samsung's oversaturation is an undersaturation most of the time compared to Huawei, 1020 does give very natural colors and there's a pretty clear advantage of the old 1020 sensor all round compared to this messed up quad-bayer crap. Allaboutwindowsphone made a simple but informative comparison while Android Authority made a comparison with somewhat telling samples though completely mess up analyses, they don't know what they're talking about and a few of the samples are outright misleading.damianrobertjones - Tuesday, June 19, 2018 - link
I still think that nothing beats the Nokia 1020 for photos. It's a shame that these phone makers are so very lazy and drip feed advancements. At least the P20 pro has a better camera.Lau_Tech - Sunday, June 17, 2018 - link
Thank you very much for the even handed review, Andrei.wrkingclass_hero - Monday, June 18, 2018 - link
"far too much blue shit"I normally avoid pointing out typos to those who are not native English speakers, but I believe "shit" should be corrected to "shift"
Andrei Frumusanu - Monday, June 18, 2018 - link
The worst kind of typo to make! Apologies.erple2 - Sunday, June 24, 2018 - link
Interestingly, it doesn't really change the meaning of the passage all that much, just the tone. :)lucam - Monday, June 18, 2018 - link
When the iPhone X review?...in your dream...s.yu - Monday, June 18, 2018 - link
Andrei, you're just wonderful! I've been a skeptic of Huawei's boasts since I saw the first samples on Anandtech, then going through dozens of samples across many reviews I reached my own conclusions, different from any single review out there, that the P20 Pro in auto loses to the competition in terms of detail retention consistently from daylight to dusk, and gains an advantage from low light to very low light(although with quirky interpolation artifacts), while the so-called 40mp "quad-bayer" alone struggles to render as much detail as a 20MP standard bayer. Sub-3x zoom is just interpolation and loses handily to the competition while 3x and beyond the optics win, as expected.You're the first reviewer I've come across who really pays that attention to detail to conclude the P20 Pro's performance to that extent, I couldn't hardly have written a better review myself!