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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damianrobertjones - Tuesday, June 19, 2018 - link
After reading this review I'll simply keep the Mate 10 Pro and carry on. I was truly hopeful to finally have a Nokia 1020 killer but... it's not to be. Now THAT was an amazing camera (Especially with the grip).Years fly by and all we're seeing is small little jumps in camera tech while the 1020 had it all.
s.yu - Tuesday, June 19, 2018 - link
I don't think it's a matter of making jumps or steps but rather Huawei intentionally made a jump backwards. They have at least half of the original Pureview imaging team yet the rendering bears no resemblance to the 1020 nor the 808. They were probably explicitly ordered to bump up saturation to 11, and sharpening, NR to 13. The quad-bayer also does more damage than good, they could have gone for a 40MP bayer proper and ended up with much fewer false interpolation color and smearing. Now P20Pro RAW is gigantic (close to 80MB, larger than my a7RII's output) yet good as useless as it doesn't stand to clarity boost and sharpening (current algorithms are simply ineffective in extracting data from that interpolation pattern) and probably won't merge well in LR mobile's HDR RAW mode either.Speaking of which, LR mobile's HDR RAW is a real revolution. Although an exposure takes about half a minute to process (on the slow side, but its nothing if you got your shot) and may be more prone to shaking (as all auto HDR are), it yields DNG files from my Note 8 with DR in the range of APS-C sensors so far with imperceptible loss in sharpness from the merge. It hardly solves low light performance(shutter speed is automatically determined and doesn't seem to go very low) but it does help bring back highlight DR in low light, and in daylight it often substitutes a professional compact like a Coolpix A or Ricoh GR.
peevee - Tuesday, June 19, 2018 - link
A73/A53 are so last year...p51d007 - Friday, June 22, 2018 - link
Shame...I started out with a Huawei Mate2 years ago, then upgraded to the Mate 8, then the 9 after someone bought my 8.Sadly, due to the U.S. government telling retailers, carriers "you better not", the 9 might be my last Huawei phone. If I can't get the software to run it in the U.S. without jumping through hoops, support and what not, I'll have to start looking elsewhere.
Shame...I've loved every one of them! Very stable, LONG battery life and good value.
pruthviraj - Saturday, June 23, 2018 - link
i am waiting and i want to <a href=”http://newslm.com/buy-redmi-note-6-pro-online-at-t...”>Buy Redmi Note 6 Pro</a>djayjp - Saturday, June 23, 2018 - link
Btw, author, OIS has nothing do with exposure lolalbert89 - Saturday, June 30, 2018 - link
Oh yeah, that's that Chinese Co's that was fined by the U.S for breaking trade embargo's and stealing technology. I don't care how popular they were over seas. They arnt going to get my business and many people feel the same way. Do you wanna reward the Chinese communist party for stealing ? You either stand for something or nothing at all.max123 - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
Now that we know <a href="https://youmobile.com.pk/phone/1061/huawei-y3-2017... Huawei Y3 2018 and Huawei Y3 2017</a>(Y5 Lite 2017) are basically the same phones with different software, we think that it’s likely the outgoing 2017 edition could also get Android Go features via an update.
max123 - Wednesday, August 8, 2018 - link
<a href="https://youmobile.com.pk/phone/1065/huawei-p20-pro... Huawei P20 Pro is one of the primary cell phones</a> we have seen with three separation camera focal points on the back. The best one is a 8 megapixel zooming focal point, the center one is a 40 megapixel RGB focal point, and the last one (set apart independent from anyone else) is a 20 megapixel mono focal point.Freedom11 - Tuesday, September 4, 2018 - link
Thank you for a brilliant review. I am between the P20 and P20 Pro. My question is whether the differences between the P20 Pro and the P20 is worth the price difference. I would truly appreciate if someone could summarise the advantages of the Pro over the standard P20. From reading the review, I see the main advantage in being the 5x zoom and the very, very dark lighting situations, which I guess both would be used more rarely. But even so the P20 performs very well in night shots! Thank you very much!!