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Huawei's P20, P20 Pro and a special edition Porsche Design are here.
Ashish Narsale finds out if it lives up to the hype.
After Huawei's Nexus 6P and 2016's Huawei P9 the Chinese telecommunications company is now returning to India with the Huawei P20 series.
Like every other phone manufacturer these days, Huawei has tried to stand out in the crowd by upping its camera game.
Here how it has done it.
USP
Huawei leaps ahead by sticking with camera manufacturer Leica, but moving from the dual rear camera set-up to a triple rear camera set-up in the P20 Pro.
The P20 Pro's three lenses are an RGB 40 MP f/1.8 aperture, a Monochrome 20 MP f/1.6 aperture and a Telephoto 8 MP f/2.4 aperture. The P20 Pro camera also supports 3X optical zoom and 5X hybrid zoom.
The flash on the P20 Pro has a colour temperature sensor embedded within, for colour optimization.
The phone supports iPhone X like studio lighting effect for photo.
For video, the phone supports 960 fps slow motion video capture -- the same as what we saw in the Samsung Galaxy S9 series and the Sony Xperia XZ2.
The Huawei P20 comes with a Leica dual camera setup with RGB 12 MP f/1.8 aperture and Monochrome 20 MP f/1.6 aperture lenses.
Both phones support laser focus, deep focus, phase focus and contrast focus.
The front camera on both phones is 24 MP with f/2.0 aperture.
The cameras in both phones are also supported by Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The phones use Al to identify 19 different categories of scenes to adjust the camera to optimal settings to take the best picture.
The phone also uses AI for image stabilization, Huawei promotes it's as AIS (AI Image Stabilization). The AIS is supposed to provide blur-free photos without a tripod even in dark conditions and support exposure time up to 6 seconds.
The AIS is also used while shooting video.
Both phones use laser-assisted 4D Predictive Focus for accurate focus of moving object while shooting video.
What's inside?
The Huawei P20 measures 5.8 inches, is 7.65 mm thin and and weighs 165 gm, whereas the P20 Pro is 6.1 inch tall, 7.8 mm thin and weighs 180 gm.
The P20 comes with IP53 rating as dust proof, while the P20 Pro is IP67 certified for dust and water proofing.
The P20 has a LCD display with resolution of 1080 x 2244 FHD, 428 PPI and the P20 Pro has an OLED with display resolution of 1080 x 2240 FHD, 408 PPI.
Apart from these and the camera, the hardware specs on both phones are almost the same.
Both emulate an iPhone X-like the full vision display with a notch for a sensor, camera and speaker.
The fingerprint scanner retains its position at the bottom of the phone as seen on the Huawei P10.
Both flaunt toughened 3D curved glass panels in the front and back, sandwiching a metal chassis.
The P20 series runs on the Hisilicon Kirin 970 processor, which was also seen in the mid-range Honor View 10 launched earlier this year.
The Hisilicon Kirin 970 comes with dedicated integrated NPU (Neural-Network Processing Unit) for AI processing.
The processor is backed up by 4 GB of RAM on P20 and 6 GB of RAM on P20 Pro.
Both have internal storage as 128 GB of ROM.
The P20 comes with a 3,400 mAh battery and the P20 Pro derives power from a 4,000 mAh battery.
Both phones support USB Type-C and fast charging via the HUAWEI SuperCharge technology.
The phones come black, pink gold, midnight blue, twilight colours and an additional champagne gold for the P20.
Price
| Model | In euros | In rupees |
| P20 4GB+128GB | 649 | ₹51,801 (estimated) |
| P20 Pro 6GB+128GB | 899 | ₹71,755 (estimated) |
Verdict
On paper the phone seems to be a blockbuster and a treat for the consumer and a nightmare for its competitors. But the performance remains to be seen.