[REVIEW] Huawei P30: The ideal flagship smartphone even for 2020, with a fantastic camera

The company Huawei, as a globally leading smartphone manufacturer, also introduces its flagship device lineup every year. It regularly goes head-to-head with the segment leaders—top-tier devices from Apple or Samsung.

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In today’s review, we’ll take a closer look at the flagship model Huawei P30, which can be an ideal choice when picking a powerful flagship smartphone with an excellent camera and a good sale price. You won’t find this smartphone getting lost in the market even alongside the new generation of P40 Series and it has one undeniable advantage – Google Mobile Services.

We purchased the device through a mobile operator in Slovakia, Telekom. The device is also available through the official Slovak distribution, and its retail price in local e-shops is roughly in the range of 549 – 599 euros.

The device packaging surprises with a fast charger

The phone arrives in a white box of standard size, with a shiny Huawei manufacturer logo as well as the Leica logo, which collaborated on the development of the cameras. After opening the package, the smartphone itself is on top, sealed with a protective film.

A protective film is also applied to the display, directly from the factory. It’s a film that supports fingerprint scanning, which is a pleasant surprise from the manufacturer.

Under it, you’ll find a paper envelope containing manuals and manufacturer recommendations in various languages. You’ll also find a SIM card ejector tool and a specific NM memory card from Huawei.

In the lower section, on the last level, there’s a 22,5W fast-charging adapter tip that will reliably and quickly charge the battery with a capacity of 3650 mAh.

Along with the charger, there’s also a USB Type-C cable, but on the other side it uses a standard USB Type-A connector. A nice bonus is the integrated headset, made up of simple earphones with a microphone, control buttons, and a bone-shaped design.

A premium metal build is a guarantee of quality

Right from the first unboxing, you can tell this is a well-crafted flagship smartphone. The glass-metal “sandwich” looks elegant, and given the size of the display, the phone is genuinely compact.

The front with minimal bezels, standard battery capacity, and a good weight—only drawback is the highly protruding rear camera module. 

In our review we have the black color version, but in real life it’s more like a dark gray shade of the glass surface, paired with a black metal frame.

However, the Huawei P30 is also sold in other color versions. We like, for example, the white one—it also features a transreflective rear panel surface that’s especially known for its play of light. 

It also comes with certified and enhanced dust and water resistance. It’s not full protection, and the phone can’t be submerged in water, but the manufacturer at least claims an IP 53 certification.

The layout of the elements is practical, with one exception

The device dimensions stop at 149.1 x 71.4 x 7.6 mm, with a very pleasant weight of 165 grams. On the front, you’ll mainly find the 6.1″ AMOLED display, which covers more than 91% of the front panel. It comes with minimal bezels and a minimal “chin” under the display. 

Above the display, there’s a standard earpiece for calls (it doesn’t create a “stereo” effect), while the front camera sits in a subtle drop-shaped notch. A group of sensors also fits above the display, and in this case the LED diode handles the ambient mode of the AMOLED panel. 

We can smoothly move on to the top edge of the device, where there’s only a secondary microphone—useful, for example, for recording video. Besides that, you’ll only find plastic parts here designed to pass the antenna signal. 

The bottom edge is a bit more interesting. On this side as well, there are the aforementioned plastic parts with the same function, but you also get a 3.5 mm audio jack, a primary microphone of standard quality for calls, a USB Type-C connector for charging or connecting to a computer, and even a loud “mono” speaker that delivers good sound clarity and volume—though it falls short compared to its “stereo” counterparts.

The left side, just like the top and bottom edges, is made of metal. It’s almost empty and only contains a slot whose interior hides a tray for a pair of nanoSIM cards. So it’s a Dual SIM device, and the choice of individual slots is up to the user.

The slot is hybrid, so you can use it with one SIM and one memory card to expand storage. In terms of memory media, however, it supports only a specific NM card format from Huawei. 

The right side, also made of metal, has a pair of high-quality metal buttons that are also positioned conveniently for you to feel with your index finger. There’s a volume control button placed higher up and a button to turn the device on or off located underneath it.

The second one is not only smaller, but it’s also color-coded—the red coloring makes it much easier to tell apart. That’s definitely a practical move from the manufacturer. 

We still need to evaluate the rear glass panel, which is prone not only to scratches and possible damage, but also to fingerprints and other grease. In the upper-left part of this panel, you’ll find three rear cameras, whose module sticks out clearly from the device body. As a result, the phone wobbles when you place it down—for example on a desk—which is definitely a drawback. 

On the other side, the Leica sensor captures truly excellent photos and also includes optical stabilization—something that usually comes from such an unpopular and protruding camera module. Below that, there’s a dual-LED flash and a pair of sensors. The back also includes only the mandatory recycling information, camera details, and the Huawei and Leica logos. 

Amazing AMOLED panel nailed it

In its fairly compact body, the smartphone offers a 6.1″ AMOLED display with minimal bezels and a drop-shaped notch. The display takes up almost 86% of the front panel, and the panel itself supports the display of 16 million colors. 

The display resolution tops out at 2340 x 1080 pixels, which translates to a total sharpness of 422 ppi. The panel has a fairly standard 19.5:9 aspect ratio, and you won’t miss out on the DCI-P3 color gamut and an HDR mode. 

A flagship phone delivers sufficient maximum brightness even in direct sunlight, excellent viewing angles, and rich—rather warm—color tones. The display’s color rendering can also be adjusted in the smartphone’s settings.

Minimum brightness is also perfectly fine, and the sensors positioned directly above the display work without issues. The phone will alert you if you accidentally cover the top part of the screen—right with those sensors. 

Kirin 980: Performance is truly no obstacle

On the performance side, there’s a flagship Hisilicon Kirin 980 processor built on 7nm technology from Huawei.

It’s an octa-core chip with 2 x 2.6 GHz Cortex-A76 + 2 x 1.92 GHz Cortex-A76 + 4 x 1.8 GHz Cortex-A55. The processor is paired with a Mali-G76 MP10 graphics accelerator. 

The performance is truly more than enough—and worthy of an available flagship smartphone. In combination with ample RAM capacity and optimized software, the device’s responses were genuinely fast. There was no problem even with a large number of running apps or demanding multitasking. 

You can view the detailed performance test results for the Huawei P30 flagship smartphone in AnTuTu and Geekbench in the table above. 

Storage with no issues + hybrid slot 

In the market, the smartphone appeared in multiple memory versions, including 6/8 GB RAM and 64/128/256 GB UFS 2.1 storage. For our testing, we used the 6 GB RAM and 128 GB internal storage version. 

In our case, after installing hundreds—or one hundred and fifty—demanding apps, adding a few music albums, photos, and videos, the phone still showed over 90 GB of free storage. So you won’t be worried about a lack of space, especially thanks to the option to expand it with an NM memory card. 

The storage in this configuration is practically an ideal choice for the vast majority of users. The RAM is enough even for demanding multitasking and graphics-heavy games, while the internal storage is truly generous.

Under-display fingerprint reader isn’t the best 

The fingerprint reader is basically the first place we noticed as a potential drawback. That’s because it’s located under the display. Even though it’s a modern technology, there’s no denying the feeling of something like an “early generation” of this reader—it still has “flies.”

The sensor under the display responds noticeably slower than a standard sensor on the device surface that you may be used to. Wet or greasy hands can also cause problems, not to mention possible issues when using incompatible tempered glass or a poor-quality protective film. 

That’s exactly why Huawei offers a pre-installed custom film that supports this feature and doesn’t limit it. If you like trying new technologies, you’ll be impressed—and such a sensor also supports, for example, signing in to internet banking of selected banks. 

However, if you prefer a classic and fast sensor that doesn’t hesitate—and where you won’t have to repeat the scan—you won’t get that here. If you don’t get used to the new feature, you can still unlock with face recognition (via the front camera) or use the standard PIN code. 

Android 10 is a given, EMUI customization is here too

The phone originally launched with Android 9.0 Pie. Later, as a representative of still-current flagship smartphones, it was updated to Android 10, which brought several improvements, including a full-fledged dark mode. 

Besides the Android 10 system itself, there’s also the January security update, which is a bit of a letdown. We’re missing a February or March security patch with improvements from Google. We believe the manufacturer will do better and add updates at least on a quarterly basis. 

The key piece of information is that the current generation of Huawei’s flagship model still includes Google Mobile Services, so you can enjoy full-featured synchronization, including apps like Gmail, YouTube, and Google Maps, as well as Google Drive. Still, the most important part is the presence of the well-known Play Store with apps. 

We already know that the upcoming generation on our market won’t include these services. Users will have to make do with an alternative in the form of Huawei Mobile Services and the AppGallery store, or other app stores, for example from Amazon. Even this factor can be a pretty strong sales advantage for the P30 generation.

However, the Android system isn’t present in its standard form. Huawei’s EMUI overlay is also here, specifically in version 10.0.0. In the past, Huawei’s overlay has been criticized for its sameness and the outdated design of the UI itself.

Although EMUI offers the same practical foundation at its core, several design changes really do happen here—while some elements noticeably resemble the competitive One UI environment from Samsung.

For example, this is the case with enlarged elements between shortcuts, new and clearer settings, a dark mode even in Huawei apps, and a lot of other details that don’t interfere with everyday use. No Google Assistant, either, along with an optional slide-out menu for apps (also alphabetical), and new themes, including an ambient mode on a turned-off AMOLED display. Practical.  

30x zoom: Brutal trio of cameras

As mentioned, one downside is the noticeably protruding rear camera module. However, it also has a protective function and hides the real gem.

Huawei P30 will come with a main 40 MPx (f/1.8) camera, complemented by a 8 MPx (f/2.4) telephoto lens with up to 3-times optical and 30-times digital zoom. Laser autofocus and optical image stabilization are also included. The third sensor is a 16 MPx (f/2.2) ultra-wide lens, which can also serve as a sharp “macro.”

The optics have been handled for several years now by the well-known company Leica, which also contributed to the final photographic result this time as well. The smartphone also supports up to 2160p (30 fps) or 720p (960 fps) slow-motion video.

The equipment also includes HDR, panorama, and a dual LED flash. The wide front camera has 32 MPx (f/2.0), offers HDR functionality, and records 1080p (30 fps) video.

The photo quality is at a very high level. Daylight delivers sharp photos with realistic colors and great depth of field. Great macro shots are also included, whether you use the wide-angle or standard lens, and there’s no problem with photo results indoors either.

4K video is a given, and its stability is good. For even better results, we recommend using the quality level at 1080p (60 fps).

Original full-resolution photos are available at the following link.

Where the smartphone really surprised is with night photos. Photos in worse lighting conditions truly test the image sensors themselves, and Leica didn’t disappoint. Evening and night shots have plenty of light and lots of detail, and they’re very usable. And if—by any chance—you’re not satisfied with the result in standard mode, the manufacturer has also prepared a night mode.

Connectivity at a flagship smartphone level 

A proper flagship smartphone shouldn’t hesitate when it comes to connectivity. The P30 model comes with dual Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, with Wi-Fi Direct technology, and Bluetooth 5.0 LE with A2DP and aptX HD. Fans of great sound will also appreciate the standard 3,5 mm audio jack, through which you can connect a truly wide range of headphones.

It’s a shame that there’s no FM radio, and the phone doesn’t include an infrared sensor either—though today it may not be a standard feature. There’s also dual GPS, along with other standards such as A-GPS, Glonass, BDS, Galileo, and QZSS.

Another big advantage is the built-in NFC chip. Thanks to services that are still supported by Google Mobile Services, you can use it for contactless payments via Google Pay. This technology can also play a role in your potential purchase.

3650 mAh battery? You’d expect more 

The phone has an integrated 3650 mAh battery, and it also supports fast 22,5W wired charging. The fast charger is included in the box, which is definitely a plus. However, it lacks support for wireless charging, which is standard among the main flagship competitors. In this case, the manufacturer saved money, and wireless charging is offered by the much more expensive “P30 Pro” version.

Battery life overall isn’t bad. We recorded at least 5 hours of screen-on time, and the software is also energy-conscious (sometimes even too much)—closing background apps very strictly. On the other hand, we’d still expect a little more. In the later afternoon hours, the flagship smartphone was reporting the last 20% of battery, and on a more demanding workday that could become a problem.

A solution could be using one of Huawei’s power-saving modes, which can extend battery life a bit, plus topping up during the day. In principle, we didn’t mind that the phone wouldn’t last until evening as long as we had a fast charger on hand during the day and added some energy with at least a short 15 – 20 minute charge. Still, the competition offers more.

Final verdict: an ideal flagship smartphone

Huawei P30 is a bold yet very solid representative of the flagship smartphone class. For its price, it delivers truly high performance, optimized software, enough battery capacity, and an excellent range of cameras—backed by above-average photo results. 

If you’re looking for a truly powerful machine but don’t want to pay high sums for the top versions of the current flagship flagships, the P30 model will become your great companion for at least the next two to three years (depending on the manufacturer’s software update support). 

So we highly recommend buying this smartphone—even at the expense of the already unveiled new generation of devices labeled “P40 Series”.