PHOTO NOTES: All images taken from this phone and used in this review are completely unedited 10 MP photo files, uploaded here from my free Google Photos account. Thus, they are slightly compressed for size, but not to the extent that any loss of quality should be evident. The photos were not touched up or edited in any way before posting.
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Stock image of my gorgeous phone, until I take and post actual ones. Lol. |
With the new Huawei P30 Pro smartphone
having been released in most markets—and earning unanimous
acclaim for its miraculous camera stystem--it seems like the worst
possible time for a look at its previous iteration, right? Maybe for rich tech junkies and elitists, who want to feel like they have the latest technology and have endless means of disposable income to make it happen.
But for budget
connoisseurs like ourselves, what better time to buy an “old”
phone than when the new one is coming out? After all, most yearly phone updates are the equivalent of annual sports video game installments: just enough minor improvements to give people the feeling they're getting something new and improved, while jacking up the price tag as high as demand will allow. And with Huawei's
(reportedly) superior Mate 20 Pro having already been released in
October, that means double the price drop for the old P20 Pro, released in April, 2018, and still hailed as one of the best photography phones available. After all, the P20 Pro is the one that started the whole “let's see how many cameras we can shove into a smartphone" trend, by being the first one to feature a three-camera setup.
Although
Huawei has supposedly reworked the camera system from the ground up
for the P30 Pro, leading to even greater improvement in low-light
photography, as well as even better zoom function (with a whopping
10x hybrid zoom feature, up from 5x here) and added a “time of
flight” sensor (basically a 3-D depth sensor), the remainder of the
phone is largely unchanged. And let's not forget that, even after
Samsung had their latest go with the S10 lineup, the P20 Pro is still
in a three-way-tie for second place in DxOMark's rankings as best
smartphone camera—tied with the S10 Plus and Huawei Mate 20 Pro, and
trailing only the P30 Pro and, curiously, Samsung's 5G-enabled
version of the S10 phone, which somehow must have a different camera
setup than the others.
In other words, now's a great time to
get a jump on a phone that's still near the top of its class, and
will be a capable performer for at least the next year or two. But
the big question that I always heard (and wondered myself) is, how
would the phone fare in America? After all, with (dubious) political
pressure from Washington attempting to prevent Huawei's infiltration
here, there isn't a model specifically made for the U.S. market. And with different countries and phone carriers supporting different cellular network bands, it's very possible that a phone that works well in one country can have loads of troubles working elsewhere. So can a phone that's not made with Americans in mind still work in America?
Well, I bought one, so let's find out.
AVAILABILITY/PRICING
Everyone harps on the fact that this
phone is “not available in the United States”, with American
publications even going so far as to say things like “The Best
Phone You'll Never Buy” (Engadget), or some kind of similar
hyperbolic statement. What I'm assuming they really mean, is that you
can't just walk into a carrier, such as AT&T or Verizon, or head
to your local Walmart, to buy one.
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Just a small smattering of search results for "Huawei P20 Pro" on eBay. Does this look "banned" or "hard-to-find"? |
Fair enough—and all of the above is
true—but statements worded like that only help to perpetuate the
complete myth that purchasing (or even selling) a Huawei device is
illegal, or that they are “banned” in the United States, two
fallacies that couldn't be more wrong: The only “law” against
them is that federal employees cannot use a Huawei (or ZTE) device as
their work phone; I couldn't even find any specific wording that
would prevent them from using one as their personal device outside of
work, if they so wished. It is perfectly legal to purchase, carry,
sell, and otherwise use a Huawei device in America, so don't be
put off by misleading statements to the contrary.
As for availability, well...if you’ve
ever heard of Amazon or eBay, two small up-and-coming marketplaces
that are under-the-radar to most people, then you will have no
problems tracking this device down. When it was first released, the
price topped $1,000 for shipments to the United States—after all,
it’s a “premium” flagship device, and customs charges
potentially threatened to push that cost even higher. However, as its
popularity took off (they have since sold 10 million units of the
entire P20 series)—and as the Mate 20 line was announced and
released (of which they also sold 10 million units, proving the
popularity of the company in literally every country but the
U.S.)—the price started to quickly drop off into more affordable
territory.
I picked mine up on my birthday
(February 14th) from eBay, grabbing a global “Open Box”
dual-sim version (CLT-29) in the gorgeous gradient color Twilight, for just under $600 (the cheapest new one I
could find at that time was $635). I knew prices would be dropping
even further if I waited another month (the P30 Pro was announced a month ago, and is on sale in most regions now), but we
were going out of town in early March and I wanted to have time to
get used to the camera by then. Sure enough, prices have dropped to below the $600 range for a brand new one, with open boxes and used versions
obviously going for even cheaper than that.
The one thing to keep in mind,
however—and perhaps the only real argument against taking a chance
on purchasing one—is that, since it's not sold through official
channels here, there is no warranty offered to devices purchased in
the U.S. You also cannot use the pre-loaded AppGallery or Huawei
Cloud apps, as they bring up an error message that they “are not
available in your region”. As a counterpoint, you can find a seller
that offers 30-day free returns, which would at least cover you if
you received a defective device. You can also sign up for a
third-party warranty through a company like Consumer Priority Service
(an eBay partner), which will cover your device against water damage,
accidental drops, and the like, for a monthly fee (and one-time
“activation” charge).
Sure, it might not be as ideal as
having a manufacturer's warranty right out of the box, but if you're that worried about it, it should help to give you some peace of mind.
DISPLAY
What a better place to start on the
physical review than with the thing you’ll be looking at the most?
Honestly, I always feel inexperienced when it comes to describing
displays, because as long as it’s crisp and clear, and visible,
then I’m fine with it: by those lenient standards, the P20 Pro
passes with room to spare, offering up rich colors and a good level
of detail.
Then again, I was always enamored with
the basic LCD screen of the Honor 7X (a further testament to my
indifference to displays, though in my defense, I came over from the
$50 ZTE Maven 2) and the OLED Full HD+ offered up by the P20 Pro is
equally gorgeous, and a real joy to look at. It might not be
top-of-the-line in terms of specs—apparently most flagships use
AMOLED displays—but unless you're going to be viewing it at weird
angles or looking at it while it's pressed against your nose, the
general consensus is that the differences within everyday use aren't
all that noticeable.
The peak brightness is a lot stronger
than it was on the Honor, so it's a little easier to see on bright
days (the Honor hit its peak at 510 nits, while the P20 Pro comes in
at a max of 597), but that's still a lot lower than other flagship
devices; sure enough, if the sun's shining directly on my phone, even
at its maximum setting, the brightness can still make it very hard to
see. On the flip side, the lowest setting is a scant 4 nits, so in
dark rooms you can really turn the display down without blinding
yourself or those around you.
Of course, there are a variety of
display modes that you can toggle with and configure—such as the
popular “Always On Display”, and color profiles that “tune”
the colors to a set preconfiguration—but I generally just stick to
the default settings on these, and haven't really messed around with
them too much.
I think my biggest problem with the
display up to this point is the auto-correcting brightness feature,
which uses sensors to scan for available light in a room and
automatically adjusts the screen to be visible in that room. That's
not such a bad idea in and of itself, but what is a problem is that
even when the feature is turned off, via the display menu, it's
always still on. Granted, it's not as constant and obvious as it is
when the setting is actually set to “on”, but once you go through
two areas of contrasting light difference (such as a bright room to a
pitch-black one) you'll notice the display almost “jump” as it
automatically adjusts to the new room. This is one of those annoying
things that other reviewers have noticed, and also a small thing you
would think would have been fixed via update by now, but one year
into the phone's life cycle, and it hasn't been addressed. The
“glitch” doesn't noticeably affect the battery, and it generally
only happens when switching between two extreme light situations, but
it's very frustrating.
AUDIO
This is another section
where I'm relatively easy to please: As long as I can hear the audio
output, and it sounds better than radio quality, I'm pretty much fine
with it. Once again, with those simple metrics in mind, the P20 Pro
easily surpasses my expectations: volume levels get much higher than
they did on my Honor 7X, and the Dolby Atmos sound system ensures the
audio is crisp and clear at modest levels. Once you push the volume
level up to its highest settings (which get much louder than my Honor did), you do start to get some noticeable
breakup/static in the audio, but that's generally true of most
playback devices.
One omission that bothers me
a little bit more than I thought it would is the lack of a headphone
jack. Honestly, I rarely use actual headphones, but my car stereo
lacks any sort of USB connection, so the 3.5mm audio cable is the
only way I can connect my phone to my car stereo. Without such a
connection, I'm unable to blast tunes in my car, which is definitely
a bummer. It's also a little odd that the little USB-C charging hole
also doubles as the speaker, so if you're charging your phone while
listening to music, it can get a little muffled. This isn't something
that's of particular concern to me, because I mainly charge my phone
at night while I'm sleeping, but for those that charge their phones
during awake hours, it's worth noting.
Overall, I'd say the audio
experience is fine: It's not outstanding or “world-class” in any
way, but it will get the job done for most “basic” users, who are just going to want to stream some music and watch videos online.
BATTERY
The P20 Pro comes in packing a 4,000 mAh
battery. Well, what exactly does that mean for the non-tech savvy?
Generally speaking, the higher the number, the longer you can expect
the battery to last, though of course a variety of factors contribute
to its longevity. For reference, the average smartphone had just over
3,300 mAh as of 2018, though now it’s becoming more and more
commonplace to see smartphones that are pushing the 5,000 mAh
range. So in terms of size, it's well above-average but nowhere near Earth-shattering. However, the battery life is a big selling point on this phone, garnering long hours of even heavy use. How does it really fare in real-world situations?
For the first couple of weeks, I
honestly didn’t feel like the battery was all that it was cracked
up to be, as it seemed to drop below 80% by lunchtime,
with moderate use…numbers that felt roughly on par with my Honor 7X
(which, for reference, has a 3,340 mAh battery). However, Huawei
devices rely heavily on “AI” for a variety of features, and
battery life is no exception: supposedly, the device picks up on user
behavior, and adjusts itself based on that information to
aggressively save battery power.
I always thought this was just a line
of BS made up to help sell phones, but I honestly feel like I can see
a difference. I have a bad case of “battery anxiety”, where if I
drop below 50% I start to panic (I think this is an extreme response
to my wife’s phoning habits, where she spends almost the entire day
near empty somehow), meaning I'm used to topping up every chance I
get.
Well the P20 Pro has completely changed
my thinking in this regard: In fact, I've become a lot more relaxed,
thanks to the phone's solid battery life. I only use it
intermittently at work, and am usually around 80% by the end of my
shift, without a chance to top up (whereas I’d be closer to 60%
under similar use for my Honor 7X). When I get home, I do tend to use
my phone a bit more, but even by the end of the night, under typical use,
I'm generally hovering around the 30% mark.
To be fair, I do use a lot of
recommended battery-saving features, such as having my phone sleep
after 30 seconds, turning off auto-rotate, closing apps when not in use, and manually adjusting the
screen’s brightness to the lowest visible setting in any given
room…but those were also things I started doing out of habit on my
7X, so they really feel like they’re paying off a little more here.
It's nice never having to worry about running out of juice while on
the go.
BUT, nothing comes for free, and even the phone's great battery life comes at a cost: Huawei's overly-aggressive AI is known to shut off
background tasks and notifications that the system deems to be “not
important”. Personally, I already disable most system
notifications, because I hate being interrupted by constant app
messages that are little more than advertisements, such as Netflix
announcing a new show they think I'd like, or Mercari reminding me
that spring cleaning is a great time to sell stuff for some extra
cash. No thanks. And supposedly, the AI picks up on your usage
habits, attempting to block out notifications and processes on apps
that you rarely use.
Nevertheless, it can be a concern to
those that might rely on notifications across several apps for
business reasons, where time is of the essence. In another
energy-saving measure, instead of sending “push” notifications to
your phone while it's off, it will wait until you sign in to your
phone to send them all through at once. Again, this doesn't bother
me, but for people who rely on getting messages the moment they come
through, and who might not check their phones every three minutes, it
can be a valid concern. As a workaround, each app has settings that
can be manually controlled, giving you the option to allow certain apps to run
in the background (thus enabling push notifications), but sometimes
the AI gets a little overaggressive, and can still override your
settings in certain situations. Also, keep in mind that the more apps
you "whitelist" to constantly run in the background, the less miraculous your battery will seem, leading to more required charging time.
Speaking of that, when charging inevitably does become a
necessity, the 20W fast charger that comes included with the phone
will generally have it filled back up within the hour (though it will
take closer to 90 minutes to fill up from zero). Even for quick top
offs, I can generally get about 50% in 30 minutes with no use; a
little less than that if I'm using it while charging. I must say
between the long-lasting battery and quick charging capabilities, I
almost feel spoiled, as I can't see a typical situation where I would
ever run out. Also keep in mind that the quick charging speeds will require a compatible wall tap, so if you're just using a typical USB hub, or charging from your car, you will just be getting "typical" charge speeds, which are much, much slower (honestly not sure exactly how much slower, but probably closer to 1% for every two minutes of charge.)
In a slight bummer, it does not support
wireless charging, though in another testament to the quick evolution
of technology, it wasn't as much of a “required” feature on a
flagship in early 2018 as it is today. Honestly, unless you're running countless apps and have the display on the brightest setting, the battery life is unbelievable, and will get you through a typical day with plenty of room to spare.
CAMERA
All right, here's the section that most
everyone is going to be flocking to, and the main reason that I
bought this camera to begin with: the camera. The P20 Pro was the
first smartphone to feature a triple camera setup, made even stronger
through its partnership with the well-known German cameramaker Leica.
As with everything these days, there is
a lot of back and forth regarding the effectiveness of P20 Pro’s
camera setup, which many have hailed as one of the best of 2018, if
not all time, while others have dismissed it as “overrated”.
Honestly, there’s a lot of truth to both camps.
On the side of the detractors: I do not
believe that Huawei makes good “point and shoot” cameras overall,
but they do serve the social media niche pretty well: They tend to
over-rely on their own AI system, which likes to oversaturate
everything with an absurd amount of color, while personal features
are smoothed out to an almost “Photoshop”-level degree.
Personally, I hate it, but my wife—who can frequently be found
snapping photos and videos for Snapchat and Instagram on her
iPhone—somehow actually enjoys the way the pictures turn out. All
it takes is a quick glance on social media to know that she is far
from the only person who favors that look, and that's presumably why
Huawei goes overboard with it.
Many review sites also tend to use
default camera settings in their tests, just to keep the comparisons
between phones as even and fair as possible. After all, I would
imagine most “average” consumers probably don't spend a lot of
time fine-tuning the camera settings, or learning about the nuances
of photography: like my wife (and this isn't meant as a criticism at
all), they just want a camera they can aim at something, snap a
photo, and then immediately upload to their social media site of
choice with no need for editing. Fair enough.
However, for those with an interest in
photography, or a willingness to learn, Huawei includes a “Pro”
camera mode, which allows the user to set details like the ISO,
aperture, and white balance themselves. Best of all, no experience is
necessary, because the effects are shown in real-time as you adjust
the meters, allowing you to see just how each setting is going to
affect your shot. This lets you to achieve cool effects right from
in-camera, and lets you “override” the system should you feel the
default shot looks too dark or bright. Toggling off the Master AI
setting—the one responsible for the automatic oversaturation of
colors and processing—is also as simple as heading into the photo
settings menu and flicking it to “off”. It takes about five
seconds and puts you more in control of how your shots will turn out.
This is the function that's going to allow you to get the most out of
the P20 Pro's camera system, and also the reason many seasoned
photographers even swear by this phone: in capable hands, you can get
some amazing photos that just wouldn't be possible on other phones.
There are three cameras on this bad
boy: a 40 MP main shooter; a 20 MP monochrome camera, that is used to
capture more detail on color shots, or that can be used on its own
for striking black and white images; and an underwhelming 25 MP
front-facing selfie camera that is just about as disappointing as the
other cameras are extraordinary. Thankfully, though, I never take
selfies, so it’s not at all a dealbreaker for me; it probably would
be for someone like my wife, though, who uses the front-facing camera
probably just as often as she does the rear ones (which she pretty
much only uses to capture photos and videos of our son).
Now, like many current smartphone
cameras, the megapixel count is a bit of a misnomer: While taking 40
MP photos is possible, the default setup uses a process known as
“pixel binning”, where several individual pixels are combined
with neighboring ones to form one “super pixel”. This supposedly
leads to quicker processing, allowing you to get virtually
instantaneous photos even when taken from multiple cameras
simultaneously, and better performance in lower light situations. It
also cuts the actual megapixel count in fourths, meaning that most of
the images you take with the P20 Pro, assuming you shoot in default mode, are actually only 10 MP. Yet
they are as detailed as photos in other cameras that have even
higher megapixel counts. See where numbers don't necessarily tell the
whole story in mobile photography? (For comparison, the iPhone was long thought to be the king of smartphone cameras up until the later 2010s, and theirs are "only" 12 MP.)
The one feature that really drew me to
the camera, however—and the one area where even most of the phone’s
detractors are impressed—is its performance in low-light
situations, courtesy of Night Mode. Give the phone a dark, semi-lit
area, and you’re going to end up with a much brighter, surprisingly
detailed shot. Give the phone only a slight spark of light—the kind
that would lead to nothing but a black photo on most other phone
cameras--and at the very least you'll end up with the kinds of photos
that appeal to the artist in me: drab, lifeless, yet usable photos
that can be edited into disturbing works of art. Night Mode works by
basically taking a series of photos and layering them all on top of
one another, each layer increasing the brightness thanks to the
phone's 104900 max ISO setting. Keep in mind that this mode requires
a long exposure of anywhere between 1-30 seconds (based on the amount
of available light), and any amount of movement within the frame
during that time will lead to ghostly whisps. In my experience, you
can go handheld for anything around the 5-second mark assuming you
can keep your hand steady: anything above that, and you're probably
going to want to use a tripod.
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But as cool as the night mode is, there are a variety of other cool photography features, and one of them is the
aperture mode, which at first glance looks like your standard “bokeh”
effect (where only one subject is in focus while the background is
gradually blurred out), which can also be achieved in “Portrait”
mode. But the neat thing about this feature is that the focal point
and blur levels can be edited after the picture is taken, right from
within the gallery (and without the need to open any additional
editing software). Simply open the photo in your phone, tap where you want the focal point to be, and adjust the slider for blur levels. One cool tip is that you can also use this mode to unblur the image entirely, allowing you to save some photos where the camera couldn't properly figure out the subject of focus.
My pick for most underrated
setting--and about the only area where the P20 Pro still has a step
up on almost all other cameras—is the addition of the monochrome
sensor, something Huawei dropped from its flagships immediately after
this one. The idea is that black and white sensors capture more
details than color ones; thus, even when taking typical pictures, the
P20 Pro's camera will take information from the monochrome sensor for
added detail and structure.
Lastly, another fun setting to
experiment with are the various other camera modes, including
panorama, 3-D panorama, HDR, time lapse and light trails. The latter,
which I even had on my Honor 7X, has four different settings,
allowing you to best get everything from fireworks, to headlights in
traffic at night, and even star systems as they move about the
galaxy. Now, to get the most out of this feature, you're going to
need a tripod, but the more time you're willing to put into it, the
better the end results will turn out.
Unfortunately for videographers, the
same attention to detail that Huawei has put into the camera system
has not translated to video: There is no auto stabilization on
anything above 1080p at 30fps, meaning if you want to shoot videos in
1080p at 60fps, or 4K, even the slightest hand shakes will lead to
noticeably shaky video. You can obviously counter this by using a
tripod for higher-quality video shoots, but that's certainly a
downside for most casual users, who just want to point-and-shoot.
Additionally, it can also shoot super
slow-motion video, at 920fps at 720p. This is a hit-or-miss setting,
though, as the ensuing video starts playing back at normal speed,
slows down at a random time in the middle, and then ends at normal
speed. I tried this a couple of times, and the results were okay, but
not having full control over when the slow-motion starts or ends
makes it little more than a gimmick.
Honestly, Android phones overall are
pretty bad at video: there's a reason Steven Soderbergh used an
iPhone to shoot Unsane; even as the iPhone's are quickly losing out
in the photography department to Android's, they haven't really lost
much ground in the video department. Honestly, with the success of things like the GoPro and dash cams, I'm really kind of surprised that video doesn't seem to factor very highly on the features of most phones; I'm sure once companies get bored with adding as many cameras to their devices as they possibly can, we'll see a similar revolution with video.
EMUI
Much hatred is heaved at Huawei for
their Android skin, known as “EMUI”, with many users calling the
software a “dealbreaker”. I have to confess I have no idea the
difference between Huawei’s interface, and “stock Android”, but
having had the Honor 7X immediately prior (Honor being Huawei's
affordable sub-brand), I more or less was familiar with EMUI, and
knew the basics of what to expect and where most settings were.
Even with that knowledge, there are
certainly some annoyances with the interface: Huawei phones
constantly come with bloatware (unnecessary apps pre-installed on the
phone), and many of them cannot be uninstalled. This means having to
create a “Trash” folder to put them all in should you want to
avoid running into them, an annoying “workaround” requirement
that just shouldn't exist on a flagship phone in the $1000 range (as
this one was upon its release). Others can be disabled, but not
removed from the system, requiring the user to go into the specific
app and selecting “Disable”, rather than just simply being able
to uninstall it from the app drawer.
The phone also has a feature known as
HiSearch, which can search apps, documents, and more on your phone
based on keywords. It has its own app icon that allows access to it,
but Huawei went one step of annoyance further by programming it to be
activated by the gesture of positioning your finger in an empty area
of screen, and swiping downward. The quick access menu—the one that
has the flashlight, WiFi, and NFC options, among others—is
activated by pulling downward from the top of the screen. Pull down
even a pixel too low from the top of the screen, and you'll end up
activated HiSearch instead, something I do at least a dozen times per
week. Even worse: disabling the search function doesn't remove the
swipe-down gesture, so even though I disabled the search functions,
it still pops down for no reasons every single time.
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Get used to accidentally pulling up this useless feature, even if you disable it. |
I had heard that Huawei got its
inspiration for EMUI from Apple's iOS, but I didn't believe it much
from the Honor interface; having owned a few early iPhones in my day,
I wasn't really reminded of Apple's operating system at all. However,
now in order to close apps out you swipe up, exactly as it is on
Apple devices (on my older Honor phone, closing apps was more akin to
Windows, with a small “X” appearing in the corner of each window,
and a simple tap of the “X” closing them down).
To close multiple windows/apps, a trash
can icon appears at the bottom once you tap the “home” button
with multiple apps opened: tapping the trash can closes them all. At
least, it should. One thing I've noticed is that Google doesn't seem
to close properly in this fashion: you have to manually go back and
swipe up on the Chrome window to get it to shut down. This makes no
sense to me, as the trash can function closed everything down on my
Honor, so I don't understand why it's not the same way here.
Outside of these issues, I have no real
major issues with EMUI, and certainly nothing that would put me off
from owning another Huawei phone. The rest of the features are pretty
easy to find, and most settings are highly customizable to make you
comfortable in your “skin”, including gesture-based options for
opening apps and navigation. I think most of the complaints lodged at
any UI are from people who are simply used to a different one, and
are offended at the thought of having to learn anything outside of
their comfort zone. I was a fan of Apple's iOS when I had it, grew to
like Honor's, and am now pretty comfortable with Huawei's; really, if
you go in with an open mind, you can grow to like pretty much any of
them, especially if the phone around it is solid.
OTHER FEATURES
While the phone is missing a headphone jack, it makes up for it at least partially with a rather obscure feature from the past: an IR blaster. I had no idea what this even was until I started researching the P20 Pro many months before buying one--long story short, it turns your phone into a remote control that can operate most electronic devices with an IR sensor, from televisions, to set-top boxes...even some old air conditioners!
This might be a pretty worthless, or novelty, addition for some, but between having a child, and our own forgetfulness, our remote control always seemed to turn up missing. This meant having to get up and walk five steps to the TV (no thanks), or spend hundreds of steps flipping over every cushion, searching in every toy box, or looking under the couch to find the head-scratching location where it ended up.
I wasn't sure how setting it up would be, but it's a pretty easy guess-and-check process: pick the brand of your television, and then point your phone at your television set as the app runs through all the various models for that brand. You simply press a button, and if your TV doesn't respond, it moves on to the next one, and so on and so forth, until it works. It can be a little time-consuming (I think mine was about the tenth one in, maybe a little more), but when all was said and done took less than five minutes total. And once it's set up for the first time, it's ready to go (until you get a new TV, of course)!
This has really been a great feature for us, as I almost always have my phone on-hand. It even works better than manually adjusting settings, because our TV is so old, the buttons tend to adjust the wrong setting at first--a surefire sign we probably just need to splurge on a new one. But until we do, this is a great fix that doesn't require us to hunt around for that pesky remote, or ever have to replace batteries again!
CONNECTIVITY
Here’s where everyone in the
U.S.—myself included—seems to give this (and similar Chinese-made
phones) pause for thought: Will it even work here? After all, the
network bands are different across the world, meaning a phone that
works just fine in Europe might not work fine, or even at all,
elsewhere.
I was especially worried because my
Honor 7X, which was officially released in the U.S., suffered
GPS connectivity issues around the third or fourth month of owning
it—issues that were never resolved as the months wore on. And by
“issues”, I mean it would not accurately connect to Waze at all.
It wasn't just a small hiccup, where it would take a minute or two
and then adapt: we're talking it would take ten minutes to update my
location, only to immediately drop off again. That made traveling to
new places a huge hassle, as I would just have to pull up manual
directions in Waze, and follow them step-by-step, with no useful
functions of a GPS present.
I can’t speak for every model, as
different ones have different region-specific network bands, but as
long as you get the “International version” (CLT-09 or CLT-29 for
single- and dual-sim, respectively), and use a GSM carrier (namely
AT&T or T-Mobile, or one of their VSOM subsidiaries), you will
have no problems with it. One common misconception that I’ve seen
is that it doesn’t support “LTE” speeds, which isn’t true:
you just have to turn that option on in the settings (for reasons
unknown). I constantly get LTE speeds when out and about and, even
better, my GPS works quickly and flawlessly every time (knock on wood).
Ditto for the WiFi, as connecting to
saved networks is a breeze, as it should be on a flagship phone (or
really, any phone these days).
Again, that doesn't necessarily mean
that there won't be connection problems as the phone gets older, but
the fact that it's still working great after a year's worth of phone
updates certainly helps to put my mind at ease, and is a huge step up
from the network issues I faced with my 7X.
Speaking of “updates”, this is
another category where many people find fault with Huawei phones:
they are not super quick to get the latest Google security patches. I
couldn't really care less, but if you're someone who needs everything
the moment it becomes available, this is not going to be the phone
for you. More troublesome (and something I would have cared about)
was the phone's upgrade to Android Pie, which was started in
December, 2018, and gradually launched by region, with some users
still complaining publicly of not having received it as of February.
At first, I was panicking a bit
because, out of the box, the phone showed no updates available no
matter how many times I ran the “Software Update” feature—either
from within the settings or from within the HiCare app--and I was
afraid I'd just invested in a $600 paperweight. However, after
tinkering around with things for a few minutes, I found a way to
manually download the latest update, and that kickstarted everything,
with all of them automatically downloading and installing all at
once.
OVERALL
CONS (-)
-The EMUI interface can be
pretty annoying at times
-Lots of bloatware, some of which can't be removed
-Display a step back from most flagships in this price range
-No headphone jack
-Camera can be hit or miss on default settings
-Slow to get monthly security updates
-Video modes neglected quite a bit
-No wireless charging support
-Weak selfie camera
-No AR Lens!
-Lots of bloatware, some of which can't be removed
-Display a step back from most flagships in this price range
-No headphone jack
-Camera can be hit or miss on default settings
-Slow to get monthly security updates
-Video modes neglected quite a bit
-No wireless charging support
-Weak selfie camera
-No AR Lens!
PROS (+)
+Outstanding battery
life
+Quick charge support
+Great collection of camera modes
+Pro camera mode gives users manual control over photos
+Monochrome sensor snaps fantastic black and white pics
+Outstanding night mode
+HDR10 Netflix compatible
+Reliable and fast GPS/WiFi connectivity
+Speedy performance even with multiple windows/apps open
+Quick charge support
+Great collection of camera modes
+Pro camera mode gives users manual control over photos
+Monochrome sensor snaps fantastic black and white pics
+Outstanding night mode
+HDR10 Netflix compatible
+Reliable and fast GPS/WiFi connectivity
+Speedy performance even with multiple windows/apps open
No phone is perfect, and
that's certainly true of Huawei's P20 Pro. However, I bought it
specifically for the cameras, and even a year on, this phone does not
disappoint in that category: The monochrome sensor, which hasn't been
on any Huawei flagship since, takes excellent black and white photos;
the low-light performance is impressive; and the 3x optical zoom
helps you get a little closer to the action without sacrificing image
quality. By default, Huawei's AI algorithms tend to oversaturate
images in color, but many social media users may prefer this over a
more “realistic” image; if you prefer more “natural” shots,
the AI can be disabled, while pro mode gives users full control over
aperture settings, ISO, focus, white balance, and more.
The only requirement is you
will have to get used to Huawei's maligned EMUI system, which comes
pre-loaded with an annoying amount of bloatware and pre-installed
apps, some of which can't even be removed. The phone's aggressive
battery-minded AI also tends to go to extreme lengths to save every
drop of power, which can lead to problems with push notifications and
the ability of some apps to run in the background, which can be a
dealbreaker for those that rely on notifications.
Still, if you're willing to
give it a try and don't mind having to toggle around with settings to
get the most out of your phone, the P20 Pro provides an impressive
flagship experience for under $600, even after a year.
And yes, even to Americans.
RATING: 8/10