Huawei P30 Pro

Our Huawei P30 Pro Review

The P30 Pro is yet another fantastic device from the Chinese smartphone manufacturer. It’s sleek, attractive design gives way to a seamless performance and a brilliantly versatile camera that’s able to capture incredible photos.

Huawei P30 Pro: Display

Despite not quite sporting top of the range specs, the P30 Pro’s 6.47-inch OLED display with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio still looks absolutely fantastic. Huawei have opted for a 1080p Full HD+ resolution rather than Quad HD like Samsung but only the most critical eye will find fault with this still impressive level of sharpness.  

Colours appear brilliantly rich and vivid, with blacks deep and inky while whites are pleasingly crisp. Contrast levels are pitch-perfect and it’s always plenty bright enough. Combined with the display’s large size, all of this results in a hugely enjoyable gaming and streaming experience.

Huawei P30 Pro: Camera

Most of Huawei’s marketing for the P30 Pro has focused on its quad camera set-up and for good reason, the sophisticated system that’s been co-engineered with Leica is able to capture absolutely stunning photos in all conditions. Images are beautifully vibrant, clear and full of incredible amounts of detail. 

The P30 Pro’s zoom capabilities are very impressive and probably the best on the market right now, retaining an amazing level of sharpness all the way up to 50x. It also excels in low light with its excellent Night Mode and there’s an 20MP ultra wide-angle lens so you can pack as much of your surroundings in as possible.

Huawei P30 Pro: Design 

The P30 Pro is a gorgeous looking device made of an attractive mix of glass and metal. It’s back is sleekly curved to fit comfortably in the palm of your hand and comes in a range of eye-catching colours which really helps it to stand out amongst the Android crowd.

Huawei have scaled back the top and bottom bezels on the front of the device to offer a generous screen-to-body ratio of 88.6%. This leaves the 32MP front selfie camera in a very tiny, unobtrusive notch which thankfully allows plenty of room for notifications. The front screen is also curved, dripping right off the edge for more immersive viewing. 

Huawei P30 Pro: Performance

A Kirin 980 chipset and huge 8GB of RAM work seamlessly together to offer a blazingly-fast performance. It's capable of handling anything you throw at it, ensuring even the most graphically-demanding games run without a hitch and rendering load times effectively non-existent. 

Battery life is pretty standard and you should generally be able to last a day-and-a-half before hitting 0%. There are two highly convenient battery-saving measures for those unlucky times you forget your charger, power saving mode and the more extreme ultra power saving mode, which really allow you to squeeze out every last bit of juice.

Huawei P30 Pro: Features & OS

The P30 Pro runs Google’s Android 9 Pie OS with Huawei’s custom EMUI interface laid over the top. Some really don’t like it, but it’s very clean and intuitive to navigate around. Although the device will arrive with no app drawer, you can enable it in the settings and there’s lots of cool customization options to choose from. 

You’ll find both Huawei and Google’s set of stock apps but unfortunately you can’t delete Huawei's, only hide them out of sight in a folder. As well as wireless charging, there’s also what’s known as reverse wireless charging which allows you to use your device to top up another. It’s a little slow but works well, particularly with wireless headphones. 

How much is the Huawei P30 Pro?

The P30 Pro is a premium, flagship device and so naturally commands a price to match. Buying it outright will generally cost you around £900 so unless you’ve got the money to spare, opting for a pay monthly contract is the best option. 

Not only is there a staggering variety of choice in the packages of texts, minutes and data available but you’ll be able to pay off your device in much more manageable amounts. 

Huawei P30 Pro: Our Verdict

The P30 Pro is a seriously impressive flagship smartphone and definitely an upgrade over the P20 Pro. It’s a very high-end looking smartphone and performs incredibly well but it’s standout feature is by far and away that superb camera which is easily one of the very best currently available.