Huawei P20 series is released with gradient colors and triple cameras

The Huawei P20 series let people see the optimal color design and professional photography.

“We call it the P20 because we have made a ‘big jump’!” At Huawei P20 Series Global Press Conference, Richard Yu, Huawei Consumer Business CEO, alluded to the big jump in naming scheme for the Huawei P20 series, successor to the Huawei P10. In this short press conference, Huawei introduced the P20 and P20 Pro to the world, as well as the Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS.

A smartphone that comes in gradient colors catches the eye.

The Huawei P20 series flagship comes in four colors, Black, Twilight, Pink Gold and Midnight Blue. The Twilight and Pink Gold versions sport an innovative gradient color finish on the back of the phone. This color finish uses an advanced nano-vacuum optical coating technology to create a gradient that renders different colors in different light, a design feature that is unique to this smartphone.

On the front, the Huawei P20 adopts a notch at the top that is significantly smaller than that on the iPhone X, and a narrow Home key at the bottom, which integrates a fingerprint sensor and enables a variety of gesture operations.

The Huawei P20 has a full-screen display on the front and extremely attractive color schemes on the back.

Technical specifications

The Huawei P20 adopts a 5.8-inch display, weighs 165 g, and is 7.65 mm thick. Inside is an octa-core Kirin 970 chipset, containing four Cortex A73 2.36 GHz and four Cortex A53 1.8 GHz components. The battery capacity is 3400 mAh and supports Huawei SuperCharge. It has 4 GB RAM and 128 GB storage.

The Huawei P20 Pro has a 6.1-inch display, weighs 180 g, and is 7.8 mm thick. It also uses the Kirin 970 chip and comes with 128 GB storage, but has an increased 6 GB RAM. The battery capacity is 4000 mAh and also supports SuperCharge.

Excellent Leica triple cameras

The Huawei P20 also turned the mobile phone conference into a camera launch event. In a joint development with Leica, Huawei added triple back cameras onto the P20 Pro.

  • Tri-lens camera:
    40 MP (RGB, f/1.8 aperture)
    20 MP (Monochrome, f/1.6 aperture)
    8 MP (Telephoto, f/2.4 aperture)
    Autofocus support (laser focus, deep focus, phase focus, contrast focus)

The P20 Pro camera has an astonishing ISO of 102,400, equivalent to that of the Canon 5D Mark IV. The P20 Pro camera offers the highest light sensitivity in a smartphone.

The P20 Pro additionally uses the new Leica 3x telephone (VARIO-SUMMILUX-H 1:1.6-2.4/27-80 ASPH) lens system. Assisted with the Huawei Triple Zoom technology, the camera supports 3x optical zoom, long-range 5x Hybrid Zoom and 10x digital zoom.

DxOMark, a camera benchmarking website, gave P20 Pro the highest score of 109 points, scoring 10 photos 10 points higher than that of the S9. The P20 also ranked second with double cameras.

The P20 uses the 2000 (black and white) and the 1800 (color) Leica dual lenses, with apertures of f/1.8 and f/1.6, respectively. The P20 and P20 Pro support 960-fps slow motion shots, a feature previously offered by Samsung and Sony.

The Huawei P20 also has 4D predictive and zero-delay shutter capabilities. The new color temperature sensor supports accurate color balance adjustments.

More powerful AI

The Kirin 970 means that AI made way in the press conference. The first highlight is photography. The P20’s algorithm further consolidates its advantage over competitor products.

The P20 is equipped with the standard 24 megapixel front camera, supporting 3D portrait lighting. In selfie mode, P20 offers unique lighting effects.

The Huawei P20 also introduced AI image stabilization technology. The AI algorithm can identify objects and edges, filter and correct shifts and blurs from hand movements to take clear pictures in four seconds. At the same time, it allows for perfect night-scene photography, a problem that challenged the camera industry for the past 179 years.

Huawei has once again revolutionized its ability to identify and optimize picture scenarios. In the P20 series, AI is able to identify more than 500 scenarios in 19 categories.

Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS, a greater attraction

The Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS became the most attractive product in the release event.

Huawei’s design thinking and technology pursuit is evident in the Porsche Design Mate RS.

According to Yu, this edition of the phone’s design was inspired by the Porsche RS sportscar. The Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS comes alive with enhanced ergonomics, eight smooth curves and six symmetrical surfaces. The Porsche Design version also comes in red.

The Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS uses a 2K curved OLED screen. It also introduced the aerospace concept of a micro-capsule cooling technology to mobile phones.

In addition to the Leica triple cameras, the Porsche Design version also carries the latest in-screen fingerprint technology. The pioneering in-screen fingerprint design unleashes a revolution in unlocking. Hovering your finger wakes up the device and touching to unlock the smartphone is lightning fast. Both actions can be carried out in one swift motion. The dual fingerprint identification in both the front and the back are also easy keys to switch separate mobile spaces, creating a new level of privacy.

The Porsche Design version has a built-in 4000 mAh battery, is equipped with 22.5W Huawei SuperCharge technology and supports 10W wireless fast charge.

Price is the most critical factor

The Huawei P20 series and the Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS will start global sales. Their prices in European market were also released at the conference:

The P20 European price is €649 (4 GB RAM and 128 GB storage), about $800;
The P20 Pro Europe price is €899 (6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage), about $1108;
The Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS Europe price is €1695 (6 GB RAM and 256 GB storage), about $2089;
and the premium version of Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS is €2095 (6GB RAM and 512 GB storage), about $2582.

The Huawei P20 series China conference will be held in mid-April. Chinese market prices are typically significantly lower than international prices. Given its stark improvements in photography over the P20, the P20 Pro may be much more attractive.

Huawei P20/P20 Pro:

This article originally appeared in SOHU and was translated by Pandaily.