Huawei P30 Pro first impressions: Raising the bar for premium phones

Huawei has fast emerged as a solid alternative to premium smartphone players such as Apple and Samsung. Phones like Mate 20 Pro showcase Huawei's superior capabilities, especially in the camera department. This year, Huawei is taking on Galaxy S10 and iPhone XS with its new P30 Pro, featuring quad-camera setup with support for up to 50x digital zoom and 5x optical zoom.

Set to launch in India this month, Huawei P30 Pro borrows design elements from the previous premium Huawei phones. On the back it has a familiar gradient glass back panel. On the front it has curved edge-to-edge display, reminiscent to the Samsung Galaxy Note series. The front also features a curved dewdrop notch at the top. Interestingly enough, it doesn't have a mic on the top edge unlike similarly designed flagship and mid-range phones. For sound, it relies on screen-casting-like technology which allows sound to emanate from the screen itself.

Huawei P30 Pro screen is quite vibrant but offers full HD resolution. Not that the display quality is bad but higher resolution could have made a big difference in multimedia streaming or watching high resolution content on the app. The OLED panel looks pretty decent otherwise.

While the front is dominated by display, volume and power buttons are placed on the right edge. The top edge has IR blaster whereas the base features USB Type-C, SIM slot and speaker grilles. The phone does not have a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Huawei P30 Pro definitely looks good but the overall design is also quite impressive. For a glass phone, it's not slippery that much. It can be little thick and bulky for some users for large size and uneven width, which probably is a deliberate design choice.

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The EMUI has also been refined to make it lighter and more productive. Small changes like bigger animations and more spacing between apps help easier navigation.

The biggest highlight of Huawei P30 Pro is the camera. The quad camera setup is comprised of 40 MP (Wide Angle Lens, f/1.6 aperture,OIS) + 20 MP (Ultra Wide Angle Lens, f/2.2 aperture) + 8 MP (Telephoto, f/3.4 aperture,OIS). The 5X optical zoom is quite impressive. The digital zoom at 50x is a bit of an overkill. But good thing is that it supports auto focus in zoom mode for clearer photos. The built-in AI has also come of the age with smarter recognition of objects and can even count calories. There are tonnes of preloaded modes for different kind of photography.

We will dive deeper into camera capabilities and overall performance of the phone in our detailed review. Until then stay tuned.