The Huawei P20 Pro’s camera is a triple threat to Samsung, Apple and the rest

How do you stand out from the smartphone crowd? Edge-to-edge screens are the norm now, bezels old news, super speed the bare minimum. While Apple and Samsung battle it out over animated emojis, Huawei has just launched the P20 Pro, a flagship phone with all the topline specs you’d expect, but one that happens to have a triple camera. Bringing together an 8MP telephoto lens, a 20MP black-and-white lens, and a stonking 40MP RGB sensor, as well as 5x zoom capabilities, it’s the most exciting smartphone snapper we’ve seen for ages. AI smarts are at play too, automatically switching modes depending on shooting conditions. The P20 Pro one-ups its little brother in the screen department as well, with a 6.1in 2240 x 1080 AMOLED to put it in line with the Galaxy S9 and iPhone X. From the latter, it borrows a notch at the top of the screen, although the absence of biometric tech makes less it in-your-face than the X’s. A Kirin 970 processor, 6GB of RAM and a colossal 4,000mAh battery keep everything ticking along admirably backstage, but really it’s the camera tech that’ll make the P20 Pro a headline-grabber when it launches next month.

Matt Tate Contributor

About

I'm fascinated by all things tech, but if you were going to leave me on a desert island, I'd probably ask for my Nintendo Switch, a drone, and a pair of noise-cancelling cans to block out the relentless seagull racket. When I'm not on Stuff duty you'll probably find me subscribing to too many podcasts, playing too many video games, or telling anyone who will listen that Spurs are going to win a trophy this season.

Areas of expertise

Video games, VR, smartwatches, headphones, smart speakers, bizarre Kickstarter campaigns