You’ll be forgiven if you had not realised that in addition to the 3-camera behemoth (the P20 PRO) Huawei had also released a slightly smaller handset. All the attention has so been on the P20 Pro, the bigger device with extra RAM, better water-proofing, an Amoled (rather than LCD) screen and 3 cameras. In contrast, the P20 has just (!) the 2 cameras. While every reviewer who has played with the P20 Pro, our own Garry included, has raved over the camera, there remain a number of people who don’t want such a large handset or who aren’t prepared to pay the extra for the Pro version. The non-Pro P20 is a little smaller (a 5.8″ screen rather than 6.1″) but is most certainly still top-end. But how good is its camera? To find an answer Coolsmartphone blew their entire travel budget to send me to the Norwegian forests outside Oslo. It’s very much winter there still, with knee-deep snow in places, but some fantastic opportunities for photos.
Now, before jumping into the photographs, what are we speaking about here? The P20 has two cameras that work together to produce images. One is a 12MP lens with an f/1.8 aperture, the other is a 20MP camera with a f/1.6 aperture. Some words of confession: I was probably the wrong person to be sent on this trip! I realise that you can play with camera settings and enhance photographs, but I’m a point and click type of person, so all the following shots are taken using the automatic settings that come pre-set on the phone. The camera has AI built into it and instantly re-tuned the settings to ‘snow’ mode. Quite what this means is anyone’s guess, but I like the result! So, no fancy words or photographic jargon, here are the snaps:
Imagine what you could do if you actually used the camera properly! I particularly like the two shots of the same log, one focussed on the log, the other on the background. Overall I’m really impressed! Have any of our readers plumped for the normal P20 over the Pro version?