Huawei P30 and P30 Pro smartphones make official debut in Paris

After being the subject of a host of leaks that have revealed almost everything about them from their design, to their hardware including their vaunted optical zoom capabilities for their rear cameras, Huawei has finally officially launched the P30 and P30 Pro a few minutes ago in Paris by Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group.

Most of the prior leaks are spot on and the Huawei P30 and P30 Pro are built around the best hardware that Huawei has to offer with looks to match. Externally, the phone is available in your choice of five colours with a light blue finish called Breathing Crystal, a burnt orange looking Amber Sunrise, the ever quintessential Black, their popular Aurora finish seen on the P20 and a iridescent shade of Pearl White.

According to Huawei, the finish was created by layering a series of nine nano optical colour layers, each 1/100 the thickness of a piece of paper to create the shiny effect and it looks fetching indeed. Both the P30 and P30 Pro have the same colour options though these will likely vary in terms of availability depending on region.

Here’s how both the P30 and the more powerful P30 Pro stack up compared to each other:

Huawei P30

The mainline Huawei P30 comes with a notch placed symmetrically in the upper quadrant of the phone that holds a 32-MP f/2.0 selfie camera with AI HDR enhancements for better selfies.This time around, they’ve refined their design language and the combination of the notch along with the slim 3.08mm thin bezels all around make the front almost all display with the P30 packing a a large 6.1-inch OLED display with 2,340 x 1080 pixel resolution, a now increasingly mainstream 19.5:9 aspect ratio to enjoy gaming and movie content and an in-screen fingerprint sensor.

Under the hood, the phone runs their latest EMUI 9.1 on Android Pie 9.0 and is powered by their latest Kirin 980 octacore processor paired with a Mali G76 MP10 GPU. There is only one storage configuration though with the P30 coming with 6GB RAM and 128GB of storage expandable storage. Much like the P20, the P30 uses a hybrid SIM card though the second SIM slot only accepts their proprietary NM storage card to expand the storage by up to 256GB.

The rear comes with a triple camera array that packs Leica-issued glass as well as their latest hardware combined with very nifty tricks in AI-enhanced photography. A primary 40-MP f/1.8 camera is paired up with a secondary 16-MP f/2.2 ultra wide camera and an 8-MP f/2.4 telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom and OIS. This capable setup allows the P30 to take shots at up to 103,480 ISO which offers more options under low light and shots from paparazzi pleasing distances too with 5x hybrid zoom and 30x digital zoom on top of the 3x optical zoom.

Keeping the phone juiced is a 3,650mAh battery with 22.5W Super Charging. Other key features for the P30 include the retention of a 3.5mm audio jack, a USB Type-C port and an IP53 rating for water and dust resistance. What was more impressive though is their even more powerfully specced Huawei P30 Pro.

Huawei P30 Pro – 5X optical zoom, huge display and massive battery

The P30 Pro is a behemoth that upguns everything on the P30 and dials it to 11. The phone still has the same Kirin 980 octacore processor running EMUI 9.1 on Android Pie 9.0 but instead has up to 8GB RAM and up to 512GB of onboard storage expandable via a similar hybrid Nano memory card.

Where it takes things up a notch is a larger 6.47-inch OLED display with 2,340 x 1080 pixel resolution that is compliant with the DCI-P3 colour gamut to render more realistic hues onscreen. Like the P30, it also has an in-display fingerprint reader and to make things even more interesting, it ditches the speaker grille up top and uses a sophisticated in-display speaker tech that vibrates the P30 Pro’s display to generate sound.

While the front 32-MP f/2.0 selfie camera is identical to the P30, the rear camera array consists of not three but four cameras. A primary 40-MP f/1.6 camera and OIS is paired up with a 20-MP F/2.2 ultrawide camera, an 8-MP F/3/4 camera with a whopping 5X optical zoom along with OIS thrown in for good measure that can also offer 10x hybrid zoom and a staggering 50x digital zoom. The P30 Pro also has a TOF 3D camera as well as Leica-issued optics and AI-enhanced photography capabilities. What makes it really impressive is its capability to capture shots at up to 409,600 ISO which is well within DSLR territory and beyond.

Battery life is enhanced as well with a 4,200mAh battery that has 40W Super Charging for even faster juicing in the field, wireless charging and reverse wireless charging capabilities. All this is wrapped in a fetching chassis that also has an impressive IP68 water and dust resistance rating though – alas – no 3.5mm audio jack.

Also announced were a slew of accessories including a host of phone casings with different form factors, a Huawei FreeBuds Lite pair of wireless headphones somewhat akin in form and design to Apple’s AirPods, a massive 12,000 40W SuperCharge Power bank, a necklace-style Huawei FreeLace wireless headphone and the Huawei Watch GT smart wearables in 42mm and 46mm sizes.

The Huawei P30 is slated to retail for €799 \which is about RM3,668 in local Malaysia Ringgit. The P30 Pro at launch was announced with a price tag of  €999 \for the 8GB RAM/128GB version (about RM4,592), €1099 for the 8GB RAM/256GB version (about RM5,052) and €1249 for the 8GB RAM/512GB version (about RM5,741).

These prices are certainly premium but seeing the capabilities that the P30 and P30 Pro are claiming to offer, that price tag may well be justified. Also announced at the launch is that the P30 and P30 Pro will be available from 26 March 2019 in selected markets though Malaysia’s launch date wasn’t mentioned at the launch per se nor local prices which will likely vary because of a host of factors like shipping costs or local taxes from what was announced in Paris.

With the specifications revealed and a potential local launch date almost all but confirmed to be on 6 April from local credible sources, all that remains to know now is what free goodies will come bundled with the local Malaysia launch on top of the existing Huawei Backup drive. Stay tuned for updates!