Huawei P20

Huawei P20 even with its promised premium camera quality and expensive looking design fails to be the most interesting flagship product to come from Huawei in recent times. Its features sound astonishing on paper but the reality fails to live up to the expectations. All that it does, its expensive sibling P20 Pro does better.

Huawei P20 is a handsome looking phone with a snazzy finish to its design. But let’s address the elephant in the room first. There is no MicroSD card slot, it’s purely dual SIM. There is also no 3.5MM headphone jack. The weatherproofing is inadequate with only little done to make the phone water and dust resistant. All you get is IP53 dust and water resistance, which means the phone is protected from dust ingress and a light spray of water. Rest of the phone’s features are pretty standard. The glass on the front has a smooth finish and coloured glass on the rear is attractive. Its two-tone gradient finish and pearly sheen make it eye-catching. There are several different colours offered too. All models have colour matched soft chrome edges and the fingerprint sensor lies below the screen. The volume and power buttons are on the top-right edge and a USB Type C connector on the bottom with speaker grilles. 

Just like the iPhone X, there is a notch at the top of the 5.8-inch screen, it isn’t as wide as iPhone’s but still can prove to be bothersome in daily use. The Huawei P20 uses a 1,080 x 2,244, IPS RGBW panel. The colour reproduction and brightness are perfect. It has the feature of adjusting the white balance of the screen automatically depending on ambient light. 

Huawei P20 is perfectly fast and responsive. It is technically proficient across and its functioning is lucid. It’s a quick phone, powered by the octa-core 2.4GHz HiSilicon Kirin 970 chip along with 4GB RAM and 128GB of free storage.

Camer wise, the hype is unwarranted. You might think you’re getting a good deal with AI stabilised 12 megapixel and 20 megapixel rear cameras and 24-megapixel front camera with Flash LED, but the output falls short of expectations. Images turn out to be soft, underexposed and overprocessed. The best of its features cannot be used together which are a huge drawback. 

Huawei P20 promises a long battery life and the results are satisfactory. However, it’s battery performance still pales in comparison to its sibling, the Huawei P20 Pro. 

Huawei P20 may seem like a riveting option but at this price point, the cons start to outweigh the pros. The overall performance of the phone is lacklustre and it doesn’t excel in the areas it promises to. It certainly isn’t the most innovative or flexible product to come from Huawei. Although, if you are a Huawei loyalist you might want to spend a little bit more and purchase the Huawei P20 Pro instead.