Huawei P20 Pro
The Huawei P20 Pro and P20 Lite have been launched in India at an event in New Delhi, within roughly a month of their global unveiling. The new Huawei P20-series smartphones feature AI-powered camera features, with the optics 'co-engineered' with lens maker Leica. The P20 Pro has a triple camera setup at the back while the P20 Lite sports dual rear cameras. Both smartphones have FullView displays and run Android Oreo out of the box. The Huawei P20 Pro will compete with flagships like iPhone 8 and Samsung Galaxy S9, while the P20 Lite will face off against the likes of Oppo F5 and Vivo V9. Huawei has not brought the third model in the line-up, the P20, to India.
The Huawei P20 Pro has been priced at Rs. 64,999, while the P20 Lite has been priced at Rs. 19,999. Both smartphones will be available exclusively via Amazon India starting May 3, and launch offers will be revealed on the day of release. The P20 Pro will be available in Graphite Black, Midnight Blue, and the P20 Lite will be offered in Midnight Black and Klein Blue colour options.
The dual-SIM (Nano) Huawei P20 Pro runs EMUI 8.1 based on Android 8.1 Oreo, with support for Google ARCore and a deeply customised Google Assistant. It sports a 6.1-inch full-HD+ (1080x2240 pixels) OLED FullView display with a 1:1,000,000 contrast ratio and a 105 percent colour gamut. It is said to have 'natural tone display', comfortable for all light conditions.
The home button supports gestures such as short tap for back, long tap for home, and swiping left or right for multi-tasking. Huawei claims the P20 Pro has thinner bezels than the iPhone X and a smaller notch. The smartphone is powered by the octa-core Huawei HiSilicon Kirin 970 SoC which has a dedicated neural processing unit (NPU) that enables artificial intelligence computations to occur locally, instead of over the cloud.
The NPU is said to provide up to 60 percent better system response speed, and up to 50 percent smoother operation. The P20 Pro has 6GB of RAM, and 128GB of inbuilt storage which cannot be expanded in any way. It comes with a 360-degree Face Unlock feature, said to unlock the smartphones in as little as 0.6 seconds.
The triple rear camera setup developed in conjunction with Leica is the highlight of the Huawei P20 Pro. There is a 8-megapixel sensor with 3x optical zoom, a 40-megapixel RGB sensor, and a 20-megapixel monochrome sensor. Between the larger lenses, lie a laser transmitter and receiver, for quicker autofocus, as well as a Leica colour temperature sensor. The camera has a light sensitivity up to ISO 102400 and alongside the 3X optical zoom, offers 5x lossless hybrid zoom, and 10x digital zoom.
The P20 Pro offers 4D Predictive Focus, said to provide instant focus with motion prediction, and supports 6-axis stabilisation and 960fps super slow motion video recording. It also offers 'Master AI' scene recognition, with Huawei boasting of recognition for over 500 scenarios in 19 categories. On the front, the smartphone has a a 24.8-megapixel camera. The P20 Pro is IP67 dust and water resistant, and is powered by a 4000mAh battery with support for Huawei’s SuperCharge fast charging that is said to deliver a 58 percent charge in just 30 minutes.
The P20 Pro can be converted to a desktop with a Type-C to HDMI cable with the Huawei PC Mode, which works similar to Samsung DeX platform. It supports multi-tasking and multiple windows, and is capable of handling two different tasks at the same time, apart from emulating a keyboard and touchpad on the smartphone itself.
Now coming to the Huawei P20 Lite runs EMUI 8.0 on top of Android 8.0 Oreo. The smartphone comes with a 5.84-inch full-HD+ (1080x2280 pixels) FullView display with 19:9 aspect ratio. The handset has a 2.5D subtle curved glass design on the back. It is powered by the HiSilicon Kirin 659 SoC, paired with 4GB of RAM. It has 64GB of storage built-in, with option to expand it up to 256GB via microSD cards.
Huawei P20 Lite
On the imaging front, the P20 Lite has a dual camera setup at the back with a 16-megapixel primary sensor with an aperture of f/2.2 and a 2-megapixel secondary sensor. Unlike the international variant that sports a 16-megapixel selfie camera, the India variant has a 24-megapixel front sensor with an f/2.0 aperture, with support for AR-based stickers similar to Apple's Animojis and Samsung's AR Emojis. The smartphone also has support for 3D facial recognition with 96 recognition points, as well as facial unlock. Sensors onboard include proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, compass, gravity sensor, gyroscope, and fingerprint sensor on the back. The smartphone measures 148.6x71.2x7.4mm and has a non-removable 3,000mAh battery.
We discussed whether Huawei P20 Pro is the Android world's iPhone X, on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.
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