How Huawei Created The Best Phone Camera In the P20 Pro

The Huawei P20 Pro is finally here (and coming to India soon) and it’s the first-ever smartphone to feature a triple camera system on the rear. The Chinese giant has placed much attention on how their camera system, backed by artificial intelligence in image processing and scene recognition, is breaking boundaries for mobile photography enthusiasts.

Over the past year, smartphone aficionados agreed that the Google Pixel 2 and iPhone X had arguably the best phone cameras on the market. Period. This is true even for DXOMark, but the crown was first snatched away by the Galaxy S9+ last month, then Xiaomi stole it briefly with the Mi Mix 2S and Huawei had now smugly taking the prime position.

At least, that’s what the whopping 109 DxOMark score (if you care about scores) and the initial hands-on experiences with the P20 Pro have revealed. So, let’s see what makes the cameras tick and how it compares to the competitors:

Hardware Specs

Starting off with the basics, the Huawei P20 Pro has three cameras on the back. Developed by Huawei’s long-time camera partner Leica, P20 Pro is packing a 40-megapixel primary RGB sensor, a secondary 20-megapixel mono sensor and a third 8-megapixel telephoto sensor to round up the party.

This is the first modern to sport a 40MP camera sensor, but it has previously made an appearance on the uber-popular Nokia Lumia series. You do remember the Lumia 1020, right?

p20 pro camera specs

To make it latest smartphone to stand out in this cluttered ecosystem, Huawei has taken a major stride in photography technology. The high-resolution 40MP lens will allow you to capture immensely detailed pictures, with a wider color gamut.

Pairing it with the 20MP monochrome (captures black and white images) sensor, the Huawei P20 Pro will have more data for enhanced depth estimation to produce bokeh effects and help catch more detail with low levels of noise for producing sharper photos.

Coming to the third and final camera, Huawei is using an 8MP telephoto lens with a 3x zoom capability. While most popular phones, such as the iPhone X or any other dual-camera phone give you a 2x zoom factor, Huawei is taking things a step forward with its photo technology. This lens also features OIS (Optical Image Stabilisation).

Further, using the 40MP wide-angle lens in conjunction with the 8MP telephoto one enables the P20 Pro to capture loss-less 5x zoom photos. The Chinese giant is using a new ‘hybrid zoom’ technology, which comes into play when you push past the native 3x zoom available with the lens.