I can’t even access the Pro mode! How exactly do you get into Pro Mode??? Swiping doesn’t work either way. How do I access it?? Thanks!
Pejman
July 27, 2018 12:39 am
Hello Nasim! Really love your thorough reviews. Just a confusion for me here after reading DXOMARK’s review about this phones photography. In fact they gave very high scores for its Focus and Bokeh pictures!! Can you please let me know why there is such a huge difference in your review and theirs for those areas? Maybe I shouldn’t rely on DXOMARK anymore! Thanks in advance.
Yeah I would like to know about this as well Nasim… Can you please comment? Autofocus accuracy and reliability is super important to me.
ramakrishnan ramesh
June 11, 2018 3:02 am
thanks I am planning on getting the Mate 10. i have the p9 now and I can live with the UI issues of Huawei. The p20 is the other choice. it would be good if you could put the 3 huawei’s on a matrix and test the 2 lenses. Go deeper into the lenses and the camera performance that would make you a top reviewer. of huawei and that is what is needed. Especially what is the LEICAness of these phones and is it really worth the premium.
EXkurogane
June 10, 2018 6:20 pm
The second monochrome camera is not just a monochrome camera. From what i know it also acts like the metering system of a camera. When you are shooting 12MP color with the primary camera that monochrome camera is actually active. It’s calculating light levels, exposure and stuff and relaying the information to the main camera for the best possible settings in Auto got the best possible results. I’m not sure how it works from a technical aspect but apparently that monochrome sensor, despite a higher megapixel count, is more sensitive to light than the main camera, hence it’s used as a light meter of some sort.
As for the security and spying saga associated with Huawei (and many Chinese products), it’s just politics. The USA themselves are guilty of spying on people on the pretext of security and anti-terrorism. When you are guilty of doing something controversial on others, you definitely don’t want the same to be done to you. Yes, China spies on others, but they are not the only ones doing it. Every major superpower like Russia, UK and the USA themselves also spy on others. So i won’t take all of this seriously.
While I understand that the second monochrome camera is used for metering and other computational tasks, I just didn’t see any of those benefits in real life. I’m not sure what Sony does differently with its Xperia XZ2 that only has a single camera, but it does a decent job without any help from another camera. To me, the second camera is close to being useless – Huawei should have just gone with a wide and a telephoto combo instead…
Rich
June 10, 2018 5:12 pm
Interesting, my wife has this phone and on our trips it has proved light-years ahead of my previous samsung 6 series, and so I bought the P20 (non-pro), and its just a fabulous photo taking phone (steeply discounted from the pro). First thing was to turn the Master AI off, turn bokeh and skin smoothing off, but from then it has been stellar, with the dual cameras providing 2x optical zoom.
I’m a guy who usually shoots with a D800E, PC-E lenses, and a zeiss 135 f2 so I’m not arbitrarily praising the thing, it is actually really good. I think probably 90% of the capability of the P20 pro camera (in good light) at about a third less cost.
Rich, it is not a bad smartphone by any means – it just has pretty poorly implemented software that gets in the way and makes things like autofocus behave in strange ways. I think phones like the P20 are going to be better choices either way for photographers, because you have both a wide and a telephoto option, rather than the useless monochrome camera…
Jeff
June 10, 2018 11:53 am
Thanks for the nice article. Looking forward to seeing your review on P20 Pro.
Thank you for your feedback Jeff! Can’t wait to test the P20 Pro.
Scott Edwards
June 10, 2018 9:02 am
Nasim – I always so appreciate your reviews. You are tops! In this case – a very rare case – potential consumers should CONSIDER the U.S. government’s warning regarding Huawei and intelligence gathering. This warning is an exceedingly rare one and though certain parties have tried to minimize it (afterall, our own government can easily spy on us), it should be taken seriously despite that they do business in 170 other countries. The warning and other U.S. government reports include cyber espionage, greater reliance on Chinese supply chains (we are already at risk), illegal behavior (nevermind their ethics), repeated refusal to answer questions by Congress (imagine us doing that there), close support from the communist government, malicious theft of information, etc. Similarly, dumping of cheap Chinese products continues to erode our own economy. Yes, we all constantly buy cheap stuff from China but this is an opportunity to say no (for good reason – intel gathering, economic threat and imbalance, etc.) and stick with all the other incredible options we have today from around the world and the U.S. My post here might be mocked but it will only speak to the one who would do so. The warnings and interviews with intel agencies are easily found, reasonable and intelligent. Don’t cave in… even in 2012 under President Obama, Huawei’s arrogance and untrustful behavior was documented. intelligence.house.gov/sites…%20(final).pdf
Scott, I understand the concerns and I think people should definitely look into this issue. However, I wonder how much of it is protectionism vs real facts. From what I remember reading about last, the US government couldn’t provide enough evidence to suggest that the Chinese government was conducting any sort of data gathering and surveillance on cell phones.
Ikhlaque
June 10, 2018 8:27 am
Hello Nasim, What is your opinion of the recently released Huawei P20 Pro. Seems to be getting good reviews especially the camera.
Ikhlaque, I would love to get the P20 Pro for testing – looks like a number of the issues highlighted in this review are not a problem with the P20 Pro and its sensor is much larger in comparison, so it should have pretty remarkable image quality. However, I wonder if the P20 Pro has the same unreliable AF performance and if it still has all the software bugs and glitches. I can live with the latter, but the former is a deal breaker for me personally.
Keep in mind that most phone reviews out there aren’t done from the perspective of real photographers, so the information is often presented based on specs and limited real-time use. If I were to test the P20 Pro, it would take me some time to thoroughly evaluate it, similar to how I work with DSLR and mirrorless cameras…
Krishnakumar Omanakuttan
June 10, 2018 8:04 am
Great review, mirroring my thoughts. What you missed to mention is the “night mode” on the Huawei. This is perhaps the best implementation on any camera ever, not just on phone. One can capture great night images with an unbelievable dynamic range, but we need to mount on a tripod, P20pro comes with even advanced Night mode which can be hand-held to some extent. Do check it out. Huawei also comes with an overall buggy software, random switch of and hangs are common, even their software updates are far and wide. So basically we have to live with it.
Krishnakumar, I did mention the fact that the camera can be used with very long shutter speeds of up to 30 seconds, which is indeed a great feature that many other cameras don’t have.
It is unfortunate that Huawei doesn’t seem to be doing a good job on the software side. So far, many of the Android phones that I have seen have the same problem – poorly executed software. I get it, everyone wants to be different, but why do that if vanilla Android is already great? Just slap on some wallpapers, maybe fonts and themes and keep the rest of the functionality the same – it will be a great phone! But no, they have to write their own code that doesn’t work right and they have to bundle each smartphone with crap ware nobody cares about.
For these and other reasons, I always go back to my iPhone. It is not perfect, it doesn’t have nearly the same features and capabilities as some Android phones out there, but it provides an excellent and user-friendly UI and doesn’t come with crapware/bloatware that I cannot permanently remove. Google Pixel looked like a step in the right direction, but they keep on sticking with a single rear camera and having the same issues as other phones for AI Bokeh mode, etc. This is just not enough for photography, as having a wide and a telephoto camera opens up many more photographic opportunities. I will go over this in my upcoming iPhone X camer review.
Hello Nasim, great review of the Huawei mate 10 Pro, I’ve recently bought one, looking at the images could you tell me please if possible how you got the Aperture icon placed in the top bar while in Pro mode, I can’t seem to find a way to do it. Thanks Geoff
I can’t even access the Pro mode! How exactly do you get into Pro Mode??? Swiping doesn’t work either way. How do I access it?? Thanks!
Hello Nasim! Really love your thorough reviews. Just a confusion for me here after reading DXOMARK’s review about this phones photography. In fact they gave very high scores for its Focus and Bokeh pictures!! Can you please let me know why there is such a huge difference in your review and theirs for those areas? Maybe I shouldn’t rely on DXOMARK anymore!
Thanks in advance.
Yeah I would like to know about this as well Nasim… Can you please comment? Autofocus accuracy and reliability is super important to me.
thanks I am planning on getting the Mate 10. i have the p9 now and I can live with the UI issues of Huawei. The p20 is the other choice. it would be good if you could put the 3 huawei’s on a matrix and test the 2 lenses. Go deeper into the lenses and the camera performance that would make you a top reviewer. of huawei and that is what is needed. Especially what is the LEICAness of these phones and is it really worth the premium.
The second monochrome camera is not just a monochrome camera. From what i know it also acts like the metering system of a camera. When you are shooting 12MP color with the primary camera that monochrome camera is actually active. It’s calculating light levels, exposure and stuff and relaying the information to the main camera for the best possible settings in Auto got the best possible results. I’m not sure how it works from a technical aspect but apparently that monochrome sensor, despite a higher megapixel count, is more sensitive to light than the main camera, hence it’s used as a light meter of some sort.
As for the security and spying saga associated with Huawei (and many Chinese products), it’s just politics. The USA themselves are guilty of spying on people on the pretext of security and anti-terrorism. When you are guilty of doing something controversial on others, you definitely don’t want the same to be done to you. Yes, China spies on others, but they are not the only ones doing it. Every major superpower like Russia, UK and the USA themselves also spy on others. So i won’t take all of this seriously.
While I understand that the second monochrome camera is used for metering and other computational tasks, I just didn’t see any of those benefits in real life. I’m not sure what Sony does differently with its Xperia XZ2 that only has a single camera, but it does a decent job without any help from another camera. To me, the second camera is close to being useless – Huawei should have just gone with a wide and a telephoto combo instead…
Interesting, my wife has this phone and on our trips it has proved light-years ahead of my previous samsung 6 series, and so I bought the P20 (non-pro), and its just a fabulous photo taking phone (steeply discounted from the pro). First thing was to turn the Master AI off, turn bokeh and skin smoothing off, but from then it has been stellar, with the dual cameras providing 2x optical zoom.
I’m a guy who usually shoots with a D800E, PC-E lenses, and a zeiss 135 f2 so I’m not arbitrarily praising the thing, it is actually really good. I think probably 90% of the capability of the P20 pro camera (in good light) at about a third less cost.
Rich, it is not a bad smartphone by any means – it just has pretty poorly implemented software that gets in the way and makes things like autofocus behave in strange ways. I think phones like the P20 are going to be better choices either way for photographers, because you have both a wide and a telephoto option, rather than the useless monochrome camera…
Thanks for the nice article. Looking forward to seeing your review on P20 Pro.
Thank you for your feedback Jeff! Can’t wait to test the P20 Pro.
Nasim – I always so appreciate your reviews. You are tops! In this case – a very rare case – potential consumers should CONSIDER the U.S. government’s warning regarding Huawei and intelligence gathering. This warning is an exceedingly rare one and though certain parties have tried to minimize it (afterall, our own government can easily spy on us), it should be taken seriously despite that they do business in 170 other countries. The warning and other U.S. government reports include cyber espionage, greater reliance on Chinese supply chains (we are already at risk), illegal behavior (nevermind their ethics), repeated refusal to answer questions by Congress (imagine us doing that there), close support from the communist government, malicious theft of information, etc. Similarly, dumping of cheap Chinese products continues to erode our own economy. Yes, we all constantly buy cheap stuff from China but this is an opportunity to say no (for good reason – intel gathering, economic threat and imbalance, etc.) and stick with all the other incredible options we have today from around the world and the U.S. My post here might be mocked but it will only speak to the one who would do so. The warnings and interviews with intel agencies are easily found, reasonable and intelligent. Don’t cave in… even in 2012 under President Obama, Huawei’s arrogance and untrustful behavior was documented. intelligence.house.gov/sites…%20(final).pdf
Scott, I understand the concerns and I think people should definitely look into this issue. However, I wonder how much of it is protectionism vs real facts. From what I remember reading about last, the US government couldn’t provide enough evidence to suggest that the Chinese government was conducting any sort of data gathering and surveillance on cell phones.
Hello Nasim,
What is your opinion of the recently released Huawei P20 Pro. Seems to be getting good reviews especially the camera.
Ikhlaque, I would love to get the P20 Pro for testing – looks like a number of the issues highlighted in this review are not a problem with the P20 Pro and its sensor is much larger in comparison, so it should have pretty remarkable image quality. However, I wonder if the P20 Pro has the same unreliable AF performance and if it still has all the software bugs and glitches. I can live with the latter, but the former is a deal breaker for me personally.
Keep in mind that most phone reviews out there aren’t done from the perspective of real photographers, so the information is often presented based on specs and limited real-time use. If I were to test the P20 Pro, it would take me some time to thoroughly evaluate it, similar to how I work with DSLR and mirrorless cameras…
Great review, mirroring my thoughts. What you missed to mention is the “night mode” on the Huawei. This is perhaps the best implementation on any camera ever, not just on phone. One can capture great night images with an unbelievable dynamic range, but we need to mount on a tripod, P20pro comes with even advanced Night mode which can be hand-held to some extent. Do check it out.
Huawei also comes with an overall buggy software, random switch of and hangs are common, even their software updates are far and wide. So basically we have to live with it.
Krishnakumar, I did mention the fact that the camera can be used with very long shutter speeds of up to 30 seconds, which is indeed a great feature that many other cameras don’t have.
It is unfortunate that Huawei doesn’t seem to be doing a good job on the software side. So far, many of the Android phones that I have seen have the same problem – poorly executed software. I get it, everyone wants to be different, but why do that if vanilla Android is already great? Just slap on some wallpapers, maybe fonts and themes and keep the rest of the functionality the same – it will be a great phone! But no, they have to write their own code that doesn’t work right and they have to bundle each smartphone with crap ware nobody cares about.
For these and other reasons, I always go back to my iPhone. It is not perfect, it doesn’t have nearly the same features and capabilities as some Android phones out there, but it provides an excellent and user-friendly UI and doesn’t come with crapware/bloatware that I cannot permanently remove. Google Pixel looked like a step in the right direction, but they keep on sticking with a single rear camera and having the same issues as other phones for AI Bokeh mode, etc. This is just not enough for photography, as having a wide and a telephoto camera opens up many more photographic opportunities. I will go over this in my upcoming iPhone X camer review.
Hello Nasim, great review of the Huawei mate 10 Pro, I’ve recently bought one, looking at the images could you tell me please if possible how you got the Aperture icon placed in the top bar while in Pro mode, I can’t seem to find a way to do it. Thanks Geoff