Leaning towards the Huawei P30, but just curious...

[tinpanalley]

(This is for the Canadian variant, if it makes a difference)

If any of you who are super familiar with the P30 can help, I'd appreciate it. I have a great opportunity to get the P30 with my carrier for a decent price and have been doing what I usually do which is watch and read lots of videos and reviews.

 

In the price range and fitting my needs, this is what I have access to...

Huawei P30

LG Velvet 5G

Samsung Galaxy S20 5G

 

I sort of hate the proprietary nm card idea on the Huawei, but honestly, with the needs I have (50% camera - 40% news, browsing, social - 10% gaming) I don't see a better phone for the price. I can't stand Samsung's OS, the LG I appears to have a really unimpressive camera. Keep in mind, I do most of my shooting on manual mode.

Any help would be amazing, everyone!! Thank you!

[dizmo]

I wouldn't get a Huawei phone. Period. If you plan to keep your phone long term there's also the US's ongoing war with Huawei to consider; you don't want to wake up one day to a forced update that takes away the GApp suite.

 

If cameras are your jam, why not go with the Pixel 4a? Or, if you can wait it out for a month, grab the Pixel 5? That's what I'm currently doing.

 

What do you hate about Samsung? I don't really see why you'd hate on it; the only time you really deal with the OS is if you're in the settings, and how often do you dive in there?

 

Which carrier are you on?

 

 

 

[tinpanalley]

7 minutes ago, dizmo said:

I wouldn't get a Huawei phone. Period. If you plan to keep your phone long term there's also the US's ongoing war with Huawei to consider; you don't want to wake up one day to a forced update that takes away the GApp suite.

They've made it clear the P30 series will never be affected by ban-related decisions.

 

7 minutes ago, dizmo said:

If cameras are your jam, why not go with the Pixel 4a

The rest of the phone is nothing to write home about and tech-wise not anything capable of lasting long term.

 

7 minutes ago, dizmo said:

What do you hate about Samsung?

I said it's the OS I don't like. The UI, I should have said. It just annoys me.

 

Listen, I'm just asking, those are the options, which do people suggest for my needs. People don't have to reply if they think the question is silly.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, tinpanalley said:

They've made it clear the P30 series will never be affected by ban-related decisions.

 

From this week https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/1323498/Huawei-P30-Pro-Google-Android-Block-Ban-Security-Updates-New-Features 

 

The P30 is already losing features, and it's only going to get worse.

[dizmo]

2 minutes ago, tinpanalley said:

They've made it clear the P30 series will never be affected by ban-related decisions.

 

The rest of the phone is nothing to write home about and tech-wise not anything capable of lasting long term.

 

I said it's the OS I don't like. The UI, I should have said. It just annoys me.

 

Listen, I'm just asking, those are the options, which do people suggest for my needs. People don't have to reply if they think the question is silly.

k cool. Good luck.

[tinpanalley]

19 minutes ago, Darpyface said:

From this week https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/1323498/Huawei-P30-Pro-Google-Android-Block-Ban-Security-Updates-New-Features 

 

The P30 is already losing features, and it's only going to get worse.

Thanks for that article, I hadn't seen that.

Well, ok then any thoughts about the others? That was the point of the post.

[Lord Vile]

14 hours ago, tinpanalley said:

(This is for the Canadian variant, if it makes a difference)

If any of you who are super familiar with the P30 can help, I'd appreciate it. I have a great opportunity to get the P30 with my carrier for a decent price and have been doing what I usually do which is watch and read lots of videos and reviews.

 

In the price range and fitting my needs, this is what I have access to...

Huawei P30

LG Velvet 5G

Samsung Galaxy S20 5G

 

I sort of hate the proprietary nm card idea on the Huawei, but honestly, with the needs I have (50% camera - 40% news, browsing, social - 10% gaming) I don't see a better phone for the price. I can't stand Samsung's OS, the LG I appears to have a really unimpressive camera. Keep in mind, I do most of my shooting on manual mode.

Any help would be amazing, everyone!! Thank you!

Wouldn't get a Huawei because of points already raised. Also the camera is overrated on them. Kinda can tell that when they got caught using DSLR pics and saying they'd been taken with the phone and the lens branding which means FA on a phone. Same with samsung they border on false advertising and numbers which mean nothing or negatively impact the quality/perfromance like the 8K recording and 108MP sensor. 

 

As others have said the Pixel 4 has the best camera on a smart phone currently and will do until the 5 comes out so I'd look at the Pixel line and pick your poison. 

[Commodus]

On 8/20/2020 at 7:17 PM, tinpanalley said:

(This is for the Canadian variant, if it makes a difference)

If any of you who are super familiar with the P30 can help, I'd appreciate it. I have a great opportunity to get the P30 with my carrier for a decent price and have been doing what I usually do which is watch and read lots of videos and reviews.

 

In the price range and fitting my needs, this is what I have access to...

Huawei P30

LG Velvet 5G

Samsung Galaxy S20 5G

 

I sort of hate the proprietary nm card idea on the Huawei, but honestly, with the needs I have (50% camera - 40% news, browsing, social - 10% gaming) I don't see a better phone for the price. I can't stand Samsung's OS, the LG I appears to have a really unimpressive camera. Keep in mind, I do most of my shooting on manual mode.

Any help would be amazing, everyone!! Thank you!

Of the bunch, the Galaxy S20 5G.

 

The P30... well, that's already been addressed.  The LG Velvet is a solid phone, but it's an upper-mid-range device and won't compete well against the others here until it's on sale.

 

The Galaxy S20 is months old now, but it's still fast and has solid cameras for those times you'll need one. I wouldn't get a Pixel 4 at this point as it's discontinued and has its own shortcomings, like battery life. If I were going to get a Pixel, I'd wait for the Pixel 5.

[tinpanalley]

16 minutes ago, Commodus said:

The P30... well, that's already been addressed. 

The news is getting updated quickly this week... so now Google and Huawei have both reiterated that any phone released before May 2019 (So, the P30 line) will never stop receiving Google or GMS updates until they naturally would have anyway by natural end of life like any other phone. And Google also said that app developers will continue pushing updates to all apps on different OS version numbers regardless of phones including Huawei pre May-2019 phones because that doesn't in any way involve interacting with Huawei directly. And that's all been confirmed by several industry experts, tech journalists, etc for whatever that is worth. But that was all confirmed only in the last days. I did read one analyst that said for the enormous numbers of people in the West with Huawei phones from before the ban, Google would have a massive PR nightmare on their hands if they went back on that and actually REMOVED Google from those Huawei phones.

 

My only concern remains that if you get a P30 today, how do you know what version Huawei firmware it comes with, what version of Google Play and GMS it comes with and how do you know if a Huawei update that it maybe gets while doing an initial update isn't a 'post-ban' one that could potentially cause problems with Google software. Or is that not really possible?

[Commodus]

1 minute ago, tinpanalley said:

The news is getting updated quickly this week... so now Google and Huawei have both reiterated that any phone released before May 2019 (So, the P30 line) will never stop receiving Google or GMS updates until they naturally would have anyway by natural end of life like any other phone. And Google also said that app developers will continue pushing updates to all apps on different OS version numbers regardless of phones including Huawei pre May-2019 phones because that doesn't in any way involve interacting with Huawei directly. And that's all been confirmed by several industry experts, tech journalists, etc for whatever that is worth. But that was all confirmed only in the last days. I did read one analyst that said for the enormous numbers of people in the West with Huawei phones from before the ban, Google would have a massive PR nightmare on their hands if they went back on that and actually REMOVED Google from those Huawei phones.

 

My only concern remains that if you get a P30 today, how do you know what version Huawei firmware it comes with, what version of Google Play and GMS it comes with and how do you know if a Huawei update that it maybe gets while doing an initial update isn't a 'post-ban' one that could potentially cause problems with Google software. Or is that not really possible?

If you'll still get updates from Google on existing phones, that should hold true for a P30 you buy now. Glad to hear it's not quite as bad as was first suggested.

 

My main concern now is that you'll have a Sword of Damocles hanging over your head, even if there's a change of government in the US. That and it's an older phone, so you'll lose support sooner regardless and may notice the performance gap versus the S20.

[tinpanalley]

10 minutes ago, Commodus said:

so you'll lose support sooner regardless and may notice the performance gap versus the S20.

This does concern me a tiny bit. But the thing is, the P30 has specs (several) that are equal to and in some cases better than phones being released in 2020, and those phones don't even have as good of a camera. We're just not "latest greatest app" people.  We need the camera to be amazing because it's something we always skimp on on our phones for over 10 years now, for access to our main bank and social apps and messaging and that's really about that. I find often when people talk about what's lacking software-wise on phones it has to do with "smart-home" or wearables tech that we don't use.

 

Some of the articles updating on the Huawei situation:

https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/1325453/Huawei-P30-Pro-owners-Android-news-waiting-to-hear

https://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_confirms_its_existing_phones_will_still_get_android_and_gms_updates-news-44823.php

 

 

[Arika]

I have a standard P30 and i absolutely love it. i have no concerns about any of the crap going on with the US and Huawei at the moment, it's a great phone. what you get for the price just blew everything else out of the water back when i was looking at a new phone. it came down to the P30 or the Note 10. but the note was just too expensive (and have the exynos chips in aus, which was not preferred).

[airborne spoon]

I have a p30 and it's an awesome phone the camera is like a million times better than anything else out there. I've had it for a little over a year. I'm in the US and no features have been removed and China problems don't effect anything. I do use the ADW launcher instead of the stock one but the phone is fast and works great.

Did I mention how awesome the camera is?

[Lord Vile]

16 hours ago, airborne spoon said:

I have a p30 and it's an awesome phone the camera is like a million times better than anything else out there. I've had it for a little over a year. I'm in the US and no features have been removed and China problems don't effect anything. I do use the ADW launcher instead of the stock one but the phone is fast and works great.

Did I mention how awesome the camera is?

Camera isn't awesome unless you're comparing it to a oneplus

[Darkseth]

But the Camera IS awesome (just like the other top-tier flaggship cameras). They can easily compete with all the other Flaggships, and in some scenarios, like Low Light, beating the competition.
Every single Reviewer agrees on that in their Reviews, and you can also see that when they post side to side comparisons.

I have yet to see one single Test/review about a Huawei Flaggship from the last 2 years, that  claimed, the Camera isn't good, or even worse than the competition. It's mostly the opposite of that.

 

But... As long even the P30 loses features and starts getting affected by the Ban, even though they said it won't be affected.. I would stay away from them too.

 

And Oneplus cought up with the 8 Pro, thanks to one of the best Sensors right now. Even if you compare it to the latest Pixel or iPhone, it's pure Random, which makes the best shot (sometimes expore is better here, sometimes details are better there, etc).

[airborne spoon]

7 hours ago, Lord Vile said:

Camera isn't awesome unless you're comparing it to a oneplus

Apparently you've never used the P30. Because it blows everything out of the water including apple and Samsung. And the zoom, holy shit the zoom.

This phone is a few years old and still beats current gen phone cameras.

[Lord Vile]

33 minutes ago, airborne spoon said:

Apparently you've never used the P30. Because it blows everything out of the water including apple and Samsung. And the zoom, holy shit the zoom.

This phone is a few years old and still beats current gen phone cameras.

Dad actually has one and no it doesn't. Poor processing, poor in low light. Are you really wowing over DIGITAL zoom? Here's a trick, why don't you take a picture and crop it, because that's all that's happening plus some sharpening algorithms. 

[Lord Vile]

7 hours ago, Darkseth said:

But the Camera IS awesome (just like the other top-tier flaggship cameras). They can easily compete with all the other Flaggships, and in some scenarios, like Low Light, beating the competition.
Every single Reviewer agrees on that in their Reviews, and you can also see that when they post side to side comparisons.

I have yet to see one single Test/review about a Huawei Flaggship from the last 2 years, that  claimed, the Camera isn't good, or even worse than the competition. It's mostly the opposite of that.

 

But... As long even the P30 loses features and starts getting affected by the Ban, even though they said it won't be affected.. I would stay away from them too.

 

And Oneplus cought up with the 8 Pro, thanks to one of the best Sensors right now. Even if you compare it to the latest Pixel or iPhone, it's pure Random, which makes the best shot (sometimes expore is better here, sometimes details are better there, etc).

Did you watch the round up with the Mate 30 at the end of last year? Was embarrassing. 

 

 

[Darkseth]

@Lord Vile
And Linus' opinion alone is worth more than the opinion of dozens other Reviewers, who 
1. review many more phones than linus does

2. MAINLY review Phones (while Linus does a little bit of everything)?

 

I mean.. the Truth is mostly somewhere in the middle

Let me remind you, Linustechtips did test Ryzen CPU performance with 4k Gaming. That alone should tell you, not to blindly believe Linus alone ^^

Even "tech youtubers" can test wrong sometimes.

 

Onless more than half of all reviews/tests claim, that Huawei's Camera is overrated, it is not Overrated.

Because... I can give you a Louis Rossman video, who says Apple Notebooks are Trash. While most other reviews say otherwise. Who would you believe more?  What 1 guy says? Or what most other says?
Even, if that one guy knows more about Apple computer (tech-wise), than all others combined.

 

What i'm saying is: NEVER believe 1 single Guy, 1 single Review, 1 single Website.
Watch multiple Reviews/tests, THEN you can get a picture of how it actually is.

Noone is THE perfect Reviewer.

[Lord Vile]

1 minute ago, Darkseth said:

@Lord Vile
And Linus' opinion alone is worth more than the opinion of dozens other Reviewers, who 
1. review many more phones than linus does

2. MAINLY review Phones (while Linus does a little bit of everything)?

Just an example. It marries up with what I've personally seen from the P30 Pro

1 minute ago, Darkseth said:

 

I mean.. the Truth is mostly somewhere in the middle

Let me remind you, Linustechtips did test Ryzen CPU performance with 4k Gaming. That alone should tell you, not to blindly believe Linus alone ^^

Even "tech youtubers" can test wrong sometimes.

Can you link that?

1 minute ago, Darkseth said:

 

Onless more than half of all reviews/tests claim, that Huawei's Camera is overrated, it is not Overrated.

Because... I can give you a Louis Rossman video, who says Apple Notebooks are Trash. While most other reviews say otherwise. Who would you believe more?  What 1 guy says? Or what most other says?
Even, if that one guy knows more about Apple computer (tech-wise), than all others combined.

Well he's a fraud so... Would say the difference is this is an objective side by side comparison vs the ramblings of an idiot who claims things without anything to back it up other than "I've seen", with how much he complains about MacBooks you'd think they'd have to change half the demo units in the shop every day.

1 minute ago, Darkseth said:

 

What i'm saying is: NEVER believe 1 single Guy, 1 single Review, 1 single Website.
Watch multiple Reviews/tests, THEN you can get a picture of how it actually is.

Noone is THE perfect Reviewer.

Comparing it to my own experience, plus if they really were that good would they have felt the need to advertise "Taken on P30" with photos from a DSLR? 

[Nena Trinity]

P30 is the last gms phone, since its not a brand new model it may not have many or any more updates but its nice as a collectable.

[Darkseth]

7 minutes ago, Lord Vile said:

Just an example. It marries up with what I've personally seen from the P30 Pro

Can you link that?

Well he's a fraud so... Would say the difference is this is an objective side by side comparison vs the ramblings of an idiot who claims things without anything to back it up other than "I've seen", with how much he complains about MacBooks you'd think they'd have to change half the demo units in the shop every day.

Comparing it to my own experience, plus if they really were that good would they have felt the need to advertise "Taken on P30" with photos from a DSLR? 

Just an example. He wouldn't recommend anyone a Macbook, but that's his recommendation list, if it HAS to be one.
(just fyi, my i myself are leaning towards a Macbook as my next Notebook, and would try to not get a Windows one. So it's not like i'm very biased there, it was just the first example that came into my Mind).

 

I wouldn't say he's a fraud. Since his Job is to repair Apple stuff, so he knows the Design flaws they have, which cause some Problems quite often.
However.. That at the same Time does make him quite biased, since he only gets defective Macbooks into his Store, and not the ones that run for ages without issues. Or other Brands.

So yea, that was just an example, since most Reviews i've seen, held the Huawei Flaggship Cameras very high. Even in their side to side comparisons, the Images won a lot of Times.
I guess it really often does depend on how exactly the Shot is.


Fair enough, if it matches your Experience.
Depending on which scenes/shots/etc, it can look like that, or the other way around. Seen shots, where the iPhone beats all other, and even seen shots where an older Oneplus did beat a Pixel in a low Light scenario.

 

But i can see, where that's coming from 

[Lord Vile]

51 minutes ago, Darkseth said:

Just an example. He wouldn't recommend anyone a Macbook, but that's his recommendation list, if it HAS to be one.
(just fyi, my i myself are leaning towards a Macbook as my next Notebook, and would try to not get a Windows one. So it's not like i'm very biased there, it was just the first example that came into my Mind).

Full of BS and made up issues. There are legit ones but the BS sprinkled in means I don't trust him. At least the argument made wasn't "BUT HE'S POPULAR!" So are fucking beats.

Quote

 

I wouldn't say he's a fraud. Since his Job is to repair Apple stuff, so he knows the Design flaws they have, which cause some Problems quite often.
However.. That at the same Time does make him quite biased, since he only gets defective Macbooks into his Store, and not the ones that run for ages without issues. Or other Brands.

Apart from he doesn't he goes by apples handbook which means he knows exactly as much as anyone else who repairs macs. 

Quote

So yea, that was just an example, since most Reviews i've seen, held the Huawei Flaggship Cameras very high. Even in their side to side comparisons, the Images won a lot of Times.
I guess it really often does depend on how exactly the Shot is.

It depends how much you challenge it, in bright daylight with great visibility any phone camera will do swell. At dusk before night modes kick in the Samsung and Huawei tier cameras get noisy. Pixel and the iPhone don't so much

Quote

Fair enough, if it matches your Experience.
Depending on which scenes/shots/etc, it can look like that, or the other way around. Seen shots, where the iPhone beats all other, and even seen shots where an older Oneplus did beat a Pixel in a low Light scenario.

 

But i can see, where that's coming from 

For me personally it's about consistency in a point and shoot, I don't want it to crash and burn 5/10 times for every 1 or 2 that's better than the iphone or a pixel and though the Pixel is the best camera out there currently the iPhone edges it in consistency and in video, some of the "live" photos i dunno what android calls them that i've seen on the pixel haven't been great either. If I want a better photo the real camera comes out because even though it's on the cheaper end it still wrecks phones. 

[tinpanalley]

2 hours ago, Darkseth said:

Linustechtips did test Ryzen CPU performance with 4k Gaming

Bingo.

 

To the people who think it's not a good camera (by the way, I wasn't looking at this phone ONLY as a camera):

I can't tell you anything about phones I haven't seen specs for. I hate people who do that, it's useless. I can only tell you about ones I have studied the specs of. I've spent a lot of time this week checking actual technical specs on the P30 specs and I feel personally, in my opinion, based on 20 years of being a professional photographer and videographer (by professional, I don't mean I'm good, I mean that I am able to make money by doing mostly video and filmmaking and a bit of photography), having colleagues who are infinitely more talented than me in photography, techs in professional production studios that could disassemble a DSLR for fun and put it back together perfectly, friend/colleagues that are ASC directors of photography that know their specs all maintaining the opinion that it is simply not accurate to suggest there are many sensors or other tech that can make camera phones better than the Huawei ones of the past two years, P30 included (with the S20 and Pixels being on par in specific but not all areas). HOWEVER!! None of that means you will see the photos and necessarily agree. You still are perfectly able and have the right to think they aren't as good. What I can't get though online lately, here, on social media, etc, is that now all of a sudden, disagreeing with someone means they have to be discredited by someone else or that the goal of a discussion has to be to convince others of what you think, not just to hear them out.

Again, this is ONLY my opinion. But I believe it to be based on sufficient evidence that permits ME to be convinced. But you don't have to be, and that's ok, and I'd still buy you a drink despite not agreeing with you

[Lord Vile]

2 hours ago, tinpanalley said:

Bingo.

Can you link me to the vid I actually wanna see it 

2 hours ago, tinpanalley said:

To the people who think it's not a good camera (by the way, I wasn't looking at this phone ONLY as a camera):

I can't tell you anything about phones I haven't seen specs for. I hate people who do that, it's useless. I can only tell you about ones I have studied the specs of. I've spent a lot of time this week checking actual technical specs on the P30 specs and I feel personally, in my opinion, based on 20 years of being a professional photographer and videographer (by professional, I don't mean I'm good, I mean that I am able to make money by doing mostly video and filmmaking and a bit of photography), having colleagues who are infinitely more talented than me in photography, techs in professional production studios that could disassemble a DSLR for fun and put it back together perfectly, friend/colleagues that are ASC directors of photography that know their specs all maintaining the opinion that it is simply not accurate to suggest there are many sensors or other tech that can make camera phones better than the Huawei ones of the past two years, P30 included (with the S20 and Pixels being on par in specific but not all areas). HOWEVER!! None of that means you will see the photos and necessarily agree. You still are perfectly able and have the right to think they aren't as good. What I can't get though online lately, here, on social media, etc, is that now all of a sudden, disagreeing with someone means they have to be discredited by someone else or that the goal of a discussion has to be to convince others of what you think, not just to hear them out.

Again, this is ONLY my opinion. But I believe it to be based on sufficient evidence that permits ME to be convinced. But you don't have to be, and that's ok, and I'd still buy you a drink despite not agreeing with you

The hardware inside camera phones means nearly nothing now it's all software. There's only so much hardware wise you can actually do with such a tiny sensor and throwing 108MP into does not help it perform well (SAMSUNG ), there are phones with better specced camera modules than the iPhone or pixel but perform worse due to software. Huawei's software isn't up to par therefore the camera is B tier along with Samsung.