On was on the market to replace my 6-7+ year old Moto G cell phone and was looking for a phone for 2 primary uses:

• Call quality (something that was very poor with my Moto G)
• Good for taking pictures and videos with (I like photography)

So, like most people, I started researching online only to be submerged with too many options!

Like you, I’ve seen the stunning ads put forth by Apple, Huawei, Samsung, …

Now, from a technical standpoint, nothing comes close to the Huawei P30!  So I was already leaning that way.  When I went to my local vendor for my cell company (presently Koodo) and was up front and asked for advice and was told the same, the Huawei was the way to go and that there was no difference (besides screen size) between the P30 and P30 Pro.  So I purchase a P30.  Below are my thoughts on the unit after a couple solid months of use.

PROs

• E-mail automatic attachment downsizing (if your attached images are large you get offered to downsize them automatically to reduce the overall size.  See CONs)
• Picture Quality (See CONs)
  • Nice pictures
  • Very good with low light, but slow to take picture
• Charging speed!
• Sound. Phone call quality!  The sound on this cell phone is excellent both normal and hands free.
• Screen.  Great screen, easy to see.  Auto brightness works very well.
• Inline video editing – I’ve found it useful the fact that I can extract a clip from a larger video right on my phone and the e-mail it or upload it to a file sharing.

CONs

• Camera (Picture & Video)
  • Let get this straight, although the pictures can be stunning, what is shown on TV is simply not the reality!  In my experience, the minute you go above x2.9 zoom the picture diminish greatly in quality and become blurry/grainy.
  • The camera has 3 lenses, and depending on the zoom appears to switch between them.  That said, you can see a noticeable change in color depending on the zoom.   For instance, when in wide (x0.6 to x0.9) images are yellowish.
  • Although there are a number of preset mode for photography, I have been stunned that there is no “Sports” mode for fast moving scenes!
  • The Huawei P30 allows you to take pictures while shooting video, a nice feature for sure, sadly, the quality is poor and images are blurry/pixelated.  It is not the same quality as when taking standalone pictures.
  • The same is true when shooting a burst of images, the quality drastically drops to the point where it feels like I’m using a 2MP camera from 10 years ago.
  • Another MAJOR problem is that when you are taking a video, if you receive a phone call it stops filming?!  (and this even if you don’t answer).  The fact of having an incoming call interrupts the video filming altogether.  So the only solution to this is to place yourself in Airplane mode while filming which is ridiculous at the end of the day.
  • Although the camera technically has x30 zoom factor, in video mode that it is limited to x10 (as stated above once you get to x3 or above the quality drops to the point of not being viewable – blurry/pixelated), and when using the ‘advertised’ 40MP camera mode, there is no zoom at all!!!
  • I’ve experienced very odd behavior while trying to take pictures outside on a snowy hill where the screen would continuously flicker as if it couldn’t focus or something, but the pictures still turned out though.
• Bluetooth.  Not sure what to say here.  I have a bluetooth speaker, I could connect without issue with my old phone, I can connect with my iPad, but I cannot connect to it with this state of the art phone?!
• Copy/Paste. This is another weakness with t he Huawei phone.  Instead of making a pop-up appear above, they make a whole bar appear often overlapping other elements.  It is also hard to trigger the copy/paste altogether.  My 6+ year old Moto G was much more responsive that the Huawei P30.
• Battery Life.  I don’t use my phone intensively, but it will easily drop to 70% from my light usage, so when I see users that are always fiddling away on their phones, you can be sure they would kill the Huawei P30 battery before days end.
• Notification Sounds.  One thing that has annoyed me with this phone is there is no way to change the sounds for e-mails and texts.  I want, like I could do on the Moto G, a different sound for incoming E-mails than that for incoming Texts.  This simply isn’t possible with the P30!  You can change the sound, but it applies to both.  No distinction possible.
• The Huawei P30 come with a NotePad app.  I always like note programs for jotting down things (groceries, list, ideas, …).  Sadly, theirs is unresponsive.  I often find myself needing to click repetitively to get it to work.  Once it responds, all is good, but sometimes initially it seems to be in another world.
• Emails.
  • The Huawei P30 seems very slow at updating the status of e-mails.  I will read my e-mails and it will keep the new emails icon displayed.
  • Although the Huawei P30 will offer to downgrade/downsize attachments (see PROs) it does not always do so.  Sometime the option appears and other time not?!  Why in the world they don’t just have the option always available (like Apple does) eludes me completely.  As such, I continue to have and use a simple app to resize images before I add them to e-mails.  It’s an extra step, but you simple can’t rely on the P30 to offer you the options.
• The Autocorrect is much worse than that of my 6+ year old Moto G.
• Vibrate is pittyful!  You don’t feel a thing.  If you compare it to say an iPhone it is just sad.
• Ringer is weak also.  Once again, compared to many other device, the volume of the ringer is weak.  If you will be doing any work or there is noise around you, you most probably will never hear your phone ringing!
• Can’t open Office docs (say Word open source files – docx), yet my wife ancient iPhone 7 can without any extra apps installed.
• Power Off. As it turns out, Powering off the device doesn’t seem to mean much. I powered off my cell phone, yet the following morning the alarm was going off. What’s the point of a Power off options if the phone can decided to restart whenever it wishes. This brings up some serious privacy issues as well.

Conclusion

Does the Huawei P30 live up to expectations, not even close!

It is a step up from my previous phone, no doubt, but it certainly does not live up to advertising! All in all it is a disappointing phone.