Since the P20 Pro, Huawei has been dominating the mobile photography game. It’s the first smartphone to have a triple camera setup on the back, which allowed it to be one of the best — if not the best — camera phone in the industry.

Huawei is planning to continue this winning streak with the new Huawei Mate 20 Pro. Much like its slightly older brother, this new one comes with a couple of killer camera features, which is equally good, if not better, than the P20 Pro.

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The Huawei Mate 20 Pro brags a 40-megapixel front camera, with a bright f/1.8 aperture. We also have another 20-megapixel wide-angle shooter, and another 8-megapixel sensor with a telephoto lens.

It also features a more advanced AI scene detection technology, Portrait Mode, optical stabilization, PDAF and laser autofocus, Night Mode, and tons of other features that assist the hardware to take even better pictures.

Now, let’s talk about the actual picture quality, shall we?

As expected, the primary camera can take stunning photos. Thanks to its intelligent and fast AI, it can bring the best and fitting colors on every subject that you’re taking. The contrast is also deep, and the dynamic range is just impressive.

As you can see, it even takes impressive low-light photos, even without the Night Mode turned on.

Speaking of which, the next batch of images you’ll see were taken with the Night Mode enabled. To no one’s surprise, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro takes impressive night photos with bright colors with surprisingly sharp details.

The device was able to do this by taking a 5-second exposure, which is still possible even when handheld thanks to its optical image stabilization. That’s something that’s rarely achieved even in most professional cameras.

Next stop, we test out its 20-megapixel wide-angle camera. Personally, I had more fun using this one as it allowed me to cram in more subject and details in a single frame. Perfect for taking group pictures, or if you’re into landscape and architectural photography.

What’s more interesting is, it provides a fish-eye look in some shooting scenario, which creates a really interesting aesthetic.

Now we have the 8-megapixel telephoto camera. Unlike the first two, this one doesn’t have the best image quality. However, the flexibility it provides is just impressive, especially for a pocketable camera such as the Huawei Mate 20 Pro.

It can provide an authentic 5x optical zoom, which allows you to frame your image correctly, in case there’s some unwanted obstruction in your foreground. But if you want to go crazy, it can also do a max 10x hybrid zoom, if you want to snap really faraway objects.

And despite being completely stretched out, it can still provide decent-looking images.

You can also use the third camera to take close-up photos, under the Super Macro mode. Oh, and did I mention that the camera and its AI can automatically switch to different modes (Wide, Macro, etc) as it detects what kind of subjects you are taking?

If you want a really DSLR-like image, you might want to enable the Portrait mode. This feature provides a really believable depth-of-field effect, without the cut-out look that we see on other smartphones.

Of course, we will not end this without talking about its selfie camera.

What we’re dealing here is a 24-megapixel front-facing camera, that’s equipped with Face Beauty technology and tons of other novelties.

The quality is, of course, top-notch. Although, just like most selfie cameras, the images appear a little soft and the contrast is a bit lacking, which is probably due to the filters that the software is pre-applying. But still, all of them are Instagram-worthy.

We also have the novelties such as 3D lighting effects, which is supposed to provide synthetic lighting effects. But instead, it feels like it just separates you from the background, and adds a different one.

There’s also have the 3D Qmoji, Huawei’s take on Apple’ Animoji. It does a decent job of tracking your facial gestures making it really fun to past time with. Just like the 3D lighting effects, the Qmoji utilizes the Mate 20 Pro’s 3D facial scanner for it to work properly.

Well, basically that’s it. Clearly, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro has one of the best cameras on a smartphone today. The killer hardware is backed with an intuitive software, which makes it a great camera phone for both the enthusiasts and casual users.

But if you still want to learn more, we’re currently wrapping up our full review of this device. So you might want to stay tuned for that.

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