Huawei’s P30 Android flagship appeared in a new set of renders created by known industry insider Steve Hemmerstoffer, better known by his online handle @OnLeaks. The images and video that can be seen below show a rather familiar look as they essentially depict last year’s P20 Pro, meaning the more affordable member of the company’s next flagship series is now shaping up to sport every feature of its predecessor’s better-equipped peer, including one of Huawei’s main 2018 innovations – a triple camera setup on the back. The overall package should still not just match but outperform the P20 Pro seeing how the P30 should be fueled by the Kirin 980, the latest ultra-premium chip created by Huawei’s subsidiary HiSilicon. A waterdrop-styled notch sits on top of the P30’s display which itself is rumored to have a 6-inch diagonal, with the device also sporting a USB Type-C port, 3.5mm headphone jack, and a dual-LED flash. The newly sighted renders aren’t purported to be official materials from Huawei but have instead been created by the source based on what’s described as highly credible information provided by insiders close to the Chinese technology giant.
Everyone gets an upgrade
The fact that the P30 is shaping up to be a better take on the P20 Pro formula is in line with the product strategy Huawei has been employing in recent years. That established pattern of research, development, and commercialization also suggests the P30 Pro will be the device housing the majority of mobile innovations the firm managed to finalize over the course of the last twelve months. Sure enough, previous reports indicate the P30 Pro may feature a highly unconventional penta-camera setup on the back consisting of no fewer than five lenses and a dual-tone LED flash. Huawei likely once again partnered with optics experts at German company Leica in order to attempt pushing mobile photography to the next level with the P30 Pro. While the Shenzen-based manufacturer long sought to come out on top of the smartphone camera race, it only managed to do so last year with the P20 Pro and its triple-sensor system which was a complete novelty at the time of its spring release. Despite the fact that major brands such as Samsung, Apple, Google, HTC, and LG released more than two flagships each on average following the P20 Pro’s 2018 debut, its imaging capabilities were only dethroned by – Huawei itself. The Mate 20 Pro launched this fall remains the world’s most capable camera smartphone to this date, according to numerous independent experts. By most indications, the P30 Pro is now set to replace it at the mobile photography throne, leaving the rest of the world’s largest handset makers to try and catch up while Huawei starts finalizing the tech meant to be implemented into the Mate 30 range.
No stopping now
Several industry trackers now believe Huawei managed to outperform Apple in terms of both shipments and sales over the course of 2018, moving up to the second spot on the list of the largest smartphone companies on the planet for the first time ever. It now has the responsibility to attempt maintaining that momentum and taking a direct aim at Samsung but the current state of the market and certain geopolitical factors are weighing it down to a substantial degree. The global handset market is already extremely saturated, with most vendors reporting a significant decline in both shipments and sales. At the same time, the amount of regulatory scrutiny and distrust Huawei is presently drawing from the West — particularly the United States — spell bad news for its expansion ambitions. Not only is the company unable to land a smartphone distribution deal with an American operator but its telecom equipment has already been outlawed in the context of federal use last summer. And as Huawei remains adamant the allegations that its tech poses a spying risk are baseless, the Western intelligence community is also firm in its stance that the distrust aimed at the electronics juggernaut is not about what the company did or did not do in the past but how Beijing could easily compel it to compromise its foreign customers in the future. Faced with that kind of thinking and given its problematic track record, Huawei has little choice but to continue pushing forward in terms of mobile innovations if it wants to see its smartphone unit continue to grow in the markets that already allowed it to do business on a large scale.