As much as this sounds like a bit of a catchy phrase to accompany a smartphone launch, when Richard Yu says the P30 will rewrite the rules of photography, there’s a reason people pay attention.
That reason is simple. So far as mobile photography has gone, Huawei has kind of rewritten the rules; in 2018 it produced one of the best smartphone cameras around, and it sat atop the DxOMark rankings for quite a while with nothing close.
In 2019, Huawei’s Richard Yu says the company will take this further, implying that the DxOMark score of 109 will be beaten by the P30, and that it’s going to be the first to market to introduce some cool new technology.
Huawei’s P series is known for its photographic prowess, and while the Mate 20 Pro undoubtedly took a swipe at the Photographic series mantle last year, it seems likely it won’t last; with a new periscope lens structure offering a rumoured 10x optical zoom, Huawei might be first to get this into a consumer-ready smartphone.
On Weibo, Yu used the phrase “looking farther and seeing more” which refers to that super zoom capability, and also the phrase “rewrite the rules of photography”. It’s less clear how that will be done, but topping the best score on DxOMark of 109 would certainly qualify.
What else do we know about the upcoming Huawei P30 series? Very, very little. We’ve seen what it looks like, but as to what’s inside, or what it can do, that’s really anyone’s guess.
Probably the only certainty is the Kirin 980 processor, and a tidy amount of RAM, and (at least) a three lens camera array. 5G would be a nice inclusion, but I’ve not seen that rumoured, at least not yet.
With two weeks to go, I suspect we’ll know soon enough.
