WEBVTT 00:00:00.050 --> 00:00:06.690 Three years ago, I would probably have laughed at you if you told me that HiSilicon was going to be shipping mobile processors 00:00:06.690 --> 00:00:11.650 that were competitive with the best CPUs from Qualcomm, Apple, and Samsung. 00:00:12.130 --> 00:00:15.720 And yet, here we are. 00:00:16.400 --> 00:00:23.700 Now to be clear, the Kirin 980, and by extension, the Huawei P30 Pro, is not industry-leading across the board, 00:00:23.700 --> 00:00:31.960 falling well behind, well, everyone, when it comes to gaming, thanks to its Mali-G76 MP10 GPU. 00:00:32.280 --> 00:00:43.580 But, the thing is, it's also not an also-ran, which means that I can no longer safely ignore Huawei's flagship phones as overpriced and underpowered. 00:00:43.820 --> 00:00:51.980 So, the P30 Pro has spent the last three weeks in my pocket, and I definitely have some thoughts to share about it. 00:00:51.980 --> 00:00:53.780 Are you looking for an affordable and reliable phone? 00:00:53.800 --> 00:00:57.460 Well, Private Internet Access has got your back. 00:00:57.560 --> 00:01:00.080 They encrypt your internet traffic and use a safe, protected IP. 00:01:00.440 --> 00:01:01.960 Check it out today at the link below. 00:01:10.870 --> 00:01:15.390 If I had to describe its look, I'd say the P30 Pro is slick. 00:01:15.770 --> 00:01:24.390 Both in terms of its clean, curvy industrial design, and its finish, which is one of the most slippery that I have ever held. 00:01:24.390 --> 00:01:31.950 I've actually only encountered a handful of phones that I'm afraid to hold against my ear with my shoulder for fear that they will slip out. 00:01:32.090 --> 00:01:32.190 But... 00:01:32.210 --> 00:01:34.510 This is definitely one of them. 00:01:34.510 --> 00:01:43.170 I actually even ended up switching to on-screen buttons rather than gesture control, so that I could hold it just a little bit higher and hold on to it better. 00:01:43.330 --> 00:01:48.990 So, a grippy case or a textured dbrand skin is strongly recommended for this one. 00:01:49.110 --> 00:01:52.430 Other than that, though, my main complaints are really audio-related. 00:01:52.570 --> 00:01:57.250 The P30 Pro lacks a 3.5mm caveman jack, which I am still not over. 00:01:57.450 --> 00:02:01.990 And, probably more importantly for most people, it's got a pretty crummy speaker setup. 00:02:01.990 --> 00:02:11.630 Now, the earpiece speaker is handled similarly to LG's G8, with the top portion of the screen actually vibrating against your ear in order to produce sound. 00:02:11.810 --> 00:02:20.890 Now, this has the benefit of making it easier to hear your phone in a crowd, and it takes some of the guesswork out of where you need to position it against your ear. 00:02:21.590 --> 00:02:24.170 The issue is that it also comes with some drawbacks. 00:02:24.310 --> 00:02:31.870 Now, LG decided to enable their screen speaker as a second speaker to boost output and create a stereo... 00:02:31.870 --> 00:02:37.050 ...listening effect, but we actually complained that it made the phone noticeably vibrate. 00:02:37.050 --> 00:02:40.590 So, I'm pleased to say that Huawei left that feature out. 00:02:40.790 --> 00:02:49.050 But, that means that the P30 Pro relies solely on its bottom-firing speaker for Netflix binging and other content consumption. 00:02:49.050 --> 00:02:51.870 And, frankly, it's just not very good. 00:02:51.950 --> 00:02:58.770 It's loud enough, but I found it harsh sounding and just not competitive with other flagships. 00:02:59.390 --> 00:03:00.690 Back to positives, though. 00:03:00.690 --> 00:03:01.690 The lock button is pretty good. 00:03:01.690 --> 00:03:07.930 It is positioned such that I could reach both it and the in-screen fingerprint sensor comfortably without shifting my hand. 00:03:08.070 --> 00:03:11.210 That was one of my major annoyances with the Galaxy S10+. 00:03:11.210 --> 00:03:15.270 The volume rocker has no opposing buttons to accidentally mash. 00:03:15.270 --> 00:03:21.710 The SIM tray can accept both a second SIM or Huawei's nano-memory card, and... 00:03:21.710 --> 00:03:23.030 Is that an IR blaster? 00:03:23.530 --> 00:03:24.110 It is! 00:03:24.410 --> 00:03:26.610 AV and home automation fans rejoice! 00:03:27.070 --> 00:03:31.270 Honestly, as positive as all that is, though, it wasn't until I started goofing around with the... 00:03:31.690 --> 00:03:37.350 ...camera that I really considered switching to the P30 Pro as my daily driver. 00:03:37.350 --> 00:03:43.290 Now, there are gonna be other people that are gonna cover its merit as an artsy photography phone. 00:03:43.450 --> 00:03:49.930 But, there are some killer features for normies like me as well, with the headline one being, of course, the hybrid... 00:03:50.710 --> 00:04:00.070 ...50x zoom that uses a combination of the 40 megapixel main shooter and the 8 megapixel 5x optical zoom lens... 00:04:00.070 --> 00:04:01.450 ...that uses a novel... 00:04:01.450 --> 00:04:09.690 ...periscope technique to bounce incoming light off of an angled mirror and then reflect it at the sensor that's 90 degrees offset. 00:04:09.690 --> 00:04:15.910 Now, obviously, 50x zoom is hand-wavy, enhance nonsense. 00:04:15.910 --> 00:04:23.630 I mean, you can't just enhance past the data that you've collected, but their software hybrid zoom technique... 00:04:24.090 --> 00:04:31.130 ...assisted by the optical image stabilization on both of those sensors actually worked far better than I expected. 00:04:31.450 --> 00:04:44.010 Yielding usable images at anywhere from 25x to 35x zoom, as long as you've got a steady hand or something to rest the phone against, because that is truly a lot of zoom. 00:04:44.010 --> 00:04:45.590 It's darn impressive, though. 00:04:45.590 --> 00:04:55.890 The other big star of the show is the new RYYB yellow sub-pixel configuration of the main sensor that allows it to collect an advertised 40% more light, 00:04:55.890 --> 00:05:01.290 helping the P30 capture some truly game-changing images under... 00:05:01.450 --> 00:05:03.050 ...very dark conditions. 00:05:03.050 --> 00:05:06.040 So that's really, really cool stuff. 00:05:06.040 --> 00:05:10.640 It's just that, unfortunately, it didn't work out quite as well for me as I hoped. 00:05:10.640 --> 00:05:17.600 For one thing, you need to understand that phone camera lenses are not the same as real camera lenses. 00:05:17.600 --> 00:05:22.040 You're not just changing out the glass on a modular mount like on a DSLR. 00:05:22.040 --> 00:05:30.120 So, on the P30 Pro, each of those three lenses is actually a completely separate camera. 00:05:30.120 --> 00:05:31.320 So, if you... 00:05:31.320 --> 00:05:40.280 ...like me, were imagining, then, that you could get amazing, stable video of your kid's poorly-lit performance from the back of the gymnasium, 00:05:40.280 --> 00:05:41.560 think again. 00:05:41.560 --> 00:05:47.240 The telephoto lens, aside from capturing at a lower 8-megapixel resolution, 00:05:47.240 --> 00:05:52.840 has a conventional sensor behind it with a completely different image processing pipeline. 00:05:52.840 --> 00:06:00.000 And that's never more clear than when you switch cameras in the middle of a recording and watch the colors go all wonky for a second. 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:01.040 With that said, that is a pretty cool thing. 00:06:01.040 --> 00:06:03.040 That's a pretty cool feature, being able to switch like that. 00:06:03.040 --> 00:06:08.720 On that note, though, that's about the only cool thing that I could find about video recording on the P30 Pro. 00:06:08.720 --> 00:06:14.000 It's pretty disappointing overall, with very poor processing of its rolling shutter effect. 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:16.040 Watch the way my head stretches here. 00:06:16.040 --> 00:06:23.120 And occasionally, really low audio levels that annoyed pretty much everyone who's viewed my YouTube stories over the last few weeks. 00:06:23.120 --> 00:06:25.440 So, in summary, the camera's fine. 00:06:25.440 --> 00:06:26.400 It's more than fine. 00:06:26.400 --> 00:06:30.240 It's the best that I've ever used from a Chinese cell phone company. 00:06:30.240 --> 00:06:35.950 And this comparison, in particular, makes the Note 9 look decidedly last-gen. 00:06:35.950 --> 00:06:38.030 But, let's be realistic. 00:06:38.030 --> 00:06:39.310 It's not godly. 00:06:39.310 --> 00:06:42.310 And when you're running around snapping pics of your daily life, 00:06:42.310 --> 00:06:48.510 even its fancy yellow pixels and multiple exposures are not going to be able to combat squirmy children, 00:06:48.510 --> 00:06:55.750 and its occasional complete ball drop, like the yellow cast on this shot and this spectacular autofocus fail, 00:06:55.750 --> 00:06:58.110 are going to come up now and again. 00:06:58.110 --> 00:06:59.310 Fortunately, the P30 Pro, which is the most powerful camera in the world, is capable of doing that. 00:06:59.310 --> 00:07:01.750 The P30 Pro is not a one-trick pony. 00:07:01.750 --> 00:07:04.230 It's got a lot more going for it than just the cameras. 00:07:04.230 --> 00:07:09.710 Now, two of my biggest complaints about the S10 Plus were its exit-wound-style display notch 00:07:09.710 --> 00:07:13.670 and its slower, less-accurate, ultrasonic fingerprint scanner. 00:07:13.670 --> 00:07:20.110 And Huawei, while falling well short of Samsung's outstanding brightness and color reproduction, 00:07:20.110 --> 00:07:25.950 not to mention higher resolution, has done a better job, IMO, of the display's layout, 00:07:25.950 --> 00:07:26.990 thanks to their minimalistic, symmetrical notch, and, of course, the high-resolution display. 00:07:26.990 --> 00:07:27.990 Thanks to their minimalistic, symmetrical notch, and, of course, the high-resolution display. 00:07:27.990 --> 00:07:28.990 Thanks to their minimalistic, symmetrical notch, and, of course, the high-resolution display. 00:07:28.990 --> 00:07:29.190 Thanks to their minimalistic, symmetrical notch, and, of course, the high-resolution display. 00:07:29.310 --> 00:07:34.150 And slightly wider side bezels that reduce accidental activations. 00:07:34.150 --> 00:07:40.150 Now, I was also initially very pleased to see that they opted for an optical in-screen fingerprint sensor. 00:07:40.150 --> 00:07:44.070 It's fast, and I had no issues with it during my time with the device. 00:07:44.070 --> 00:07:47.670 But Samsung also issued a patch for their ultrasonic sensor, 00:07:47.670 --> 00:07:51.430 I think about a week ago, as of filming this right now, 00:07:51.430 --> 00:07:56.030 and it's way better behaved now, much faster, even when my fingers are really dry. 00:07:56.030 --> 00:07:58.870 What Samsung still hasn't managed to address for me, though, 00:07:58.870 --> 00:07:58.910 What Samsung still hasn't managed to address for me, though, 00:07:58.910 --> 00:07:58.990 What Samsung still hasn't managed to address for me, though, 00:07:58.990 --> 00:08:02.070 is their signature random battery drain. 00:08:02.070 --> 00:08:06.310 And that is where Huawei blows away anything in their lineup. 00:08:06.310 --> 00:08:10.390 The last time I had a phone that lasted me two full days this consistently, 00:08:10.390 --> 00:08:12.510 I'm not even sure if it had a color screen. 00:08:12.510 --> 00:08:15.950 Even with the fairly basic always-on-display enabled, 00:08:15.950 --> 00:08:19.910 you could have convinced me that this phone had maybe a 6,000 00:08:19.910 --> 00:08:22.550 rather than 4,200 milliamp-hour battery. 00:08:22.550 --> 00:08:25.000 It's that impressive. 00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:28.680 But this positive note also happens to be a perfect segue 00:08:28.680 --> 00:08:32.600 into some of the negative things about the P30 Pro's software. 00:08:32.600 --> 00:08:36.080 One of the ways that Huawei manages such excellent battery life 00:08:36.080 --> 00:08:39.920 is EMUI's hyper-aggressive background app suppression. 00:08:39.920 --> 00:08:43.360 And while I definitely appreciate the benefits, 00:08:43.360 --> 00:08:46.440 I do find their approach a little bit over the top, 00:08:46.440 --> 00:08:47.960 and I want more control. 00:08:47.960 --> 00:08:49.400 So first things first, 00:08:49.400 --> 00:08:53.640 there's this ridiculous card notification 00:08:53.640 --> 00:08:56.360 that I can't swipe away. 00:08:56.360 --> 00:08:57.960 Why is that there? 00:08:57.960 --> 00:08:59.040 Then there's the constant, 00:08:59.040 --> 00:09:00.600 constant reminders that like, 00:09:00.600 --> 00:09:03.440 oh, I don't know, Sonos is running in the background. 00:09:03.440 --> 00:09:04.800 That's fine, Huawei. 00:09:04.800 --> 00:09:06.240 I use my speakers. 00:09:06.240 --> 00:09:07.280 It's okay. 00:09:07.280 --> 00:09:08.520 And then there's the fact 00:09:08.520 --> 00:09:11.080 that it puts instant messaging apps, 00:09:11.080 --> 00:09:12.540 instant, that's the key, 00:09:12.540 --> 00:09:15.880 like Google Hangouts to sleep without my permission. 00:09:15.880 --> 00:09:17.200 And before you ask, 00:09:17.200 --> 00:09:19.540 yes, per Huawei's instructions, 00:09:19.540 --> 00:09:20.980 I disabled that behavior, 00:09:20.980 --> 00:09:23.060 but it kept doing it anyway. 00:09:23.060 --> 00:09:26.660 So occasionally, I just won't get my notifications 00:09:26.660 --> 00:09:27.840 until I open the app, 00:09:27.840 --> 00:09:30.000 and that's just not acceptable. 00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:30.920 And while we're at it, 00:09:30.920 --> 00:09:35.280 neither are non-removable bloatware apps in the year 2019. 00:09:35.280 --> 00:09:37.500 Also, since I'm on a roll here, 00:09:37.500 --> 00:09:39.700 please let me pull down the notification shade 00:09:39.700 --> 00:09:41.120 while the phone is locked 00:09:41.120 --> 00:09:43.880 and add a double-press gesture 00:09:43.880 --> 00:09:46.960 that works system-wide to quick launch the camera. 00:09:46.960 --> 00:09:48.420 While the phone's off, 00:09:48.420 --> 00:09:51.020 I can double-press volume down to launch it, 00:09:51.020 --> 00:09:53.170 but while it's not, 00:09:53.170 --> 00:09:55.690 that just goes down two volume clicks. 00:09:55.690 --> 00:09:56.770 Like, okay. 00:09:56.770 --> 00:09:57.810 To be clear, 00:09:58.130 --> 00:10:00.830 the software is mostly fine. 00:10:00.830 --> 00:10:03.610 At least putting my carrier SIM in didn't wipe the phone 00:10:03.610 --> 00:10:06.350 like Samsung's craptastic implementation. 00:10:06.350 --> 00:10:10.190 This SMS app has a cool copy text feature for 2FA. 00:10:10.190 --> 00:10:11.390 That's nice. 00:10:11.390 --> 00:10:12.370 It's just that, 00:10:12.370 --> 00:10:17.310 overall, I found myself more annoyed by it than not, 00:10:17.310 --> 00:10:18.770 which just isn't good enough 00:10:18.770 --> 00:10:21.130 now that iOS, Samsung One, 00:10:21.130 --> 00:10:25.130 and Google's stock experience are just so polished 00:10:25.130 --> 00:10:28.090 and do such a great job of staying out of the way. 00:10:28.130 --> 00:10:31.410 And making matters much worse on the software side, 00:10:31.410 --> 00:10:33.210 actually, XDA has gone as far 00:10:33.210 --> 00:10:35.510 as to include a disclaimer about this 00:10:35.510 --> 00:10:38.730 in every article that mentions Huawei or Honor. 00:10:38.730 --> 00:10:41.650 And so, I feel like I should probably raise my pitchfork 00:10:41.650 --> 00:10:42.770 alongside them. 00:10:42.770 --> 00:10:44.850 Due to a recent policy change, 00:10:44.850 --> 00:10:47.970 it is no longer possible to unlock the bootloader 00:10:47.970 --> 00:10:49.270 on Huawei devices, 00:10:49.270 --> 00:10:51.510 which means, for better or for worse, 00:10:51.510 --> 00:10:55.650 you are stuck with EMUI and the feature and security updates 00:10:55.650 --> 00:10:58.030 that Huawei decides to provide. 00:10:58.030 --> 00:11:01.090 There will be no extending the life of your phone 00:11:01.090 --> 00:11:03.590 with lineage OS or something similar down the line, 00:11:03.590 --> 00:11:04.810 and that's a real bummer, 00:11:04.810 --> 00:11:07.250 and it's something that I'd like to see them fix. 00:11:07.250 --> 00:11:10.090 It's already lame enough that Android fans have to accept 00:11:10.090 --> 00:11:13.010 the, at best, two to three years of support 00:11:13.010 --> 00:11:14.710 compared to Apple's four to five. 00:11:14.710 --> 00:11:16.190 If you take away rooting, 00:11:16.190 --> 00:11:17.630 you're basically saying, 00:11:17.630 --> 00:11:20.750 yep, this thing's going in the landfill. 00:11:20.750 --> 00:11:22.160 Deal with it. 00:11:22.160 --> 00:11:24.810 And that's just not cool. 00:11:24.810 --> 00:11:26.940 So, summary then. 00:11:26.940 --> 00:11:29.020 I'm really impressed with this thing. 00:11:29.220 --> 00:11:30.900 I'm gonna be continuing my policy 00:11:30.900 --> 00:11:33.520 of not ignoring Huawei devices anymore, 00:11:33.520 --> 00:11:37.440 but I'm also pretty jazzed to go back to my Note 9 00:11:37.440 --> 00:11:41.280 because, quite frankly, display notches 00:11:41.280 --> 00:11:45.060 and long live the headphone jack. 00:11:45.060 --> 00:11:48.400 Speaking of long live, 00:11:48.400 --> 00:11:51.800 dbrand is a way to make your devices longer lived 00:11:51.800 --> 00:11:54.420 without scratches and scuffs all over the back of them. 00:11:54.420 --> 00:11:57.380 They provide precision fit vinyl skins for laptops, 00:11:57.380 --> 00:12:01.080 phones, tablets, consoles, controllers, and more. 00:12:01.080 --> 00:12:01.840 And with dbrand, 00:12:01.840 --> 00:12:04.020 you can count on your skins being made 00:12:04.020 --> 00:12:07.540 from high quality 3M vinyl that's true textured. 00:12:07.540 --> 00:12:09.240 The patented adhesive is guaranteed 00:12:09.240 --> 00:12:10.820 to leave no residue on your device 00:12:10.820 --> 00:12:12.360 if you wanna change the skin. 00:12:12.360 --> 00:12:14.720 And their uncompromising precision 00:12:14.720 --> 00:12:16.300 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