Phone cameras in modern flagships can now easily replace the typical consumer standalone compact camera, and in many cases can replace enthusiast and dSLR standalone cameras.
Not content to stay in the bottom of the top 10, Huawei has launched themselves to the top two spots with Huawei P20 Pro and P20. This puts them above the next closest contenders, Galaxy S9 Plus and Pixel 2. Huawei also occupies spot six with their Mate 10 Pro.
Not only has P20 outscored the competition, they’ve leaped ahead, skipping at least a generation, and perhaps two generations, if going by the previous improvement curve.
Much of the secret behind P20 Pro’s huge bounce to the top is in its triple-camera setup, a first for mobiles and a huge success.
Sensors in Huawei P20 Pro
- A 40MP 27mm 1/1.7″ f1.8 RGB Quad-Bayer structure used to catch as much light as possible and keep noise down. A sensor this size is hugely rare in mobile phones and is significantly larger than the 1/3.2″, 1/2.6″ in current flagships. It’s the same size as expensive enthusiast cameras from just a few years back, such as Canon S120, and is bigger than most consumer-level standalone compacts (1/2.3″).
- A 20MP 1/2.78″ f1.6 high-resolution monochrome sensor for estimating depth in software bokeh shots, helping with digital zoom, and improving detail and noise.
- A dedicated zoom 8MP 80mm 1/4.4″ f2.4 sensor which comes into play when zoom is at 3x or higher. This here is one of the main kickers for P20; with a dedicated optical focal length of 80mm, P20 combines this sharp, true optical data, with the interpolated zoom data from the other two sensors to give us impressive 3x zoom and improve zoom image quality even up to 8x zoom.
The image data is intelligently combined and averaged down to 10MP. Check out these three 8x shots from Pixel 2, iPhone X, and the P20. The difference is Wow.
They are sized-down from their previous full size to save load times for our users, but the difference can easily be seen, even at Facebook Newsfeed sizes. These images were taken by DXOmark. You can see the full review of the P20 there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6e0zbPxac0
Sensors in Huawei P20 standard (non-Pro)
The P20 does without the triple-camera setup, but it’s no slouch, coming in at #2 in the known universe for mobiles, scoring several points above #3, Samsung S9+.
Main sensor is a 1/2.3″ RGB and the secondary sensor is a 1/2.78″ monochrome. Image information is captured from both sensors and combined to create software bokeh, tone down noise, and increase image detail and dynamic range.
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