Absolutely not.
In my short time with it, I much prefer my iPhone X.
As a second device though, it's really good for me.
Some more thoughts.
Today I have been looking after my friends dog as he's been working a long shift all day and his GF is at a friends who she went to uni with or something.
Anyway, seemed like a good opportunity to test the camera.
It's good day to day. But it could be better.
As some reviewers have said in their vid / site reviews, the AI is really annoying. Whilst it's this magical AI that gives the fantastic quality to low light shots, it's extremely frustrating and not particularly accurate the majority of the time.
For instance, it kept thinking that the dog was a cat. There's both a cat and dog AI option (no idea what they do differently), but the dog we were looking after is not cat like in the slightest lol, so that was odd.
I also encountered similar issues when snapping some leaves just up the road when taking her for a walk. It applied a 'food filter'. There was no food in site. Very frustrating. It also sometimes tries to make your photo a portrait style photo, despite not being in the portrait mode within the camera.
Why would it do that?!
When it comes to actually pointing and shooting a photo, the P20 Pro falls way behind the X, the S9 and the Pixel 2.
Its results though, do often come out pretty great when the AI isn't driving you insane. Or, when it gets it right.
Tired lol.
The leaf pics are not the most interesting, but the detail is pretty great.
I discovered an always on display tucked away in the settings.
It isn't as good as that found in the Pixel 2 or S9 though. There doesn't seem to be any notification of apps outside of Huawei's own like phone, messages etc.
Still, it's good that I can see the time at the very least but this could definitely be better.
One thing that I absolutely HATE and do not understand, is this weird screen issue which appears to be a 'Huawei thing'.
When I set the phone up and it was all ready yesterday, I noticed that when I went into some apps, the brightness would flick down. I just rolled my eyes and thought, must turn auto brightness off! I never have auto on with my phones. I hate the screen changing depending on where I am, I always tend to keep it pretty bright and just knock it down or up manually as I see fit.
So I went in and turned it off. Then noticed it was still doing it. So I checked some more settings, seen I had this 'natural tone' turned on which I thought might do it. So turned that off. Still doing it.
So I googled it, expecting to find nothing but there was loads of returns. Apparently this has been going on since the P9 and EMUI 5.
Someone said to go into developer options and turn off something to do with sun levels and the screen. Then to restart the phone.
So I did that. Rebooted. Still doing it.
As far as I've read, Huawei acknowledged it was an error in EMUI 5, but this is still happening. It is infuriating.
Truly don't understand why it is doing it. The actual brightness level doesn't seem to change when it does it - even when I go out of the app and back to the home screen when it flicks back up. So it doesn't seem like it's display setting related.
Moving on, I've struggled a bit with the stock launcher. After trying to get the Pixel launcher on, which took some time, I finally managed it this afternoon.
Feels much better now and the app draw finally looks clean again haha.
I had read that battery life was really good on the phone, and I can confirm it has been absolutely fantastic. I do not know how they've done it, but this is one of the best (if not the best) phones for battery life I have ever used.
Can't fault that at all.
Still gutted I didn't get a case in the box, but I'll get over it.
Will post more thoughts next week after a bit more time with it, but I do like the phone. It's obvious that the zoom and the low light camera are where it shines, although it does do a decent job when the AI gets it right with everyday snaps too.
