I have had my P20 / Pro since launch date now (so 2 months almost) so I feel like I am able to give a bit of a better impression than when I first got hold of them.
Long story short, I love these phones. I ended up selling my Pro to go for the regular P20 which I much prefer the size of.
Both phones are virtually the same from my experience outside of the size. Even though the specs sheet would have you think they were worlds apart, in reality they really are not.
The screen is better on the Pro due to the OLED panel, and it gets much brighter than the P20 screen. But in turn the P20 gets much lower in brightness which helps me of a nighttime.
Battery life is only slightly better on the Pro but both have great battery life. It's becoming a real bonus in most Android phones these days is battery life. Probably due to the chipsets being used now and Oreo perhaps. But good times!
The camera on these phones is where they shine. But as I have said before, for point and shoot these phones are not the best. The Pixel 2, S9 and iPhone X are all better for that than these are. But the P20's have a plethora of options which can allow you to take better photos overall. And that's really important.
Sometimes, the P20's do some very very strange things and the sharpening goes crazy. To the point where photos are ruined.
What I don't understand, is that when it does oversharpen, it isn't due to any AI that I can see. I've tried disabling Master AI and it does the same. Unfortunately, even when turned off it can sometimes so a bit too much.
Here's an example.
I mean, what's going on with my dogs face here? It's like I've used some cartoon filter.
It happens randomly and can be quite frustrating.
I've added a Pixel launcher onto my phone and had zero problems until I added a widget. I added a Zooper Pro date / time widget which for whaterver reason, disappears off my homescreen every morning when I pick my phone up.
It's there when I plug my phone in at bed time, but it's gone when I take it off charge in the morning.
Every. Single. Day.
Give me strength!
Another annoyance is the night light / blue light filter. It's almost pointless. I turn it on (it's set to max) and it looks less yellow than my iPad screen naturally looks! And that's without the iPad having night mode on.
It's one of the worst I've used on a phone and I generally rely on night mode with my screens. This was the same on both the reg P20 and Pro.
I've only had one update so far in the time I've had the phone. It fixed an Instagram video bug which was happening which I was grateful for, but seemed like updates are on the slow side.
No always on display on the P20 is a bummer. Sometimes it's good to just see the time. The Pro had the option due to the OLED, but third party notifications have apparently never been supported with Huawei's AOD.
Other quirks - my AirPods connected really well to my P20, but once connected the volume would randomly max out as soon as connection was established. Nearly burst my ear drums twice pressing play on a song and not realising it did that...
All in all I really like the phone. I'm beginning to get that familiar itch again now for something else and I don't really know why. I have been eyeing up the XZ2 with it's £100 price drop here but I'm not sure why I've suddenly vested an interest in it when I was really put off it on launch.
The BB KEYtwo is right round the corner too, which I know I will definitely be getting, but who knows when it will actually launch after the announcement. The KEYone took ages after the unveil, but BB in the past have announced phones and they've been available the same day.
Ahh the life of a phone junkie.
But yeah, the P20 is an amazing phone with an amazing camera (most of the time), and can now be had for a pretty remarkable price. (£499).
I would recommend it to anyone, but am now on the hunt for something else despite being satisfied haha.
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