Huawei's 2019 flagship smartphones: 'Things nobody else can do' but baby I swear it's déjà vu

Huawei continues to provide stiff competition to Apple and Samsung with P30, its prime 2019 flagship range launched today. Huawei P30 Series Click to enlarge Huawei P30 Series The glass in the display acts as the in-call speaker (click to enlarge)... But despite the hype, Huawei offers only incremental improvements over …

[Anonymous Coward]

electro magnetic levitation

I applaud them for boldly pushing the boundries of marketing bullshit to where nobody else has been before. Or something. Other than that - yawn.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: electro magnetic levitation

Sounds like poor Chinese to English translation. You'd think a company with worldwide aspirations like Huawei wouldn't have people translating into Chinglish...

[big_D]

Re: electro magnetic levitation

Does this mean, that if I drop the phone, the screen won't break because it levitates?

Mine's the one with the phone with a broken screen in the pocket.

[89724102172714182892114I7551670349743096734346773478647892349863592355648544996312855148587659264921]

I can't wait for the photos of rotting fruit in the full review...

[Gio Ciampa]

Deja vu

You could say much the same about most manufacturers these days...

...apart from the folding gimmick - has there been anything other than incremental improvements in the technology lately (especially at the top end)?

[Waseem Alkurdi]

Re: Deja vu

And the author says that the consumer upgrade cycle is now three years or more.

Frankly, what's the difference between the 2016 Galaxy S7, and the 2019 Galaxy S9, save for the screen?

[DiViDeD]

Re: Deja vu

"...what's the difference between the 2016 Galaxy S7, and the 2019 Galaxy S9, save for the screen?"

Well the S9+ is a lot easier to break, for one thing (after a replacement back, mine broke again, presumably from expansion fractures, from being left in a car for a few hours in the sun - OK, it was killer Australian sun, but even so!).

Other than that, can't think of a thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Deja vu

well, more importantly (for me at least), what's the difference between Galaxy S2 and Galaxy S3 to make me NEED to upgrade? ;)

[RatX]

Re: Deja vu

It's refreshing to see this expressed here, whilst the rest of the Internet's "tech news" increasingly devolves into poorly regurgitated press releases and other consumerist/marketing drivel. And just when the frenzy begins to subside, they'll boldly announce the Mate 30 Pro, which will be the shiney you actually want, and then the P40, and so on ad nauseum.

These release cycles are becoming so aggressive (and/or repetitious?) that I just can't muster anything beyond casual interest any more. My previous phone was a used S7 I picked up for a good price, which I loved and did everything I needed until it got nicked. I'm fond of the P20 Pro I got on contract as a replacement, and the camera is really good once you switch off the AI bollocks, but beyond that it doesn't really do anything groundbreaking beyond what the S7 could do.

There's was some point to this ramble, but I'm in too deep to abandon it now.

[K]

Re: Deja vu

90% of the time, I swear there is no improvement.. they swap a couple of components, move some bits from top to bottom, then "Taaaa daaaa, we have another handset!"..

I compare my wifes Honor 8X (cost £200) vs my Honor View 20 (cost £500), really the only different is mine has a slightly better camera lens..

[Waseem Alkurdi]

Re: Deja vu

Damn! Just yesterday, Only yesterday, a friend told me how her P20 Lite (retail: $700) is not any different than the released-three-days-later Honor 3i (retail: $280), except for the size and, only slightly, the camera. They even both use LCD panels instead of OLED!

[EvilGardenGnome]

Looky looky

That background is da bomb.

[Anonymous Coward]

while there's a lot to Leica about it, as an upgrade it's pretty P30-ic.

[DiViDeD]

Ah, I see what you did there. And I do not approve!

[Timmy B]

no no no no

I won't go near Huawei (or in the best Bob traditions NUA-WEI - that's "nah way") again. They are terrible with firmware updates and as soon as the new shiny comes out they don't care about old models. The latest non-beta firmware for the P20 is (as far as I can find - they don't actually host the files for customers to easily get to) 8.1 with November 18 security updates. That just isn't good enough.

I've got a now kind of aging OnePlus 5T and that's on 9 with Jan updates - a full version and 3 months of security more up to date. For a much older phone that cost less!

I may also be a bit tainted as they lied when I sent a phone off for repair to them too...

Not for me...

[Chz]

Re: no no no no

Counter-point: My final firmware update for my Honor 8 came 2.5 years after release with the December 2019 patches. While it would be nice if they offered longer support than that, really only Apple (and, to some extent, Google) excel in that space. Even OnePlus, who have a great rep with the techies, has been hit and miss with their updates.

I will admit that Huawei are terrible with their release cycle for OTA updates. From what I can see, they seem to make a firmware update for every Google security update. They just don't release most of them to the public for some reason, but it's easy enough to get the betas.

I suppose I just chimed in to say "Everyone is shit. Bar Apple."

[Timmy B]

Re: no no no no

Counter-counter-point

We had an honor 6x that never - not once - in 2 years received an update. Not one. When I caved and installed a beta one,one their instruction ,it bricked the phone and when I retuned it for repair they said it had water damage. They returned it with a picture of a water indicator. When I opened the phone the indicator was unset.

I get OnePlus updates at least once a month. They do sometimes miss one due to weird rules around holidays and miss one - but that's the exception. This is a 5T - nearly 2 years old.

[The Original Steve]

Re: no no no no

My Mate 20 Pro I brought in Nov 18 has Feb 19's patch update on it.

That happened at the start of March.

Only had the phone 5 or so months, but so far I love it and rate it far higher than my previous S8. I seem to get OS and security updates every couple of months.

[Timmy B]

Re: no no no no

Is that on 9 or still on 8.1 and are they running the beta? I'd likely be more accurate if they listed firmware updates on their site.

Though I'd still never touch them after their support dept. lied to me.

[mark l 2]

To be honest you would need to have deep pockets it to warrant upgrading your top of the range handset every year.

It has now come to the point where mid range has good enough features for what the majority of people require. And even budget handsets are quite capable.

[AIBailey]

Oh for goodness sake

1080x2340 OLED (19.5:9)

Please, PLEASE start rounding up or down to the lowest whole numbers. I'm sick of this silly ?:9 nonsense.

Last years fad was for 18:9 (2:1)., now we're at 39:18 ratio.

Does anyone really care that obsessively about the aspect ratio these days?

[Cederic]

5x zoom is utterly meaningless.

5x 'small speck in the distance' is 'speck in the distance'. 5x 'the whole house is in frame' is 'a bit of the house is in frame'.

I can't translate 5x zoom into anything that actually helps me understand the capabilities of the camera. The only time you've even mentioned focal length - a useful mechanism for understanding field of view - you've mentioned it for just one of the multiple lenses on the camera.

But hell, disregard me. The phone wont fit in a pocket so may as well not exist anyway.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice h/w, shame they've locked the bootloaders.

As per title, if I can't root it and uninstall all the bloatware (which includes google), adblock it via hosts so that I can still use a vpn, and firewall it, then I'm not interested. I was recently about to purchase a Mate 20 X as the Chinese version could still be bootloader unlocked via 3rd parties for a small fee, but even that's gone now so fup them. I'd rather completely do without than have all my info slurped away.