Huawei has been in very rough weather, and that might be the understatement of the year/millennium.
It’s shocking to see what happens and unfolds with hidden agendas, accusations etc. this will go into the history books any way this unfolds. For me as a photographer it’s a sad period, might I add very sad.

I’ve always told people that if there would be something better out there than the brand I used I would switch if the future looked good for that brand that is, you don’t switch brands if you know something is a “one time hit”. When I switched from Apple iPhone to the Samsung note it was a mixed bag. I mainly did it for the pen (which I actually used quite often to sign documents) and I never expected anything from the cameras, for me the camera in a smartphone was never a replacement of a normal camera, it can take cool snaps for online that’s it.

When I saw the P20 Pro I ordered one with a 30 day money back guarantee and was 100% planning on sending it back. I only bought it to see how the camera worked. Long (well actually not that long) story short, I kept it because the camera just blew everything I every tried on compact or smartphone out of the water. For me getting the P30 pro was just a normal decision of upgrading because the camera was “again” a step up. You do have to realize I take a lot of shots during workshops for the BTS images or just to record setups for later use, and especially in low light every improvement is a welcome gift, so it’s not just hobby, I really shoot a lot of images on my phone. And since the P20 Pro I actually don’t own a compact camera anymore, it’s that good.

Now the P30 Pro was not a smooth start.
After reading a boatload of reviews I was ready to be amazed, but actually was shocked that the 40MP RAW files were unusable due to a wrong color profile. This also shattered all my trust I had in companies and reviewers doing so called “tech reports” on cameras, more than once did I read about the accurate colors from the main sensor while in my opinion it was literally outputting unusable files. I wrote several articles about it on the blog which you can find here :
https://frankdoorhof.com/web/2019/04/p30-pro-huge-camera-problem/
https://frankdoorhof.com/web/2019/04/solving-the-p30-pro-color-problems/
https://frankdoorhof.com/web/2019/05/kudos-for-huawei/
https://frankdoorhof.com/web/2019/05/unfair-competition-or/

And in all honesty the first time I saw the problem I did worry. Because no one mentioned it online I first thought it was my camera, but the JPGs were right so that was not the case so why didn’t anyone see it. After posting my problem online loads of people emailed me that after testing they experienced the same and that they all thought it might be the camera itself, but again if that was the case it would be also visible on the JPGs and those were fine.

I never expected anything to be honest but I did contact Huawei about this and much to my surprise an internal case was started and within a few days I already got an answer, they found the problem and it would be fixed soon. Now I don’t care what anyone thinks about Huawei as a company but this is very nice from such a huge company. First of all you get an answer (which now a days is already a big plus), and second of all they say they are going to fix it.

 

Firmware 161 fixed it
And today we finally got the new firmware in the Netherlands and can confirm (I already read online that it worked in other countries) but the color issue is 100% solved as far as I can see now. Even when exporting the files to Lightroom CC the reds are now just as vibrant as one would expect from very vibrant sources. So you can say about Huawei what you want, the media are having a run with them, for me it would be a shame if a company that delivers these kind of products and actually listen to their customers and fix a problem within 2 firmware upgrades (they already told me it would be in June) would be taken of the market by a trade war.

I don’t want to go into the whole political discussion, I just love taking photos and video and teaching you guys, but I do feel that the term innocent until PROVEN guilty is used with preference.

Without making it a discussion on yes or no.
From Google and Facebook it’s known they trade your personal information, but much further than a fine and a “don’t do that again” it hasn’t come yet, even the suspicion/proof that there were influences in elections are just there….. without any hint of putting facebook on a black list. With Huawei I wonder how much is really true… I for one don’t believe in little microphones or other devices hidden in microchips that China uses to listen in to conversations. And if that was the truth…. well why ban their smartphones? I strongly feel that Huawei is going way too fast for the competition to pick it up and is therefor put on the shame bench for a while in the hope they go out of business or are hurt so bad that they are no competition anymore.

I’m really in doubt at the moment.
I have this phone that is the fastest phone I ever owned, takes killer (and I mean KILLER) shots and video (although the video is not the strongest in a smartphone) but is now on the verge of losing android support from the regular versions…… on the other hand, Huawei is not the smallest player. And in a market where very smartphone operator builds their own version of Android I wonder how bad it would be if we just went for the Huawei OS, it’s already confirmed that it will be compatible with Android apps (Android is open source as you probably know), it’s also already leaked that the Huawei OS is up to 10x faster than the standard Android on certain tasks.

Now if this was any other firm I would not believe in it, but Huawei already announced that they can get 225 MILLION devices out by the end of the year with this new OS… that does make you wonder, isn’t google actually creating a huge problem for itself? If we can run all Android apps on an OS that is 10x faster (lets’ say 2x) the only negative is that we need to use another app store or side load apps, well I already do with Android auto because it’s not legal to use in the Netherlands (ridiculous).

So let’s see.
We would really miss google maps and android auto.
Well android auto can be replaced by screen mirroring (never tried it but some people claim it’s much better than android auto because you can actually also use the phone version of android auto), so I would really miss google maps. But on the other hand how much money does Google make from people using Google Maps? I think a lot and take away only this year 225 million devices that will run something else… that’s a huge hit for Google, plus now we have iOS, android and the Huawei version of Android. A market with just iOS and android benefits Google a lot, so I have to see what happens, I strongly believe that in the end Huawei might actually have a strong bargaining position here, again if this would be a small company I would say “not a chance on earth” but seeing the quality of their products and the promises of the new OS I actually more and more start to think that it would maybe not be as bad as some people think now, and I think that when you have sold (or are thinking about it) your P30 Pro you might very well regret it soon, first of all because all apps and updates on those phones just continue, and second of all I think this brand will not just give up.

Oh and about facebook and whatsapp not being loaded from new…. just go on the app store and get the apps, it’s just a few seconds of extra work, it’s not that they don’t work, it’s just that they are not present from the start, which in some cases is a good thing, a friend of mine has a phone (won’t mention the brand, but it’s not a big brand) that uses their own version of mail, internet, contacts etc. and it’s so embedded in the OS that he is always struggling with preferences (he can’t change this so it sticks). So maybe an android compatible OS that is empty might be a good thing, just load what you need.

And I could be 100% wrong.
In any case, the P30 pro is an amazing camera that can run apps and make phone calls (if needed). It will continue to work and as soon as I know that I can use google maps and assistant and android auto on the new OS I’ll switch to the new OS and see what happens.

What’s your take on this?