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Huawei's P30 looks like fantastic forbidden fruit

It's the shiny new toy you probably can't buy.

Daniel Van Boom
Daniel Van Boom is an award-winning Senior Writer based in Sydney, Australia. Daniel Van Boom covers cryptocurrency, NFTs, culture and global issues. When not writing, Daniel Van Boom practices Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, reads as much as he can, and speaks about himself in the third person.
Daniel Van Boom
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1 of 18 Ian Knighton/CNET

Huawei's P30 has the same processor and a similarly excellent camera setup as the spotlight-hogging P30 Pro. 

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There are "only" three cameras on the back, rather than the Pro's four.

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It has a 40-megapixel camera, a 16-megapixel ultrawide shooter and a 8-megapixel telephoto lens.

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4 of 18 Ian Knighton/CNET

This is the P30 in Aurora Blue.

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5 of 18 Ian Knighton/CNET

The larger P30 is in Breathing Crystal. It reminds me of the White Walkers from Game of Thrones.

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Both phones have the same Kirin 980 processor. The P30 has 6GB of RAM, the Pro 8GB.

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The Kirin 980 isn't as powerful as Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon CPUs, but it has no problem playing the latest 3D games.

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The P30 has exceptional battery life, lasting over 21 hours in our standardised HD video-loop battery test.

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Here's the P30 with the Pro and Samsung's Galaxy S10E.

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10 of 18 Ian Knighton/CNET

Neither the P30 or the Pro are available in the US. They're available in both Australia and the UK though. The Australian price, which works out cheaper, for the P30 is $780. The Pro works out to around $1,140.

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The P30 has a headphone jack!

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12 of 18 Ian Knighton/CNET

The P30's biggest weakness is its EMUI 9.1 operating system. Huawei's take on Android Pie is a cut below pure Android, as well as Samsung's One UI. Here's the P30 with the S10E.

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13 of 18 Ian Knighton/CNET

Click on for more photos of the P30.

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