Huawei P20 Pro review: best Android phone of 2018 so far with 2-day battery, sophisticated ergonomic design, great rear camera that is exceptional in low light
Vlad Savov / The Verge :
Context & Ripple Effects
Vlad Savov's verdict lands three weeks after Huawei's late-March launch of the P20 Pro with its 40MP triple-camera system and 4,000mAh battery, and it caps an arc that began with the February Mate 10 Pro review — where exceptional battery life and build quality were undercut by buggy, poorly designed software at $800.
The P20 Pro review flips that balance: the same publication now ranks it the best Android phone of 2018 so far, meaning Huawei's hardware has finally outrun its software reputation — at least until the fall, when the Mate 20 Pro review reopens both questions by noting US unavailability alongside the familiar software gripes.
First-order effects
- Huawei gains its strongest flagship endorsement to date, putting the P20 Pro's low-light camera and 2-day battery head-to-head with Samsung's and Google's 2018 flagships on reviewer scorecards.
- Buyers considering an $800-plus Android flagship get a validated alternative whose stated trade-off is software polish rather than hardware capability.
Second-order effects
- Samsung, Google, and other Android flagships face direct pressure to match multi-camera low-light imaging and multi-day battery life, since those are now the axes on which 'best Android phone' is being decided.
- Huawei's recurring software criticism gives rivals a ready-made differentiation angle: compete on polished software while conceding the camera-and-battery spec race.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds across the Mate 20 Pro cycle — hardware praise paired with software bugs and no US availability — Huawei's flagship strategy settles into hardware-led prestige constrained by software quality and market access rather than resolved by either.
- The camera arms race this review accelerates points toward computational photography and sensor size becoming the primary flagship battleground, with battery life as the secondary one.
The trend: Huawei's flagship line is climbing the Android hierarchy on camera and battery hardware faster than it fixes its software and US-market gaps, making each annual P-series review a referendum on whether hardware excellence alone can win the top spot.