Faheem Khota
Huawei are ruling the roost in the smartphone space. The stats confirm this.
Their game-changing technologies have made them the go-to option for users. Aside from their effective marketing campaigns, their cellphones come equipped with cameras that can elevate an amateur to professional levels.
A Huawei user anyway, I got to try their P Smart 2019 smartphone.
This budget-friendly option is competitively priced. And it comes equipped with some interesting features.
Visually, the P Smart 2019 has a painted gradient finish on it which will surely turn some heads when you pull it out of your pocket.
The Huawei P Smart 2019 has a comfortable curve on the back and although is not glass, it sure does look like it with a stunning gradient from top to bottom. The screen is LCD, which can’t compete with an OLED screen when it comes to vibrancy. That said, the Huawei P Smart 2019 still has very small bezels and is definitely one of the best resolutions in the midrange smartphone category. The screen is adequately bright for a mid-ranger as well.
Indoor and outdoor view ability is great, too.
Picture: Faheem Khota
The Huawei P Smart 2019 screen also sports a dewdrop notch design on the top of the screen for the front facing camera which is unobtrusive but can be changed to a black bar for those who prefer a full notifications panel.
The storage capacity comes in at 64GB, of which about 50GB is available for the hundreds of selfies that will most likely be taken with this phone.
That’s on par with many of the current flagships that cost a lot more. As for battery power, there’s a 3400mAh unit inside, which should comfortably see you through the day and into the night, after which Huawei’s host of power saving options can see stretch out your power until you get back from the bar.
Huawei has also added in a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor in the centre of the phone, which I found delightfully responsive and in a place that feels natural for your index to fall on when using the phone.
Staying in-line with recent trends, there’s also a dual-lens camera at the back, with dual-LED flash.
I tested out the camera quite extensively on a recent trip to the Vaal. The 13+2 megapixel back camera was quite impressive in taking landscape shots with the AI system picking up the majority of all shots and optimizing accordingly. And I had fun with the AI blurring backgrounds on shots. However, for certain shots I went old-school, manually selecting the parts I wanted to blur in portrait mode.
It's great that Huawei allows you to do this as well as give you the option to increase or drop your brightness at the point of focus. I found this particularly useful when taking sunset pictures.
The rear camera is good for what it does but I found this was what we have come to expect from a smartphone.
What blew me away was the front camera, with a 16MP Front Camera and AI as well, the quality on the front camera is phenomenal to the point that I actually considered taking landscape shots using it!
Picture: Faheem Khota
I will say this; my selfie game just got a whole lot stronger.
Gone are the days when photographers hung a clunky DSLR on their side and donned a pair of dirty jeans. Now they sport neck-beards and shiny Chuck Taylors, with all the tools they need in their pockets.
After spending this time with the new Huawei P Smart 2019, it’s clear that this phone is very much an average budget smartphone with a great camera. It is certainly well worth the purchase for a budget smartphone and the processing speed as well as the camera makes it a formidable competitor in this category. Huawei have done well by adding this option to their range.